Client
A not-for-profit organization based in Boston, US who entrusted us with the task of organizing the largest all-women IT virtual conference in India.
Overview
This IT Virtual Conference expanded to India for the first time after 10 successful editions in North America with an aim to empower women and non-binary individuals in cybersecurity. The event featured 53 sessions and the goal was to attract 40 speakers and 1000 attendees. It was a 4-month long project involving audience acquisition, speaker acquisition and event moderation.
Challenges
- Entering India for the first time required significant effort on our part to convey that the event’s focus was not on sales but on empowerment.
- The criteria for speaker and attendee recruitment varied significantly. To get 40 speakers, a rigorous proposal submission and review process was implemented. Meanwhile, attracting 1000 attendees required extensive outreach across diverse channels.
- Managing a virtual event of this scale posed operational challenges, particularly in terms of platform familiarity and technical support, as we were tasked with using a new platform, Bizzabo.
- An important criterion was that the event was exclusively for women, which imposed limitations on the use of databases.
Solution
Comprehensive Marketing Campaign
- Designed and developed two distinct landing pages—one for speakers and another for attendees—to serve as the centralized platforms for event details and registration.
- Designed a comprehensive event brochure outlining session details, speaker profiles, and topic tracks to attract both attendees and speakers.
- Leveraged LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google for targeted promotions. Employed both paid advertising campaigns and organic content strategies to reach a wider audience.
- Sent a total of 15 emails to a database of 10K plus individuals for speaker acquisition and 25 emails to a database of 16K plus individuals for attendee acquisition.
- Contacted corporate HRs and educational institutions to request they share the information within their organizations.
- Sent multiple WhatsApp messages to the entire database. Messages provided updates and encouraged registrations.
- Personally invited participants through multiple rounds of tele-calling, reaching 5K potential speakers and 12K potential
- With 25 years of working with esteemed clients, we leveraged our extensive network of contacts to promote the event.
- Provided banners featuring sponsors and keynote speakers to the client for promotional purposes.
Speaker and Moderator Support
- Our teams underwent rigorous self-training to act as moderators for all the sessions.
- Conducted comprehensive training sessions for speakers to familiarize them with all features of the Bizzabo platform, ensuring they were well-prepared for their sessions.
- Assisted speakers by providing them banners and videos to promote their speaking engagements within their respective networks.
Event Day Management
- Managed real-time event moderation on Bizzabo and addressed participant-related issues promptly.
- Ensured high attendance by sending reminders and making personal calls to registered attendees.
- Sent thank-you and miss you emails, and survey links post-event to gather feedback and improve future iterations.
- Edited videos of sessions for YouTube to extend the conference’s reach and impact beyond the live event.
Outcome
Despite the challenges of entering a new market and getting such huge numbers of speakers and attendees, this IT virtual conference achieved remarkable success. From more than 150 speaking proposals we selected 44 speakers and were able to get 900 plus attendees, the event not only met but exceeded its targets. The comprehensive approach to marketing contributed to its overall success.
Noticing the success, the client plans to organize this all-women IT virtual conference event again in India in collaboration with Channel Technologies!
