How to Go Virtual with Your Events | Wix.com

Hi everyone, my name is Ariel and I have Tal Gonen here with me. We're very excited to have you guys online with us. We know it's been a difficult time for everybody and we're so happy you made it and you came to listen to what we have to say. And we're here to help you and support you and we want you guys to ask us anything through the Q and A. If you can see it on your right hand side, please post questions. We have a whole team helping you guys here and answering your questions. We have Valeria from our customer care, we have Donatas and Rafael and Tal of course here. And we're all going to answer your questions. At the end of the presentation, we're going to have Tal and Yafit answer your questions live. So please post whatever you have on your mind and we hope we can answer most of your questions. You will notice that there's a 20 second delay that we cannot avoid. It happens, it usually happens on webinars, so please be patient and it's gonna take about an hour. So I want to introduce you to your feet. And she's going to start the presentation, so enjoy it and please ask as many questions as you'd like.

So, like Ariel said, we want to thank you all for joining us today. We're very excited to see so many people on this webinar. We already have around 290 people joining, so we're very, very glad to see you all here and we hope you enjoy this webinar. So today we'd like to talk about a topic that is very relevant these days to event owners and to event managers, which is turning your event into an online event. Okay, so Ariello was kind enough to introduce us. My name is Yafit. I'm from the product marketing team for WIX Events. And we have, of course, Tal, product manager for WIX Events. So these are the topics that we want to cover today. We have four main topics that we want to talk about. So first of all, we want to talk about why even go virtual with your event. And second of all, how to plan the change from real world event to online event. And then we'll get to the practical demo. So Tal will show us how to do the adjustments in the product in your WIX dashboard. And last but not least, we will also talk about how to communicate this change to your attendees. So first thing we want to discuss is why go virtual for this? It's no secret that the events industry is facing quite a few challenges as the Coronavirus situation is escalating. I'm sure you can already see businesses offering to go online with their services, offering everything virtually. And we also know that for many of you, especially with upcoming events, you're probably facing a dilemma of whether to postpone your event, cancel your event, or try keeping your event somehow, especially if you already started selling tickets or taking RSVPs. So I guess that's the obvious why or the first why. For going virtual, we want to keep on selling. We want to keep on providing services and delivering to our clients. But an online event actually has a few more advantages we should all consider. The first one is that people still want to connect, even now, even more so in this time of forced isolation. People still want to consume content, they still want to learn, they still want to be reached out to. And an online event is a great way to keeping that connection with your customers and letting them know that you're still there for them. Second reason is that unlike a real world event, where you get a lot of distractions, an online event allows your attendees to get your full attention. You can focus more. Sorry, they can focus more on the information, and in some cases they can even feel more comfortable to engage, to ask questions and to participate. So if you plan this correctly, an online event can provide just as much as much value as an offline event. And in some cases, it's a very efficient means for providing content, sharing knowledge, and even for networking. So another big thing in the favor of online events is that online is limitless. The online world is free of some of the limitations that we see in the real world. So in the online world, you're not limited to your physical location or to the capacity of your venue. Your event can theoretically live forever. As you can record it, you can reuse it, like in the case of webinars or workshops. And in some cases, an online event can be easier to manage and even cheaper because there's no complex logistics, no extra hiring costs. And it's a chance to cast the net on a wider audience and really let your content shine. You may also find that an online event is an opportunity to expand your reach to people you couldn't otherwise reach. You can get more brand awareness or even expand your contact list. So now that we've got the benefits down, we need to do some thinking and some planning to ensure a successful shift to an online format and to a successful event overall. So what kinds of questions you should be asking yourself at this point? First, is virtual good for my event? Some types of events can work really well, in an online format. In fact, some of our very own WIX Top event sites are based exclusively, exclusively on online events. So an online event can be relevant to a variety of event types from business seminars, music concerts, workshops, classes, even alumni meetings or your local community gathering. Basically, any event that has an element of exchanging information between multiple participants can work here. So an online format can be good for some of your events and in some cases for all of your events. Another question you should think about is what's the best format for my event? Now that you know that you can take your event online, think about the format that can best fit your type of event. For example, a webinar can be good for smaller audiences. Or if you want to show information like a presentation, a video conference can work if you're looking for participation like a class or social gathering. And the live streamed event can work if you have a comedy show, a music concert, sports event even, which all appeal to larger audiences and are more passive for the attendee. Also ask yourself, is it just one speaker? Is it more? Do you want the audience to be seen and heard? Are you going to do it live or pre record? And I think when choosing the formats, another thing to consider are costs for each format. So for example, would you need cameraman or professional sound for live streaming versus just using your webcam and microphone for a more intimate webinar? And another good question to ask at this point, it's a more strategic one, but it's very important is what do you want your attendees to get from your event? If it's information or a sense of togetherness, or maybe a visual or auditory experience, and then think which format can serve that need best. So to summarize this part, these questions can all help you define both the format and the goal for your event.

So once you decide, yes, we're getting really good questions from the audience. So I want to stop you just for one second because we get a lot of questions about about WIX events versus Zoom or Blue Jeans or you know, the tool that you're going to use. So can you elaborate just a little bit on that, please?

I'm not going to get specifically into what each tool does, but in general, and we'll get to it in the demo part. Basically you're using our platform and you can link your event to any third party app that you want to run your event on. You can use Zoom, you can use YouTube streaming, you can use Facebook Live. The idea is that there's a lot of tools out there and you need to think or even do some research on the different tools like I would focus on, I would Google online event or online streaming tools and out of what you get, do a little research and get an understanding of what each tool does and then decide if that tool serves the purpose of your event. And then whatever tool you choose, you can link it to your WIX event and basically do the switch to an online format.

Thank you.

No problem. Okay, so getting back to our process or checklist. So now that we have the purpose down and the format down, this is time to think about the structure of your event. Since many of you already have upcoming events, you might need to do some changes to your event or to your content as you move it to the online world. So if you're going for a webinar, you may need to create a script or slides. If you're planning on letting attendees react and comment in real time, you may need someone to help you moderate the discussion like we have here, and take questions from your audience. So in general, a tip is to visualize your event as you planned it originally and think which elements of your event can still work in an online format and which elements will need to change to fit your new format. So the next step for completing this process is finding the right online tools and equipment to run your event smoothly on. Before we get to the online tools that you asked about, make sure you have some basic equipment. For example, a reliable computer that you can run your online application on without glitching. You will need a solid WI FI connection, or better yet, a cable line. You would need a webcam. You need a camera, a microphone, headsets, all that stuff. Also, and this is especially important for people who are not that tech savvy, if you can, make sure you have a person with you that can assist you with the equipment setup and in cases of any technical issues. I know we don't all have IT staff, but it can be a friend or family member that is more technical and can be there to support you in case anything goes wrong. So another thing or the second type of tool you will need, and we mentioned it before, is the program to run your meeting on. So for example, we're using Blue Jeans for this meeting, but there's, like I said, many, many tools you can use from YouTube Live to Zoom, which is very popular these days. Periscope. The list goes on and on. I recommend, like I said, do a quick research, select a few programs, see what they do, and find what you need. One final tip to wrap up the preparation part, please this is very important. Have at least one dry run. You can never be too ready for your event, so have at least one test run to see that all your equipment is working, that your program is working. You can ask team members, colleagues, friends to join your event as participants and try to interact with you during the event to see if they're able to hear you, to see you, to ask you questions and just make sure everything is running smoothly so you don't have to test everything when you're going live with your event. So to wrap up this part, I think if you follow these tips and ask yourself these questions, it should put you in the right mindset for making this change. I know it's not easy to kind of think online, but if you do this process with yourself, it will make it easier for you to plan and to execute quickly so you can keep your event and even enjoy a successful one. So that's it for the planning part and for the execution part. This is where WIX comes in and this is where we make it easier for you. Basically we offer the option to make minor changes to your event setting in the platform that you already know and with marketing tools that you also already know. And if you don't get to know them fast, to explain this part and to show you the live product demo, I'll let Tal take it from here.

Just one second before. Tal Yofit, that was great. Thank you so much. We got a lot of questions if this deck will be available for everybody. So yes, for sure. We're going to send you the recording as well as the deck, so don't worry about it. We'll email this to you.

Right, you're going to get, we're going to basically turn this presentation into a checklist with like actionable items. You're going to get everything in a follow up email and you'll have like everything ready to go.

Alright, so thanks so much Yafeet for enriching us with all this information about really transforming our events, physical location and the mindset to an online one. And now what I want to show you actually is how you can do that with WIX events. So what I'm going to do now is share my screen and show you a live demo. So please bear with me one second while I share my screen. Yafiz, can you confirm you see my events dashboard?

I can see your screen. I don't see the dashboard yet. Let's give it a few seconds. Now I can see your dashboard.

Oh, now you can see the dashboard. Wonderful. All right. So let's start. So what I'm going to show you right now is how to transform an event that you've already scheduled. In this example, this event already has attendees. So when you go into the event itself, what you're going to find is actually a new component. So we've literally just added an online solution, which means that instead of selecting a physical location, you would now be able to select an online location. And I'll quickly run this, you know, run the flow with you guys. So say I was supposed to have my personal finances 101 event at Wix instead of the physical. I'm going to choose online. Let's just say I want to say it's online via. I don't know, let's do WIX video. I'm going to do that and then I'm going to save the event now has changed the location. But there's a few other things still that you should be doing that's really important. So first, in terms of notifying your event attendees or anyone new that would come to your site to buy tickets, you know, you could always add something in the short teaser to say, you know, this event will be online. One good piece of advice is that, you know, people right now are very concerned about these kinds of things, and I feel like if you assure them that would make them more likely to buy tickets and join your event. They know that it's online and everything is kind of like, you know, business as usual. The next thing that I think is very important when you're doing an online event is to make sure that you're displaying the time zone. Because, for example, if your event is online in New York at a certain hour, but then if it's, you know, Oregon, and it's a different time zone, you want to make sure that people around the U.S. for instance, know not to get confused.

One second, one second. First of all, the. The audience is so happy that we have this online location, just so you know. And also, do you mind zooming in a little bit so we can see the whole screen better?

Oh, yes, I'm sorry, one second. Thank you. All right, so you see it better now. Okay.

And also,

If you can even focus on this specific window so we can see it better, that would help us.

So right now I see one window open in full screen, which is the events dashboard. Okay.

We're seeing a few, but it's okay, continue.

All right, Sorry about that. You know, technicalities of an online event. Okay. But, you know, this is important to say that I'M doing this live demo right now. But if you all go into your dashboard, you're already going to see this option. And also at the end of this webinar, you're also going to get all the information, all the resources, so you're not going to have to like, write things down now. You're going to get everything in the mail. All right, so one more thing is that you can also help tell guests about these changes in your About Events section. That's also a nice way. But the most important thing to keep in mind is that when you change your event from a physical location to an online location, you can. You're going to have to give instructions to any attendees that buy tickets. Right? So there's a few ways of giving these instructions, and I'm going to showcase several options just in a little bit. Just a few other tabs that you might want to consider running through to make sure all the event information is updated. So let's say I save and I go to the tickets tab in the ticket policy. You know, sometimes we say things like, you should come and present the tickets that you printed at home. So you might want to change this and say, you know, there's no need to print anything. This is all online. Okay, so about the option. So as I mentioned, right, if I am now going to buy a ticket to the event, I would expect to get some sort of instructions of how am I going to access this online event. So we have a few options for you. Option number one would be in the confirmation email. So you can go to the edit of the confirmation email. And as you see in this example, I've written down on the original event to not forget to print tickets, but this is not relevant anymore. So I can just say, you know, I don't know. Let's say this would be the URL, okay, where you would go and do the webinar on. And here is your credentials password is something like this, right? And then they have the information. You just click save. And then you ensure that any new participant that signs up gets the details. But let's say you actually don't want the attendees to get the email right when they sign up. Let's say you only want to do it, I don't know, a week before or a day before. Then you can actually do exactly the same thing with our reminder email. What's nice about the reminder email is that it sends automatically, as long as it's enabled, a day, three days, or one week before the event. So you can also use this as a tool to allow event attendees to access the event. There's a few other options which I would like to mention right now and it really depends on your planning. So it depends when you would like to give people the access to the event. Another option is doing it via wix email marketing. So using an automated email to send out the information. Something else that's nice that you could do, you know, if you prefer doing it manually is actually exporting the order list and it's going to download a spreadsheet for you and then you can just manually send the emails. You can do it, you know, with your just like Gmail or email solution or any other platform that you wish to send the emails from. Okay, so in terms of this, you know, we kind of covered like the functionality and everything that you could do on the on the web, but also everything that I've shown you here is pretty much possible on the WIX app as well. And in terms of like communicating the changes of the event location right from a physical to an online. We also have great tools on the WIX app which I want to share with you because they can come in handy with everything that relates to like communication and making sure that you're still networking with your event attendees. So I'm just going to go back for a second to the presentation I've prepared for you guys, a pre recorded demo which I'll quickly run you through. So the demo starts right now from the dashboard in the app. So you're going to go into your event, you're going to go into the guest list tab, click the three dots and hit the message guests. Then you're going to select the guests that you want to send a message to. And this is actually a broadcast message ability which you can write in anything you want, any kind of messaging to inform your event attendees. And this broadcast messaging tool allows you to send an individual message to everyone on your guest list. They're going to get the messages separately. So it doesn't create a group, it just sends one message to everyone on your guest list. And what's really great about it is that anyone who has the app, so any members of your place on the Wix app is automatically going to get a push notification with the info you shared in the message. And in case the guest that's coming to your event doesn't have the WIX app or they're not a member of your place, then they're just going to get an email with the messaging of what you had written in the broadcast message. So this is a really, really great way to communicate with people. Especially, you know, if it's like smaller updates or you're on the go or you just want to, you know, tell them, hey, it's not canceled, it's going online. So this is one way. Also we have another great, great way to do so using the Events Discussion tab on the WIX app. So if you're in your member view, you could just click the discussion and start a conversation. So let's say you want to update everyone, you know, not to panic, that the event does not cancel, that it's just going online and you can type that messaging and post it. And then what's going to happen is all the members are going to get a notification that there's a new discussion. You as the owner are going to get a push notification as well. Once someone comments, you have the complete ability to just communicate with your event attendees and it's really, really great. You can also like, you know, you can react emojis. It's a very useful tool to keep the engagement with your members pretty much. So that's a wrap, I guess, for this quick demo. So remember, the option to create the online event is now live and available for you both on the web and on the WIX app. And we're also going to send you all of this info that you've just seen now later on and without that note. Back to you, Arielle.

Thank you, Tao. That was awesome. We have really good questions and I will just share a couple with you as we have some time. So the first one someone asked about the networking effect. We know it's different in a physical event versus an online event. Any tips on how to make that work?

I think from, you know, maybe afid you can say a little bit more about like the, from the marketing perspective, but from the product perspective, we actually provide some tools on how to actually keep that networking going and really like things you've seen. Just like the discussions tab is great because it gives a lot of a community kind of like involvement around the event. So you know, you can post things there before the event, like one week away or a picture relating to the event. You can ask your attendees questions, have a little, you know, like, kind of like intrigue them. So I think in that sense it's really great. And also we have tools like, you know, the forum, you can use WIX forum to encourage discussions on certain topics given for. I think that's really great for networking. What do you think yefid?

So I think that that's like one part of the answer and we have great tools to keep in touch. But I think in a broader perspective it's like we maybe need to change the way we think about networking. I think personally that gone are the days when you have to meet someone physically to network. We're seeing this even without the coronavirus. I think a lot of businesses need to make this shift and understand that online networking is just as good. Businesses today are like globalization is already forcing us to network online. We have giant companies that have all their operations remote and online. It is possible to keep a close connection with your customers online. I think the keys are be seen and be heard. They need to either see your face or keep receiving your services. You need to keep to keep connecting regularly with your clients or with your network. Keep it constant. Add a personal touch if you can. Let them see your face, say hi. Other than that, we live in a great world where we can communicate with people around the globe and feel very, very close. And I don't think there's anything to worry about in that aspect. It just means that we need to kind of adjust the way that we think about networking as a whole.

Some more questions I saw a few talking about. What do you do when the event is over? If I record this, how can I make use of this recording?

I think that we talked about opportunities before and this is like very good timing to talk about opportunities with online events or pre recorded events. So we have a product, wix product called WIX Video which allows you to take all the events that you recorded and basically create libraries of that content on your website. So far, very nice. What makes it great is that you can actually monetize this content meaning that sold tickets to your online event. The event is over now. You can depending on the type of event, right. It doesn't work necessarily for all your events, but if it's like a class a webinar, a workshop, something that you can reuse, create libraries on your website and limit the access to that content and sell either one time access or subscriptions to this content so you can actually monetize your online content. And I think it's a great, great opportunity, bring some like new life into the business and actually open a new stream of income. So think about it. It's a great product and I'm pretty sure our chat team will add a link to the chat so you can all go and read more about it.

You mentioned memberships, selling memberships and this has come up in a few like around 10 questions were about that if you can sell memberships to your videos, to your subscriptions to your services. Can you elaborate on that, please?

Sure. So I'll start and then yafeed if you have something to follow up on. So the answer is yes, you can. So the way it works right now is if you use WIX videos, so there's an option for a yearly subscription. There is, however, the ability to use wix's paid plans together with WIX video. That way you can actually block people you don't want to from accessing your video. So it's kind of like you're protecting your videos with a different plan. You know, it could be a monthly plan or some sort of other ability. So definitely, yes, this is a great opportunity to use paid plans and limit the content. Right?

Yeah. And I can add to your answer that with paid plans, you can sell memberships and packages and subscriptions to your services, to your content. You can restrict pages, you can sell memberships to your content of the forum. For example, we mentioned videos and we mentioned bookings and this could be a great way to do that.

Thank you.

Tal, another question. Okay. Someone was asking if he can still use the online option even if he's not selling tickets.

So that's a really good question. Absolutely. So the online option is not just limited for ticketed events. If you're having just a free event or if your event is RSVP based, you can definitely use the online option. It's very legit. In case you are running a free event, then I wouldn't see the reason to necessarily limit the access from the beginning, like giving instructions to the event. I think it's more important when your guests are paying for something to only send them the instructions after they pay. But in case of an RSVP event, you can already have all of the info of how to access the live event on your site.

Another question was about the time zone display of WIX events. Can you explain this to us how this works?

Sure. So by default, when you create an event, you obviously need to fill out all of the details about the event, but you don't have to check the box of the time zone. So it's really important when you're hosting a webinar, for instance, or a live event of some sort, especially if you have participants from other places in the country or in the world, you just want to showcase the time zone. So if it says five o', clock, your attendees know five o'.

Clock.

Where is it? Five o', clock, East Coast. Is this five o' Clock on the west coast. So that's the idea with the time zone. Cool.

Thank you. Thank you. We get a lot of questions about restriction, restricting access to the.

To the.

Whatever content they're selling, whatever video webinar or whatever they're selling. How can they stop people from sharing? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Absolutely. So that's a really good question. And as I mentioned before, this is totally up to you. So in the industry, I would say that most organizers of webinars give out the details for a paid event about 15 minutes before the event starts. And what they do is they choose platforms. There's a variety of platforms, as Yafeet even mentioned earlier, that have a password or an ID or something like that that the event attendee must have in order to access the, you know, the live streaming. So that's why it's important if your event is paid, not to put the information of how to access the event when you create the event, but only send the instructions after. And the after depends on you. If you would like to do that an hour before the event, five minutes before the event, 24 hours before, a week before. It's completely subjective. We give you the tools to do that. So just like you saw earlier in the confirmation email and the reminder email, using an automation or doing it manually, you know, it's totally up to you, but this is the way to restrict and not, you know, not promote it on the live site. Just give the instructions after.

Perfect. Thank you. We also got a lot of a few questions about the collaboration with your team members. So, for example, if I'm a coach and I'm selling and I'm doing online events and I want my teammates to, to be part of the coaching, part of the video, part of what I'm selling, how can I collaborate with other team members?

If I understand correctly, there's like two options here. If you're looking for someone to help you manage your events and promote them and maybe update the content, just give instructions to people. You can add contributors to your website and they would help you manage your website in a sense that you would give them access to your dashboard. If you are looking to have help from people to actually manage the online events, just like we're doing now, right? So me and Ariel and Yafit, that really depends on the platform that you decide to work with. So before you set your mind on certain platform, just make sure you're doing, you know, your due diligence about what are the capabilities, what are the features you're getting from a specific platform, what is the cost of that specific platform? Make sure that you're just choosing the right option for you.

Great, Great. Thank you. Tal. I see a question about collecting information in the registration form on WIX Events. Can you tell us what kind of information you can collect from your guests?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, this is not just for the online events. It doesn't have to be for a virtual event, but also for a physical event. You can collect as usual, nothing changes. Collect the guest info from every ticket holder or once from the person who placed the order. So under our registration tab, you would find some settings where you can customize completely your event form and you can decide which fields you would like to ask the event attendees to fill out when they purchase a ticket.

I see some questions about the chat feature, if we have one at wix.

Yeah, yeah, we do. We definitely have a chat feature. It's available on the app, it's available on web. Yeah, just look into it. We have chat.

I see a lot of questions about free events and donation options. What exactly do we have to offer in that area?

All right, so free events, we do have that ability. It really depends on what kind of event you're having. So, for instance, we see it with our users that a lot of people use free events to sell tickets for meetups. Right? So the meetup is free. The ticket would be like $0, for example, but you would, as a buyer, you would have to purchase that ticket. So that's one type of event. It's a free event. You also have what we call an RSVP event, where it's just like a private event, for example, or if it's a community event of a nonprofit. A lot of times people use that. So it's basically collecting RSVPs instead of tickets. So we have those options. Yeah, perfect.

I see a lot of questions about Zoom and bluejeans. I know that we already talked about it, but again, if you want to repeat maybe some highlights about how to choose the right option for you, and also how does it integrate with wix?

So in terms of how to choose, it depends on what you need, and it depends on what each program can do. Just go through the steps that we talked about. Think about your event. Think about what needs to change in it, what functionalities you're gonna have to need or you're gonna have to use. Sorry. For your online event, compare two, three tools and just decide which one can fit you best. I know that they all, almost all the tools available today offer video conference, they offer chat. So, like the basic functionalities, all the programs have them. But there are programs that are more for live streaming. Others are more suitable for webina. So it really comes down to the question of what you need and what you're planning and then just doing the research and finding the right tool. Also, I suggest that if you're hesitant, try using a few. Try doing a few dry runs with some of the tools, see which ones you like, which ones are better for your needs, which ones are easier for you to operate, if you can. I know a lot of companies, due to the situation, are offering free trials or free access to their tools. So basically, go nuts, do a lot of trial and error, and just decide on your tool of choice.

Sounds good. Sounds good. Thank you. I see a couple of questions about canceling an event. Tal or Yafi, do you want to talk about how you go with that? When it's online. Okay. When it's online. If you decide to go online.

Let me answer this question in the context of the broader idea. So, you know, when you're. When you have an event, and right now, with the current coronavirus situation, you're trying to understand what to do with it, obviously, you know, you can cancel it, you can postpone it, but ideally, events that you could do virtual. I think this is, like, going to be our reality for the next few weeks or months in a global world.