Zoom Events: Expo GA
Creating space for meaningful engagement and memorable events.
Role
Design & Product Strategy Lead
Date
September 2021
Challenge
In a world where virtual events are not going away, how might we create deeper engagement and amplify connections beyond session-based content for various event personas? How do we provide an event platform that provides more value and yields more memorable event to attendees, sponsors, and hosts?
Solution
Zoom Events Expo is a space that drives meaningful connections, facilitates networking, and increases sponsor engagement and lead generation. The perfect complementary experience to the typical, one-way virtual event functionality. Expo provides face-to-face connection between attendees, hosts, and sponsors - a value-add that wins over many prospective customers looking to differentiate their virtual events.
The Context
With the onset of the pandemic, in-person conferences and events were canceled…
Quickly, the world went virtual on Zoom. It was great for a while, but many people and organizations quickly realized that it just wasn’t the same. These were the big problems that virtual events were facing:
There was a cold, one-way window into content consumption for the attendee, but no opportunity for further engagement and connection with others. They simply joined the event, watched content, and left.
While virtual events are extremely accessible and enable joining from anywhere in the world, it is just as easy to disengage or multitask while the event is happening.
Sponsors have much more limited channels to engage prospective customers and generate leads in virtual events.
Event organizers are using multiple tools and platforms to piece together an experience that meets their engagement needs.
Attendees, sponsors, and organizers were craving something more—something memorable.
Enter Zoom Events…
During the start of the pandemic, Zoom became synonymous with “virtual” and “connection”. The world was already running on Zoom’s familiar products, making it uniquely primed to succeed in the virtual events space. In September of 2021, Zoom debuted the Zoom Events product to an audience of 30,000+ attendees, running its annual flagship conference on its own platform.
While Zoom Events builds its event session functionality architecture on the scalable Zoom Webinar product, it is still a “window-in”, providing a one-sided interaction. To address that, one major feature of the platform is the Expo. Zoom Events Expo brings a whole new level of engagement and connection to virtual events.
Expo from Zoom Events is the perfect complement, enabling face-to-face interaction in a large event. In an Expo, attendees can network with other attendees, or even meet directly with speakers or sponsors that just hosted a session with hundreds or thousands of attendees. Additionally, Expo provides amazing access for sponsors to use as a lead generation space, directly speaking to prospects, host live demos, or answer specific questions.
The Attendee Experience
Expo Floor
In many virtual event platforms, when a session is finished, many attendees become disengaged with the event. They might go back to work, and that is when a fall-off usually happens.
Now, in-between sessions, attendees now have the opportunity to enter the Expo as a continuation of the event and the next step to take in the event journey. When they enter the Expo floor, they see a different kind of interaction model and visual which can be a moment of intrigue—promoting exploration and further engagement.
Attendees’ avatars are shown in a top-down view of a simulated Expo floor. As attendees navigate around the Expo floor, they can interact and network with others. This visualization of who is on the Expo floor creates a sense of energy and presence that is missing in a webinar context. Attendees can then choose from a selection of sponsored and host-owned booths to enter.
“Near Me” functionality, shows attendees and booths nearby. Attendee networking profiles are accessible from here—promoting networking with those who are near you or in the same booth.
Expo Booth
Once they enter the booths, they are greeted by different subject-matter-specific booth spaces. These can be used for chatting or for product demos. Booth spaces allow booth representatives to maintain an intimate setting, keeping discussions to just a few people—emulating the experience you would get with a representative at an in-person expo.
What attendees see when entering the booth are livestreams of discussions happening in the booth spaces (which leverage the already familiar Zoom Meetings product, so attendees and representatives don’t have to learn another tool). If they choose not to engage and enter into the small group conversations, they can unmute the livestream and listen in to the conversation. This provides value to attendees with different comfort levels.
When attendees are not chatting or listening to conversations with booth representatives, they can view booth resources (videos/photo assets, exhibitor descriptions, representative bios, and downloadable PDFs).
Why does this matter?
Zoom Events Expo was one of the most talked-about features amongst beta customers of Zoom Events and prospective customers. The GA of the Expo product helped win over many customers in enterprise and EDU verticals.
Reduces the need for multiple different platforms, reducing costs for customers
Creates memorable events leading to more time-on-page engagement for attendees. More engagement = more value out of the platform for customers.
Provides value to sponsors and event organizers by creating an intimate-setting prime for lead generation and by allowing follow-up conversations through detailed analytics of booth traffic and attendee details.
In 1 year, at least 65% of all events opted-in to have an expo as part of their events.
All of this has led to more repeat usage from customer accounts, servicing all small to large event needs for the customers.