Virtual meetings and conferences have become a prevalent concept for all organizations. Recognizing the trend of companies organizing virtual sales meetings and its efficacy, we can say that virtual annual sales meet-ups & interactions are the future of the sales industry.
However, hosting an online meeting comes with various steps and things to keep in mind. A virtual annual sales kickoff should be well-planned to captivate the attention of your buyers and deliver a clear message to your global audience.
In this blog, we have covered all that you need to know about planning and executing a successful virtual sales meeting. Go ahead and explore some of the best ideas, tips, steps, and practices to ensure a memorable virtual meeting experience.
How to Plan and Host a Successful Virtual Annual Sales Meeting
#1 Determine Your Goals
Predefining your goal behind organizing the virtual annual sales meet is one of the most significant steps in planning a successful event for your company. By determining your virtual meeting purposes beforehand, you can move ahead to create an effective plan and strategy for different aspects of the meeting. Mentioned below are a few example questions that you should ask yourself while determining your meeting goals:
- What do you aim at achieving through this meeting?
- What outcome do you expect from the Virtual Meeting?
- What are the different topics you want to cover during the meeting?
- What are the engagement tools you require to include in the event?
- Which interactive features do you wish to have in the annual sales meeting?
#2 Strategize All the Aspects
The process of planning and strategizing a virtual meeting always goes hand in hand. Therefore, to plan an effective annual sales meeting, it is vital to strategize all the aspects beforehand. With the help of this step, you can provide a much-needed flow & structure for your meeting. Not just this, but it also facilitates in easing the execution process with the assurance that you have not missed out on any vital aspect.
#3 Choose the Most Suitable Virtual Meeting Platform
Although the market of the events industry is flooded with countless virtual event and meeting platforms, choosing the best one still remains a task. Picking the most suitable virtual meeting platform is one of the most significant steps to ensure the success of your online event. Therefore, once you have defined your goals, planned, and strategized all the meeting aspects, choose a platform that suits your requirements the best.
An advanced virtual sales meeting platform like Dreamcast is well-resourced with innovative engagement, networking, interactive, and customizable features and tools.
#4 Plan the Schedule Circumspectly
The next step is to plan the schedule of your virtual sales meeting carefully. The best advantage of shifting to a virtual meeting platform is that you can reach your global attendees in one go. However, the task that comes along with this advantage is that you need to plan the schedule while keeping every time zone in mind. Therefore, while deciding the date and time for your meeting, ensure that it suits all your attendees. Also, make sure that you don’t schedule meetings on a day or time when there is any other significant event planned, as this will distribute your audience.
#5 Plan and Strategize the Agenda
Strategizing the virtual meeting agenda helps you in providing a proper movement to your event. It also eliminates the scope of any disturbance or hindrance during the meeting execution. Therefore, plan and strategize the agenda for your virtual sales meeting based on the overall theme and prime objective. Remember that your meeting should move in a flow that is easy for your attendees to understand the purpose of the meeting.
Another vital thing to keep in mind while planning the agenda is the session length and breaks. It is so because attending a meeting virtually with lengthy sessions can be tedious for your attendees, leading to zoom or virtual meeting fatigue. To avoid this, make sure you provide breaks between the sessions and keep the meeting sessions short.
#6 Test the Technology
Testing and checking the technology is another necessary step that needs to be followed to organize a successful meeting. Ensure that all the technical tools, features, internet, logistics, and content is in place and working fine before taking the virtual sales meeting online. This step will also help you avoid the possibility of any technical errors or glitches on the big online event day.
#7 Collect Valuable Feedback
Understanding the efficacy of any online meeting is very important, be it a virtual town hall meeting, a virtual conference, a virtual team, or a sales meeting. And, what is better than comprehending the event potency from the perspective of your attendees? Therefore, accumulate valuable feedback from your attendees. It will not only provide you with relevant data but also make your attendees feel important.
How to Make Your Annual Sales Meeting More Engaging
Engagement is one of the most prominent aspects that facilitates you in accomplishing your virtual sales meeting goals. Keeping your attendees enthralled and engaged throughout the meeting is no less than a task that you should perform well. Keep reading to explore the top ways to promote engagement at your online sales meeting.
7 Ways to Make Your Virtual Sales Meeting More Engaging and Memorable
#1 Create Compelling Virtual Venue
An advanced virtual meeting platform provides you with the free opportunity to design the virtual meeting venue according to your requirements. So, ask your virtual event service provider to create a compelling virtual venue that entices your attendees and renders them a seamless user experience.
#2 Provide Multi-Format Content
To ensure that your remote attendees don’t have a tedious virtual event experience, include multi-format content in the meeting. Don’t limit the content visible at the virtual event platform to pictures and include other content formats like videos, gifs, downloadable documents, audios, etc.
#3 Include Gamification Activities
Gamification is another significant virtual meeting feature that is taking the prevalence of virtual events to a whole new level. To keep your attendees engaged, include interesting games that they can play during breaks. Following are the top integrated virtual games to include in your meeting:
- Virtual Scavenger Hunt
- Tic Tac Toe
- Car Rush
- Virtual Escape Room
- Virtual Bingo
- Leaderboard challenges
#4 Provide Interactive Opportunities
While attending any virtual event, interactive tools play a vital role in keeping your attendees engaged. Therefore, make use of the countless interactive tools present at a virtual event platform and ensure attendee engagement at your online sales meeting. Following are the top interactive features provided by an advanced virtual meeting platform:
- Live Polls
- Live Q&A Sessions
- Signature Wall
- Audio Reactions like Clap & Hoot
- Emoticon tools like Thumbs Up, Like, Heart, Raised Hands, etc.
- Chat Rooms
- Multi-Format Communication
- Meeting Scheduler
#5 On-Event Announcements & Notifications
Use on-event announcements and audio notifications to ensure that your attendees don’t miss out on any significant session. You can also include a pop-up feature for these announcements.
#6 Address Your Attendees
Another excellent idea to keep your attendees engaged is addressing them during the meeting. Interacting with your audience during the online event and addressing them with their names can be a great way to captivate their attention throughout your virtual annual sales meeting.
#7 Send Swag Bags
Everybody likes gifts and goodies. Therefore, enthrall your attendees to engage in the meeting by sending them exciting swag bags before the event day. It can include goodies related to the sales meeting, office stationery, meeting agenda, etc.
Move ahead to explore some of the top virtual sales meeting ideas and best practices to ensure fun at the event.
Best Practices and Ideas to Make Your Virtual Sales Meeting More Fun
#1 Organize an Award Show
Organize an award show for the best performers and hard workers of the organization. Appreciation and acknowledgment are the two things that work like a charm to encourage your attendees. During the session, appreciate your employees, managers, and teammates for all the hard work and time they have dedicated to the organization.
#2 Promote Team Participation
Add more value and efficiency to your virtual sales meeting by promoting team participation and inviting opinions. One-way communication can make your attendees feel overlooked and unimportant. Therefore, provide participation opportunities at your virtual sales meeting.
#3 Celebrate Previous Year’s Successes
Add more fun to your online event by cheering up together for your company’s previous year’s success. It is one of the best virtual sales meeting ideas to enthrall your attendees and captivate their attention since the beginning of the event.
#4 Share Sales Strategy For Upcoming Year
Enlighten your attendees with an exceptional sales strategy you have planned for the upcoming year. This activity will build up the excitement and encouragement in your attendees to work harder, perform better, and execute the strategies.
#5 Pick a Theme for Your Virtual Meeting and Stick to it
Deciding on a theme for your virtual annual sales meeting is another excellent idea to make the online event more interesting. You can base the theme of your meeting on your plans, strategies, and challenges for the upcoming year. Mentioned below are some of the best virtual sales meeting themes.
Top 12 Virtual Sales Meeting Themes:
- Embrace the Change
- Time to Shine
- Brave New World
- Overcoming the Obstacles
- In it to Win it
- Infinity & Beyond
- Level Up
- Stronger & Better
- Carpe Diem
- Now or Never
- The Future is Now
- Digital Shift and Strategies
Let’s explore a quick checklist to ensure the effectiveness of your virtual meeting in five easy tips.
5 Tips to Make Your Virtual Sales Meetings More Effective
#1 Begin With Icebreakers
Beginning with exciting ice breakers is the best way to kick off an engaging online meeting. You can include fun quizzes, trivia, contests, and games to help your attendees interact and engage.
#2 Deliver Valuable Content
Content has always been and will always remain the king. Therefore, make sure that you provide valuable content at the virtual meeting that is useful for your attendees. For example, you can design captivating presentations and share them with your attendees during the session.
#3 Plan for Potential Questions and Doubts
At a virtual sales kickoff, there is always a list of questions and doubts that your attendees might come up with during the meeting. To save time & give an accurate answer to your attendees, plan for all the potential questions beforehand.
#4 Focus on the Key Objective
All the sessions at your virtual sales meeting should be planned in such a way that they seem to direct towards the key objective of the meeting. This way, your attendees will not feel confused, and it will help them understand the essence of the meeting.
#5 Follow-Up With Your Attendees
Don’t make the mistake of overlooking your attendees once the meeting is over. To leave a long-lasting impression on your global attendees, follow up with them even after the meeting. A simple thankfulness email to all your remote audience can gain you permanent goodwill and better reach.
The Bottom Line
Hosting a successful virtual sales kickoff is not much of a task if you bring the best practices, ideas, themes, and steps together. Therefore, be certain and follow the mentioned virtual sales meeting ideas to ensure the efficiency of your online meeting!
