Virtual event budget The template is free and includes a guide

Additionally Event planners must contend with rapidly-evolving expectations: they must compete for attention spans, while working on ever-eroding budgets. Also, they must prove the return on investment (ROI) of the events they host, and are generally expected to generate an engagement level similar to that like you'd experience at the event in person.

Below, we'll cover the steps to budget the virtual event you're planning, which lines you should eliminate out of your spreadsheet, and how to measure the success of the event to help you get larger budget for your following one!

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In this article

1.    The reason you should have an budget for events (especially for virtual and hybrid occasions)
2.    Cost of hosting the virtual event
3.    Cost breakdown for virtual occasions
4.    What are you required for an effective virtual event
5.    What is the best way to gauge the impact of your virtual event
6.    Add human touchpoints to make your virtual event appear real
7.    FAQs on budgeting an event that is virtual
8.    Time to get started with event planning

The reasons you should have an estimated budget (especially in hybrid and virtual occasions)

Virtual events can be far cheaper to organize than traditional gatherings. There's also no requirement to hire chairs or space at an event and printing equipment. You can also sort arrangements, or put out platters of charcuterie.

But, establishing a budget can help you take a strategic approach to the event that you're planning online -- from how to reduce costs, to discovering ways to increase sponsorship opportunities and cash flow.

When you budget for your event prior to the date, you can decide which line items are mission essential, and which ones can be slashed, and where it is possible to come up with a new way of surprising and delighting attendees.

Average cost of hosting a virtual event

The average cost of hosting an online event is contingent on a number of factors such as the length of the event and the people who will be speaking and the number of attendees.

In the following post, we'll go over the costs of hosting a virtual event, to help you better assess the expense for hosting your own event. For now, let's look at what you can anticipate to pay for hosting an event online:

• In the case of a webinar that is shorter, and has as many as 500 people You can anticipate paying between $2000 and $10,000.
• If you are planning a one-day virtual conference that includes presentations and virtual breakout rooms, anticipate expenses to be between to $4,000 to $25,000.
• If you are planning a virtual conference that lasts for a long time with multiple sessions, breakout rooms, discussions, as well as recorded material, you can expect to shell out between $50 and $150,000.

As you can tell, that's a pretty significant spread.

Let's dig into the different line items to consider when budgeting for your virtual event so you can estimate costs more accurately.

Cost breakdown of virtual events

Cost breakdown examples for planning virtual events

What you need to pull off a successful virtual event

It is technically possible to conduct a virtual gathering with little less than an online space for meetings along with a camera a microphone. But, if you're trying to create a smooth, efficient virtual experience, there are some expenses may be worth spending money on.

Gear

It doesn't take too much technology to make your online speakers appear polished and professionalHowever, it will take some.

Instead, set presenters prior to the time by completing these:

• Microphones that ensure your viewers can be heard each phrase ( prices start at $40)
• Crisp video cameras ( prices start at $24)
• Ring lights are used to regulate any poor lighting ( prices start at $30)
• In case you need to, use green screens ( prices start at $18)

If you're running an event that is more limited in budget it's possible to skip certain of the above items Just make sure you're checking the your speakers' existing setups ahead of time and instructing their staff on ways to maximize the lighting they use and their volume of background sound during the event.

Learn more about gear

Virtual event hosting software

It is possible to think of the event hosting software as the online venue which your event will take place. Similar to physical venues, different platforms offer you many different options.

According to Markletic Here's the amount you can expect to pay for the virtual event platform per month:

• Between $50-$250 to host small virtual conferences with up to 100 attendees for each.
• Between $600 and $8,000, you can organize larger virtual events, with between 500 and 2,500 people.
• Between $25,000 and $40,000 to organize larger gatherings with more than 3000 attendees.

Most virtual event platforms will cost per user and charge different pricing tiers according to your specific requirements for your virtual event. (Think the number of guests or marketing and promotion options and security measures, for instance.)

Be aware of what functions your event platform provides you with. While some platforms may seem, at a superficial at a glance -- appear more expensive than others however, they might have additional features that make them more affordable over the long term.

Other software is also required.

If you select an option that does not offer these functions but you must ensure you have included the following expenses within your budget to cover the following:

• Landing page hostingstarting at $39/month for a landing page with an individual domain. Enterprise plans for organizations hosting multiple large-scale events, may cost you up to $469/month.
• Forms for registration to events: free for free event, however, you'll need to pay the ticketing fee (for instance, $0.99 and 2% of the ticket price) per ticket or the monthly fee starts from $39.90 per month.
• Software for managing emails: starting at $3 per month to send 500 emails per month. Premium and Enterprise plans typically cost between $36 - 150 for each user, per month.
• software for engagement of audiences starting from $ 8 per month for audiences of between 50 and. The pricing for Enterprise plans can range from $199/month all the way to 1,000 per month.

Speakers

Since virtual events require much less travel time and effort than traditional events, the majority of keynote speakers are charged around half of their in-person cost for virtual events. What exactly a speaker will charge you however, is likely to depend on their experience and their popularity.

According to Big Speak You can anticipate to be charged:

• A range of $2,500-$5,000 for an expert who is relatively new within the field
• $7,500 to $10,000 for an established keynote speaker
• A $10,000-$30,000 price range for a thought-leader who has a large following or published books
• From $20,000 to $75,000 for famous people
• $100,000 to $200,000 for well-known stars

Content

If you're recording any type of content for the occasion, it's important include production costs in the budget.

If you want to record at a studio, anticipate you to shell out anywhere from 375-$500 an hour to record. If you're recording remotely it's likely to cost less by $125-$200 an hour.

Whatever way you go, warns Zephan Blaxberg, the CEO of ZMBMedia, a video production company. ZMBMedia, expect your production costs to triple than what you'd initially expected. When it comes to editing post-production plan for $100 to $200 an hour.

"Keep your mind on a 1:13 ratio of pre-event recordings: for every minute of recording, you will receive approximately three times as much time being billed. While your host may be speaking for a mere 60 minutes, your livestream engineer is expected to arrive one hour earlier to prepare the studio and begin preparing. They'll also stay until at the least 1 hour after the recording is completed, to save the footage, and then begin editing process."

Advertising and marketing

You can ask you (and members of your group! ):

• How long the marketing team of our company will devote to this event?
• What can we do to promote this event to potential attendees?
• Will we spend money on social media promotion?
• What is our marketing email going to take on?
• We will work with influential people to get the word out regarding the special event?
• What kind of post-event marketing will look like?

Remember that advertising and marketing are among the biggest expenses when hosting a virtual occasion.

"The biggest spend we have is for advertising as well as the thought leaders/experts we bring to speak at our events," says Miles DePaul, Director of Demand Generation at Superside. "This is the point where the value of the Superside brand is realized. Once people get more acquainted with our brand, and gain knowledge from our content, our participation improves, and the event budget may begin to shrink. We save on advertising since the cost per click decreases with better brand awareness, and more organic promotion pays off. We can save money on speakers due to the fact that great speakers would like to partner with us or will offer discounts."

Once you've come up with an idea, you'll be able to see where you can use your current resources (such as your marketing team and existing email marketing software) or which areas you'll have to invest more (for instance, on collaborations with influencers or landing page hosting).

Gifts or swag

• A branded notepad that allows note-taking ( $4.66)
• Custom socks ( $9.78)
• A custom tote bag ($3.99)
• A plain mailer bag ($0.87)

Shipping costs can vary based on attendee location The materials inside the bags are priced at $19.30, or just under $20.

Partners or sponsors

It is a good area where you can deduct the costs of the budget for your virtual event. (We are always interested to hear about it.)

Opportunities for sponsorship may be different for virtual events than they would be for events that take place in person, but they absolutely exist. In the days leading up to your event, sponsors can be featured on all of your pre-event marketing like your event's landing page as well as social media updates, company newsletter, and reminder emails. It is also possible to send attendees emails detailing any special offers from partners or sponsors.

At the time of the occasion, you may display the logo of your sponsor on slides, run sponsored polls for them or host a panel discussion with your sponsors, or feature their short-form videos. If they'd like to send items from their sponsors to the attendees and attendees, they could be included inside your swag bags.

Finally, don't forget to feature sponsors on your post-event material which includes on-demand video as well as post-event emails, social media posts, and short video clips. In this way, you're giving benefit to your sponsors because they will continue to get broadcast time even after the event has been concluded.

Event information and resources

How to measure the success of your virtual event?

You're probably aware that there are many expenses involved in hosting an amazing online event. To prove the ROI of your event , and ensure the funding needed for future events, it's crucial to keep track of and demonstrate the effectiveness of the event.

A few metrics you might consider tracking include:

• Awareness of brand is measured by event registrations, website traffic events, impressions of the event, and social media engagements.
• Customers and leads generated are tracked by event sign-ups, responses to event surveys, and any actions taken by the new leads (such such as launching a free trial).
• Educational value for the user: measured through the number of sessions with guests as well as the degree of engagement in discussions, Q&As, and chats.

"Our strategies for events are at its best when it delivers benefits across the entire funnel and influencing customers to be aware of their problems as well as to drive more meetings with sales, and eventually revenues," states DePaul.

He continues:

"The key metrics we examine in relation to every event, whether it's virtual or live, are (1) the total amount of people who register from our ideal customer profile (ICP), (2) the number of people who attended of our ICP, (3) opportunities created from accounts after engagement during an event, and (4) revenue generated from accounts with engagement at an occasion.
 
  Certain down funnel metrics, like design subscriptions won, often will take a while, and this will just be just one aspect of an ROI calculation. The most reliable indicator would be whether we can bring attendees back to our website, consume more content, and take the bottom-of-funnel actions such as visiting our pricing pages or asking for a demo."

Add human touchpoints to make your virtual event seem IRL

If you're hosting the event via a computer, it can be difficult to remember that actual attendees are seated behind screens, making it easy for guests to lose focus or be lost in.

DePaul and Superside and the Superside team are aware of the significance of thoughtful, even personalized components when they design their events online. "Throughout this whole process We are constantly trying to add a human touch through things like direct mail, gifting or user-generated content or video," he says.

Here are a few ways to help your audience be more engaged with the program, the other attendees, and your speakers:

• Make use of tools to engage your audience- like a online chat or interactive survey and sections for Q&A -- to make sure the event has an open dialogue, rather than an unison monologue.
• Invite attendees to meet and have a chat in the breakout rooms. Also, create a LinkedIn group so attendees are able to connect with one another following the event. This can add a social element (and extra value!) to the virtual event.
• Distribute swag bags as well as use giveaways to encourage participation. Small things like this can create excitement for attendees and keep' energy up all through the day.

DePaul's continues:

"For instance, our biggest Summit of 2022, Momentum Summit was heavily promoted with short selfie videos from our speakers, which we utilized in our ads as well as personalized one-to-one emails. If visitors visit the landing page there will be videos of the speakers and from our team talking through the questions we'd like to talk about at the conference instead of an unchanging landing page with lots of text.

We invite a few of our VIP attendees to join us and invite their colleagues by providing snacks in boxes, or offer for lunch to them at the time of the event. At the event itself the focus is on peer-to peer connections by engaging in a discussion chatroom, roundtables for executives with smaller groups or inviting them into our Superside Communities, where conversations continue long after the event."

FAQs about budgeting for virtual events.

Do you have lingering questions concerning budgeting the next virtual event? We'll answer a few commonly requested questions. We'll also direct you for additional resources that can help you plan your event.

What's the average budget for a virtual conference?

According to Statista the survey found that 34% of marketers claim they spend between $500-$1,000 per participant on the internet for a virtual occasion.

What is the budget you can use for an online event?

How does hosting virtual events make money?

What are the most important things to look for in a virtual events platform?

Time to get event planning

The process of planning a virtual event can be plenty of work -- but it also offers unique opportunities to grow your reach, collaborate with creative sponsors and speakers as well as delight guests. Apart from hosting, the platform lets you create a stunning website, create the sending of reminder emails for your event, interact with your audience, integrate with your own marketing software as well as analyze event post-event analytics.