BtoB Magazine Wraps Up Leading Edge Virtual Conference

Bob 

Felsenthal, Publisher of BtoB magazine called the Leading Edge virtual event held June 23rd a “home run.” “Although we have been doing webinars and webcasts for years, this is the first full virtual event we have produced, said Felsenthal.

BtoB had been looking at producing a virtual event for about a year and felt the time was right. About 6 months ago they decided to schedule their first event and to use their webcasting vendor’s (ON24) virtual event platform to host the event.

“We started to seriously begin the planning and production about three or four months out from the show date.” When asked about the short timeframe, Felsenthal noted that BtoB already had an internal team that was able to leverage their webcasting knowledge and jump into production right away.

“We had hoped for 3 to 4,000 registrants and we ended up with about 4,700 so we were really happy with our first event. Now several other publications at Crain Communications (BtoB’s parent publishing company) are looking at doing virtual events.”

Seventy percent of the attendees had never been to a virtual event and according to Felsenthal, about eighty percent rated the event excellent or good. One lesson learned for the next event will be to schedule structured chat as 25% of attendees reported meeting new people at the even a number they want to see increase significantly.

Speakers at the event included keynotes presented by Patrick Crane, LinkedIn Vice President of Marketing, and by Cisco Vice President of Field Marketing Jere King.