7 Companies Hosting Great Virtual Conferences

In April 2020 I took part in the two-hour special “ACM presents: Our country“In my pajamas with a bowl of popcorn, I could see Miranda Lambert, Thomas Rhett and Florida Georgia Line performing her own living room.

And although the show didn’t have the same high-class special effects as the shows from previous country awards, it still managed to deliver exactly what I wanted: live country music.

In 2020, many companies had to switch to virtual conferences. HubSpot is no exception – for the first time in nine years INCOMING, an event hosted by HubSpot, will not be held in person. Instead, it will be a two-day online experience.

Most likely, virtual conferences will continue to grow in the coming years. It makes sense: With virtual conferences, you can reduce both the set-up costs and the entry costs and increase the opportunities for people to attend all over the world.

Whether you’re planning to switch your own personal conference to a virtual experience or just want to attend a virtual conference in 2020, you’re in luck.

Here is a list of seven companies that host amazing virtual conferences. Best of all, these examples range from 50,000 to a few hundred participants, so you can find inspiration regardless of your budget.

1. SaaStr Annual

SaaStr Annual is the largest SaaS conference in the world with over 50,000 SaaS executives, founders and VCs. SaaStr will continue to take place virtually this September, with over 200 handmade live sessions and speakers ranging from the founder and CEO of Zoom to the Chief Technology Officer at Shopify.

The extensive experience includes speakers, AMAs, mentor sessions and one-on-one meetings with SaaS CEOs and executives around the world to help participants scale their businesses faster. And although the conference is virtual, it still offers the opportunity to network and learn from industry colleagues.

Fortunately, attending a virtual conference is much cheaper than attending in person (especially since your company doesn’t have to pay travel expenses). In fact, with a two-day digital pass, you can join the SaaStr event for free to access selected live content.

Alternatively, you can purchase the VIP Startup Founders & Execs Pass or the Investor Pass for full access and networking and mentoring opportunities.

2nd Venture café

Since 2010, more than 200,000 people have attended the free networks, learning sessions, and office hours of the Cambridge-based Venture Cafe.

The company enables small business owners and entrepreneurs to interact with industry experts, offers entrepreneurs open microphone evenings to present their start-up ideas to the community, and organizes conferences to connect entrepreneurs with investors and mentors.

Ruth Saunders, Vice President of Partnerships at Venture Cafe, told me that Venture Cafe switched their personal weekly Thursday meeting to virtual on March 12 and has since hosted 12 virtual weekly Thursday meetings, four virtual conferences, and two pitch events.

Their virtual conferences (including SheConnects, FinTech and Digital Health) have amassed over 4,000 participants.

The company uses Remo, a virtual network tool for presenting startup demos and hosting network events and clinics.

Saunders says: “Every week we try something new and learn from our community and other venture cafes around the world.”

Ultimately, it’s a good idea to evaluate the performance of one virtual event before planning another – especially since you can use this information to iterate your processes and achieve greater success in the future.

3rd Penguin strategies

Penguin Strategies, a marketing agency focused on generating quality leads and improving conversion rates for B2B tech companies, planned a meeting of the HubSpot User Group in March 2020. The realization of a personal event was no longer possible online event in just three weeks – and secured over 1,000 participants.

Writing about the agency’s strategies in this blog postCMO Shoham Eckhaus notes that the company knew it was important to provide the marketing community with an alternative platform for sharing ideas.

She also shares four key insights for creating a virtual conference: “Deliver the right topic at the right time; share high quality content from experts in the field; stay focused and engage influencers to connect with their networks share.”

The Penguin Strategies event, aptly labeled “CMOs That Survive in a Panic Economy” with speakers Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot CMO), Tyler Lessard (Vidyard CMO) and moderated by Penguin Strategies CEO, had a attendance rate of over 75% – well above average Attendance rate at webinars of 44%.

4th Future for us

Future for Us, a platform dedicated to the advancement of women with color in the workplace, saw massive growth in one year and quickly created a community of over 10,000 women with color and allies in the United States and worldwide. The platform has been recognized in major publications such as People Magazine, Vogue and Forbes.

In 2019, Future For Us held its first gathering and filled a conference room with keynote speakers, fireside chats and workshops, as well as panel discussions with industry leaders. At the beginning of 2020, however, they were asked to change the Future for Us Assembly from personal to completely virtual.

Your virtual conference did not disappoint us. The one-day virtual experience This included the same panels, fireside chats, and workshops that made the 2019 gathering so popular. Speakers included Tiffany Dufu, founder and CEO of The Cru, and Minda Harts, bestselling author of The memo: What colored women need to know to secure a place at the table.

I spoke to Sage Quiamno, the CEO and co-founder of Future for Us, to learn about the strategies that she believes have helped them make a virtual experience successful.

Quiamno mentions some best practices that other brands should consider when hosting a virtual event: “First, explore different formats and technology tools that both large and small brands use to publish their content and encourage audience engagement. Second, I would recommend hiring a technology professional for the platform you are using. For me, I had personal advice for Zoom to understand the pros and cons of the platform. “

Quiamno added, “We chose Zoom because one of our biggest brand missions is visibility. When will you ever have the chance to bring 600 colored women together for a zoom call for six hours?”

“If you are a community-based company and see participants as a great value proposition for your brand, it is important that you choose a platform that matches your brand and reflects your community.”

Quiamno adds that she used Zoom’s chat feature to encourage the audience to continue their engagement during the six-hour conference. She also played music at the beginning of the conference and between speakers to create a more energetic, exciting atmosphere for the participants.

Through their virtual event, Future for Us achieved a weekly membership growth rate of 10% and the number of participants doubled compared to their personal event in 2019. Best of all, the virtual event enabled women in color from around the world to participate without the travel expenses hindering anyone from participating.

5. INCOMING

INBOUND has been hosted by HubSpot for over nine years and is one of the world’s largest marketing conferences, attended by more than 26,000 participants from 110 countries worldwide. The Boston-based event features top-class speakers, exciting entertainment and breakout sessions to inspire, educate, and help grow professionals.

This year INBOUND will be completely virtual, offering unique questions and answers with breakout speakers, interactivity with keynote speakers, and creative ways to network and even “meet” accidentally to reflect reality.

Kim Darling, VP and Executive Producer of INBOUND, says: “The audience must be our hero – their energy, conversation, connection and passion make the personal event so special.”

“INBOUND aims to inspire a huge community of professionals who can learn and share to get back to work and take the world by storm. [Virtually]we have to find a way to make room for this energy that they generate. “

For $ 49 a day, you can purchase a two-day premium pass for all INBOUND digital experiences and perks, or a free starter pass for limited events.

6. MozCon

MozCon is an annual event of the SEO software company Moz and is completely virtual from July 14th to 15th. The conference aims to bring marketers together with industry-leading experts on topics such as SEO, conversion optimization and more.

The virtual conference will include experts from Moz, WordStream, Backlinko, and others, and will enable marketers to network and share best practices from the industry.

Regardless of whether you need to sharpen your SEO and local SEO knowledge for customers or increase conversion rates for your own company’s marketing strategy, this is a great conference to take part in, be it virtual or otherwise. Tickets for the virtual event 2020 cost $ 129.

7. DeveloperWeek Global 2020

DeveloperWeek Global, the world’s largest virtual developer and engineering conference hosted by DevNetwork, enables thousands of developers to connect and learn from industry experts.

This year, DeveloperWeek will be the world’s largest virtual conference series with over 15,000 participants and comprehensive events on topics such as API, cloud computing and DevOps instead of a personal conference. Speakers include the Head of Engineering at Bloomberg Media and the Principal Software Architect at eBay.

The virtual experience includes over 100 keynote and technical discussions, demos of new technologies, exhibitor chat rooms, peer networking groups and a global hackathon.

Best of all, if you can’t pay for the Deve Leadership Summit Pass, you can join the conference for free and get access to live keynote, leadership, technology, and hackathon.

Hopefully, these seven examples can inspire your own team’s inspiration if you want to host a virtual conference in the coming years. If you need more help planning virtual conferences, check them out How to run a successful virtual event [+ Examples].