As a speaker at an event—virtual, live or hybrid, you will be competing for your audience’s attention. From smart devices and laptops to pastries and coffees, your audience will face any number of distractions.

If you do manage to win your audience’s undivided attention, well done. Though you are unlikely to keep it for long. According to research, people’s collective attention spans are shrinking. Our brains are so accustomed to frequent distractions and immediate gratification, activities requiring sustained concentration are becoming a drag.

As a speaker, you are not just competing with your peers and other thought leaders in your industry. You are competing for your audience’s attention with, well, everything and anything.

Channel your inner storyteller

Storytelling has emerged as a crucial technique for capturing and retaining audience attention and making complex ideas more relatable. Good storytelling is a hallmark of TED Talks and executive influencers around the globe.

In fact, neuroscientists have found that narratives activate multiple areas of the brain, making information more memorable and easier to recall. By using vivid imagery, incorporating personal anecdotes and creating relatable characters, we can channel universal human experiences and emotions—and make deeper connections with audiences.

Authenticity in storytelling is also key. Sharing personal stories about challenges and revealing vulnerability shows humility and can foster empathy from your audience.

Stories that paint a rich scene help us engage and process information faster. That is why it is important to incorporate visuals when possible into your presentation to make your narrative stronger and more impactful.

Harness interactivity and technology

Asking questions direct to audiences or leveraging live polls, group activities or breakout sessions are all great techniques to liven things up, stimulate debate and encourage engagement.

Videos, images and animations can help capture audience attention and make complex information more digestible. Speakers can transport their audiences to different environments or create interactive experiences using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Technology really is opening up a whole new world for speakers and audiences to explore.

Let your body talk

Researchers from ‘Science of People’ conducted a study of TED Talk audiences and discovered some remarkable insights. Researchers found a direct correlation between number of hand gestures and views. In the study, the speaker with the lowest-viewed TED Talks made, on average, half the number of gestures compared to the highest-viewed talks. Gestures, it seems, help you win attention on both a visual and emotional level.

The research also found people had already formed their impression of the entire talk in the first seven seconds of the video. Researcher Nalini Ambady says that for efficiency purposes, the brain makes very quick judgments of people within the first few seconds of meeting them. Typically, this happens before any words are exchanged. This underlines the fact that the way you take the stage, how you greet the audience and how you deliver your opening line are crucial. Vocal variety and smiling are also crowd-pleasers according to the research.

Amplify through social media

Social media allows you to connect with audiences before, during and after your presentations. By sharing clips from upcoming speeches or giving behind-the-scenes access, you can generate interest among potential attendees. During live presentations, social media offers real-time interaction between you and your audiences. After a presentation, social media acts as a channel for you to continue to engage your audience and amplify insights.

Embrace inclusivity, accessibility and diversity

Today’s presentations are expected to be inclusive and accessible. So be mindful that your audience may include many abilities, ethnicities, genders, geographies, races, sexualities; and socio-economic statuses.

Aim to use universal imagery and inclusive language. Provide written or visual examples that reflect diverse perspectives and backgrounds. Prepare for individuals who may experience deafness or reduced vision. For example, use large fonts and caption images and videos. The Office for Digital Accessibility (ODA) at the University of Minnesota provides a more comprehensive breakdown of what you may want to consider. 

If you are intentional about inclusivity, accessibility and diversity, you will create an environment where everyone feels valued and respected. This will encourage deeper audience connection, participation and engagement. 

The battle for attention is on. In an era of short attention spans and constant distraction, it has never been so difficult to win your audience’s attention. Storytelling can transform speeches into captivating narratives that have a lasting impact. Technology can be leveraged to delight and engage. Inclusivity and diversity inspire fresh perspectives and ideas. By embracing innovative technologies, honing storytelling skills and fostering inclusivity, you can have a lasting impact well after the speech is over.

Check out the work we do for thought leaders on our thought leadership content page.

In order to make attendees’ experience satisfactory, virtual events should enable participants to gain the knowledge they are looking for and connect with other attendees.

As the world has shifted to virtual events, attendees have developed a personal taste and now have several expectations from their virtual experience, which creates new challenges for event planners.

Most virtual events—78%—offer attendance at no charge, according to a Bizzabo report. Those that are paid (22%) have an average price of $149 (based on aggregated Bizzabo user data).

Participants do not attend all event sessions—only a handful of them—and this is true not only of virtual events but of all event types. 

The majority of virtual live attendees witness no more than 20% of all sessions. While people attend a smaller share of the agenda online, they view more sessions than those who choose physical events. This is especially true when considering the ones who view on-demand content.

In fact, networking is a goal or a high interest to only about 18% of virtual event participants. 31% are open to the idea but not planning it for their virtual experience, while 51% are not interested in it altogether.

As approaching people is not possible, the nature of digital events makes conversations flow less naturally than in the physical world. They tend to depend more on event activities, which creates an opportunity gap for marketers, who should design events in a way that facilitates these connections (for those who desire them or are at least open to them).

They tend to depend more on event activities, which creates an opportunity gap for marketers, who should design events in a way that facilitates these connections (for those who desire them or are at least open to them).

Even though gaining professional knowledge is expressed to be the most important objective for virtual attendees, they nevertheless claim to be underwhelmed by their learning outcomes. Most (51%) do report having acquired some knowledge but not at the level they were expecting. 

Only 32% are entirely satisfied with their learning, which pales in comparison to 53% of in-person attendees gaining the knowledge they hoped for.

Another blow coming to marketers from attendees’ feedback is that virtual attendees simply have much less fun than in-person participants. A whopping 42% rate their event as not entertaining, compared to 18% whose experience in this regard is very positive. This is yet another area that event marketers should focus on improving.

In the eyes of the event organisers, the top challenges related to virtual events are engagement (35%), and networking (20%). With the second factor, we can observe some consistency with attendees’ responses. Both of these issues can be mitigated with event technology to some extent (but employing the right tactics is equally important).

Indeed, when asked about the most important feature when choosing a virtual event platform, marketers’ second most common answer is networking tools, and third is live polling and voting (for engagement)

Virtual event software users from Asia-Pacific see value in a lot of potential features an event platform can offer, such as the following ones:

Finally, engagement can and should continue after the event, with proper incentives in place for the attendees to share their experiences with their colleagues. It is an area that could be improved, as 18% of people do not share any insights taken from the event with others. 

But those who share do so mostly through face-to-face conversations (37%), which is much more engaging than giving a copy of materials (31%) or sending an email summary (14%).

Virtual events are here to stay—for the foreseeable future. To make a difference in this space, marketers must design them in a way that meets the expectations of participants and drives their own business results.

Read the full Bizzabo report here

Although in-person events are slowly making a comeback, virtual events are here to stay. Marketers should focus on making their virtual events more engaging and immersive to keep participants engaged. For hybrid events, marketers should weigh the potential benefits against the risks to avoid costly mistakes.

We still live in the aftermath of 2020 when many organisers of physical B2B events were abruptly forced to change plans. Two years later, in-person events have been slowly coming back and in the meantime, a new type of hybrid events has grown in importance. 

The majority of marketers are still focused on virtual events and other digital initiatives. The share of marketers whose physical events budget completely went away decreased from 23% in July 2021 to 15% in March 2022. The share of those who reduced their budgets and shifted to virtual events remained steady at around 42%.

A survey conducted by CMO Council and Cvent found signs of virtual event fatigue with 36% of marketers reporting a severe drop in registration rates and customer engagement.

A possible reason is that when the pandemic outbreak forced events to go online, marketers assumed virtual events needed to deliver the same outcomes as in-person events. But the reality is that virtual events are well-suited for presenting knowledge at scale (delivering higher reach), whereas physical events naturally allow for interactivity and nurturing of customer relationships that result in higher conversion rates, and are a better fit for occasions like executive briefings and product rollouts.

Mismanaged attempts to bring make events virtual have led marketers to get worse business results from virtual events than in-person events:

Still, as evidenced above, 64% of respondents are satisfied with their deployment of digital events and getting at least good value from them, if not better. Surely, events that are exclusively virtual are going to remain in the marketing mix of a vast majority of B2B companies.

However, two years of attending virtual events have heightened the expectations of B2B professionals. It will be crucial to adopt new practices to keep participants engaged and create an immersive experience—even for physical events—with several digital tactics.

However, two years of attending virtual events have heightened the expectations of B2B professionals. It will be crucial to adopt new practices to keep participants engaged and create an immersive experience—even for physical events—with several digital tactics.

When it comes to hybrid events, it is important to weigh the potential benefits against the risks. It is true that a hybrid format has the value of significantly boosting attendance and presenting one’s brand in the spirit of inclusiveness and openness towards those who are still unable to travel to an in-person event.

However, hybrid events are problematic. Not only do they score the lowest in terms of marketers’ ability to execute them effectively or very effectively (see above) but they are also expensive. A hybrid event is essentially double the cost of a regular event because, on top of organising the physical experience, marketers have to factor in the costs of producing the digital part.

Finally, there is a risk of cannibalisation of physical attendance. By promoting the virtual path too intensively, marketers risk having fewer attendees showing up at the event’s physical venue. A way to mitigate this is to select a part of the audience who has a higher likelihood of attending in person and send them invitations to the physical event. Those who are not likely to travel or have not responded to previous messages should be invited to the digital event.

The Metaverse will have a profound impact on marketing, with vast potential implications for how companies reach and engage customers. B2B marketers who now start to experiment with immersive virtual events will be well-versed in the opportunities the Metaverse presents as it evolves.

By 2026, one-quarter of humankind will be spending a minimum of one hour daily in the Metaverse for work, shopping, education, social interaction and/or entertainment. Additionally, 30% of the organisations in the world will offer products and services specifically for the Metaverse, according to Gartner.

The Metaverse has the potential to be worth $5 trillion by 2030. While it holds possible implications for all industries, it may have the greatest market impact on e-commerce (up to $2.6 trillion), academic virtual learning (up to $270 billion), advertising (up to $206 billion), and gaming (up to $125 billion).

These predictions might not seem so unreal if you consider that Metaverse has already seen numerous implementations. The top enterprise use cases for the Metaverse that companies have been working on are:

1. Marketing campaigns or initiatives.
2. Learning and development for employees.
3. Meetings in the Metaverse.
4. Events or conferences.
5. Product design or digital twinning (for product development and manufacturing).

And attending events, especially those that provide learning, is what people are already looking forward to doing in the virtual world:

Meetings and events organised as Metaverse experiences have seen most implementations from the healthcare and travel, transport, and logistics industries:

The following are only some examples of how companies are experimenting with hosting meetings and B2B events in the Metaverse:

• Flagship conference: the 2021 edition of SXSW, the annual event showcasing music, film and interactive media, was partially held in a virtual world that brought the conference’s location, Austin, to life, allowing attendees to meet, explore, and watch content created specifically for the VR.
• Education: University of California at San Diego’s Rady School of Management used a virtual campus for lectures that included breakout spaces and outdoor areas.
• Recruiting: Havas Group launched a virtual village to improve its recruitment and onboarding experiences.
• All-in: eXp Realty, a real estate brokerage company, operates entirely on a day-to-day basis in a virtual world. Used primarily for providing agents with business support, it is also a place that hosts meetings and conferences. It has an auditorium that has been used to organise training sessions with hundreds of participants and conferences with thousands of attendees enjoying presentations, breakout conversations and individual networking.

All this implies that B2B marketers can no longer dismiss immersive virtual worlds as exclusive to the B2C field.

Nearly 70% of all U.S. marketers work for an organisation that already has already an in-house team or external agency dedicated to the Metaverse.

Almost 60% of them have a marketing budget and 57% are executing a marketing strategy specifically for the Metaverse. On the other hand, a mere 18% of brand marketing and analytics executives claim to understand how the Metaverse will impact their brand.

However, the lack of understanding is no reason for dismissing the Metaverse altogether. McKinsey analysts think that not participating in the Metaverse may result in a significant competitive disadvantage. 

This is because customers are adopting the Metaverse and, regardless of its involvement, every company should consider how it may impact its business, positively or negatively, and devise a strategy.

The consultancy suggests a step-by-step approach to prepare a company for the Metaverse:

Executives willing to understand the possibilities and opportunities of the Metaverse could already start dipping their toes in the various solutions available to them by exploring an online gaming experience like Roblox, Fortnite, or Minecraft, visiting a 3D virtual world like The Sandbox or Decentraland, joining a Discord server, watching a Twitch channel, checking out an NFT marketplace, trying out a VR experience, or participating in a virtual event on a web-conferencing platform such as Gather Town.

While it is still in its very early stage, the Metaverse is currently going through intensive development and change, and marketers will be wise to keep themselves informed about its evolution and the emerging opportunities it presents.

Download McKinsey’s report here