Constellation ShortList™ Virtual Events: Conferences & Experiential Events

About This Constellation ShortList™

More than any time period, the pandemic and post-pandemic world has pushed and challenged webinar platforms, turning them from “mass broadcast” video and audio “presentation” platforms of old into highly interactive, scalable, dynamic multimedia experiences that allow audiences to engage with speakers and with each other. They became the primary channel of connection.

We businesses re-enter the realmof live events, webinars have once again shifted in focus, but the importance of these virtual events has not diminished: they are still a critical. The pandemic taught organizations that webinar (or webcasting) tools were central to sales, support and marketing initiatives, but also took on new importance as education, collaboration and HR on-boarding solutions. For any team looking to engage directly with an audience, webinars became core to basic engagement when gathers was not possible.

Users are looking for secure, flexible, scalable and customizable interfaces and consoles that deliver connection and interaction between speakers and audience while maintaining focus and attention on speakers and their content. Increasingly the capacity for live interaction via messaging, open chat and innovative networking with “break out” environments that enable more one-on-one conversation as sidebar to primary discussion is what buyer’s demand today. Webinar tool buyers are also looking for connectors and integrations that better connect webinar demand generation and engagement activities with larger, more holistic data, personalization and journey orchestration strategies.

Threshold Criteria

Constellation considers the following criteria for these solutions:

• Capacity to host live audio (audio and slide/content), play video and prerecorded sessions
• Registration with flexible form fields for lead capture, including organizing an event series
• Customized branding and console configuration
• Quick, stable, reliable connectivity with toll-free, international calling and access
• Multihost, scalable speaker and producer interface
• Pre- and post-event communications, alerts, calendar invitations and reminders
• Multibrowser responsive user experience, installed app for Mac and Windows, native mobile apps
• Live audience engagement tools, polls, voting, chat, comments, screen mark-up, Q&A
• Integration into key engagement systems including social, mobile messaging and marketing automation
• Integration into customer and employee data repositories including CDP, CRM and HCM tools
• Recording and rapid on-demand availability, commerce-ready gateways and monetization
• Integration with digital asset management solutions for rapid video aggregation and editing capabilities
• Security, role-based access and authorization, customer viewer controls
• Analytics and robust reporting, viewers (live vs. on-demand), attention, downloads
• Support, training and community for customers
• Accessibility features, including real-time voice transcription and translation