Unisfair offers virtual events enabling large corporations and mid sized ones as alternative to physical events.
I came across the organisation following an interview request made by their excellent PR Sarah Tonzi.
They have clients across a range of categories – marketing, recuriting and internal collaboration. but mainly focus on two markets – media companies like Economist, Business Week a virtual event is every aspect of a physical event. Main hall, exhibitions and conference, networking lounges all just like a regular conference.
In the media model you can drive audience and sign up sponsors and use some content – educational slides and monetise it.
We also work with enterprises – most use us for marketing – they put on an event to do lead generation and nurturing, professional networking.
Events range from product launches, user conferences, product roadshows or educational series. This enables people to attend virtual events. Unisfair has made the site easy to use – you go in, create a profile, network (like Linked In – ask for interests and introductions to people of a particular type) the system will make recommendations to you of top 10 to meet. It matches, ranks and allows you to search attendees.
Using flash and rich multi media agencies can customise our interface -
you can change what the hall looks like and brand it e.g. Cisco China
had a butterfly theme, Citrix had a Star Trek futuristic look.
Background
We launched in 2002 and we went through a slow growth curve but in the last two years our business has grown enormously. We've done 550 large events in total of which 325 in the last three years. Large = 1,500 people who actually participate and around 2,500 register. 60:40 domestic US v International client companies.
How to make your conference successful
The important things are headcount, getting the right people to show up. Job fairs and campus recruiting are popular. Even though the economy is difficult there are areas with a lot of opportunity e.g. Life Sciences and Biotechnology.
The cost to get started is small because you aren't paying for the hotel fees, food and travel costs!
What are the key ingredients to a successful virtual event?
1 – set some clear goals upfront. We track everything that happens in the environment. We can tell you who registered, when, what they are interested in, who youvisited, white papers downloaded and what I did. Clearly articulate your goals and Unisfair can help you align the event around metrics that will help deliver your goals.
2 – plan who who'd help put it on (the Unisfair services team helps) brand the environment, create content to put in the environment. Resources needed, Theme, audiences.
3 – plan the promotion, partners and sponsor recruitment.
4 – consider the tactics of delivering a great event.
What social media tools are enabled inside the Unisfair environment?
Professional networking – profile, build groups, network via text chat and email. Moderated chat sessions and forums and blogs and breakout areas or a webex and multiple session tracks – tools that an event can use for longer term events e.g. get contributions between events.Everything apart from webex is written by us. You only need flash on your machine.
One bit of advice for next year for biz dev?
Do an inventory of your events. Most of our clients look at what they do today (what doesn't work so cut it), what works but budget slashed – cut back and augment with virtual. What can't you do today but want to do. e.g. KPMG does 'follow the sun' gain relationships across the globe in a single day.
We periodically list events on our site and our clients promote events via our site.
Would it suit an un-conference environment?
It matters what you want to accomplish. If you use a moderator and get feedback and chat from audience contribution. We don't have a whiteboard / desktop sharing application. And so probably that's best suited to face to face.
For marketing and advertising agencies, how can they use Unisfair?
We'd rather partner with savvy agencies to create the experience for their client and put margin on top of our platform.
3-4 Enterprises in the UK have used us. Greater London area agency market is interested but we haven't worked yet with many of them.
So, what's holding you all back?
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