Many organizations worldwide are thriving by using their corporate and internal events as a primary source of their lead/business generation. According to the Harvard Business Review's report, "93% of marketers say their organizations place a priority on hosting events, including 57% who give it a high priority." For our part, we at Zoho are actively engaging and networking with our community, users, and prospects through multiple physical events at various capacities, including those organized internally and participated in externally.
Adapting to change
Event marketers are no strangers to the last-minute changes and crises. These usually have to do with speaker cancellations, unexpectedly long registration lines, weak WiFi, and other last-minute challenges that may seem like a big deal in the moment, but pale in comparison to the tragic, dangerous crisis of COVID-19. It's no surprise to see most industry conferences and trade shows are being canceled, postponed, or switched to virtual events—including our own events.
Zoho apps lead the way
Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu's anticipation of the COVID-19 impact led Zoho into adopting a work from home policy in early 2020, before most companies in our industry had considered it. As you may know, "Zoho runs on Zoho" meaning our company uses the same apps we create. Our apps were ready for us to take the plunge into a fully remote company. They have also helped us switch from physical to virtual events, making it possible for us to reach out to our existing customers for trust-building, continued support, and making sure their business continuity is not affected.
Supporting our customers
In the two months since lockdown started, we have hosted multiple virtual events, ranging from webinars to virtual one-on-one meetings with Zoho experts. Here's some of the things we've accomplished using our in-house apps:
Zoho online workshops
Webinars on several Zoho products
Virtual one-on-one sessions with product experts
Lead generation
Virtual round table meetings
Thought leadership seminars
- Virtual conferences
We also hosted our first-ever virtual press conference on Zoho Meeting.
These virtual events have allowed us to reach out to our customers, build trust, provide support, and make sure their business continuity wasn't affected in any way.
The journey continues
We love organizing events, and the sense of satisfaction we gain upon their successful completion is unmatched. As of now, we're successfully hosting at least two online events each week across time zones, and we're only going to get better.
In addition to helping our own company transition to the virtual event space, Zoho apps have also helped plenty of organizations and businesses around the world drive virtual events while staying safely at home.
Our goal is to extend support and encouragement to every member of our Zoho Community. Like everyone, we hope this crisis will end soon, and we'll be able to meet you in person. However, we realize now that virtual events can bring us closer to you, so even when we can return to some version of normalcy, we're going to keep hosting virtual events along with our in-person ones. Until then, let's maintain social distance and stay connected!
Curious about our events? Check out our events web page and never miss an update.
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