One of the many trends that the pandemic brought is hosting live events online. Since many event planners cannot host events traditionally due to social distancing restrictions, they now use digital platforms. And thanks to that, many can still earn profits through exclusive live shows and entertainment.
If you think that hosting events online can be difficult, it’s actually the opposite. You can host many events that can bring more earnings. Here are some of them:
1. Offer Increased Visibility For Sponsors
Since many businesses have gone online, the competition has increased. But you can grab this opportunity to increase businesses’ visibility through sponsorships.
With sponsorships, they pay you to advertise their brand during your online event. That way, they can gain more exposure while you’re earning. For instance, if you’re hosting a virtual car show and have 20 exhibitors, your sponsors can increase their leads by offering them more visibility. You can do this through the following:
- Upload documents, brochures, videos, and other marketing collateral.
- Customize their booths.
- Give viewers discounts, coupons, or giveaways they can use when doing business with the sponsor.
- Let them speak during a webinar or talk about the sponsor during such an event. For webinars, you may want to use fundraising platforms available online. You can visit this page if you want to read a case study on how an event can earn money using a fundraising streaming platform.
- Hang their banner on your background.
2. Sell Tickets
Another way to earn money while hosting events online is to sell tickets. Like traditional live events, you can have an event ticketing system where people have to pay first before watching or entering the event. The only difference is that you’re doing the selling and admissions online.
To make them want to purchase tickets for your event, make your event more engaging. Or highlight the feedback of your attendees on the last events you’ve hosted. That way, you can attract them to buy tickets for your upcoming events.
Aside from that, you should know where to sell your tickets to ensure that your target audience will know about them. Thus, you can use an online ticketing platform because you can share it across various digital platforms. As a result, you can gain more exposure from a wide network. Moreover, you can use this ticketing platform to track how many tickets were sold.
But before you sell your online event tickets, you must consider the following factors to incorporate in your event:
- Time and Date Suitable For Your Target Audience
For instance, if you’re catering to parents, it may be best to host the event at night when children are asleep. That way, more parents can attend compared to hosting it in the daytime where they need to take care of their children or go to work.
- Ticket Price
Another is the cost of your event ticket, which will also depend on who your targets are. If your target market are young students, it may be best to set an affordable price. On the other hand, if your potential participants are businessmen, investors, and other financially well individuals, you may set a higher price ticket.
- Freebies
Aside from allowing them to join your event, you may want to add freebies. That way, your potential attendees may see it worth the price since they get other benefits. For instance, you may want to give them lifetime access to the event, free courses, and the like.
3. Sell Merchandise
Aside from hosting the event itself, you can sell merchandise during the said event. However, your merchandise should resonate with your target audience. That way, you can ensure that they’re more likely to buy or order it.
If you’re hosting a “Go Green” event, then you may want to sell eco-friendly products since your potential participants are environmental enthusiasts. On the other hand, if you sell them merchandise that goes against the code of “go green movement,” you may not make a sale. Worse, they may even leave your event because you’re like promoting a product that goes against their principle.
To make it a successful sideline during the online event, you may want to consider the following tips:
- Use Discounts: First is to encourage them to buy more to pay less. Say they’ll get one freebie when they purchase two products. Or give them a 50% discount on their second product. That way, they can consider such a great deal rather than buying only one.
- Offer Choices: Aside from discounts, you should have various sizes, colors, and the like. That way, they can buy ones that will fit their sizes or needs.
4. Sell On-Demand Content
Likewise, you may also sell on-demand content after the virtual event. Don’t limit your potential of earning more money once the event ends. Since there may be participants who can’t attend the said event, they may want to have access to the recorded content.
Thus, you may want to capture the entire event and sell it to interested viewers even if it’s not a live event. Not only for non-attendees, but your attendees may want to access such after the event. Especially if they find it beneficial, they may like a copy of it. You can offer the recorded copy as a freebie for your attendees as well.
Here are some ways to make your content more accessible and useful even after the event:
- Produce A Virtual Library: A resource library will be one of the best ways to make your events available to attendees and non-attendees. That way, you can show them that their registration or expense is worth the price because they can access it anytime.
- Create Content In New Formats: One way to do this is to turn your live event into written or audio content. You can write case studies or blog posts that you’re paying customers can also access. Or you can even use such to promote your next event because potential participants will see how your event will look like. If you make it compelling, they’re more likely to purchase online tickets for your future events.
Conclusion
Hosting your event online is like hosting it in real life, only that you’re interacting with attendees online. What’s more, you can potentially earn more profits from online events by considering the tips above. Since hosting online eliminates venue expenses, catering services, staffing, and the like, you can maximize your profits.
You may only have to pay for online platforms like streaming sites, ticketing platforms, and an automation program which is cheaper compared to hiring people and organizing staff for real-time events. What’s more interesting is that you can even use social media platforms to promote and host your event.
Fundraising platforms have all the tools you can use from marketing, planning, hosting, and collecting your earnings. It’s all in one place, making online events more manageable. With such, you may also want to try out these fundraising platforms the next time you host your event.