Since suffering a tiny blow at the beginning of the COVID induced 2020 lockdown, the higher-education sector has since witnessed a significant boom over the past year.
It has largely been driven by the introduction of high-end, new-age ed-tech tools that have made the task of global, virtual teaching easier for both educators & students.
From the rise of innovative & creative, technologically-driven teaching methods, to high-quality, end-to-end virtual classrooms that have made attending virtual classes a piece of cake for students all around the world, the world of education technology has only grown at a rapid pace.
This upward trend in the domain of ed-tech tools & virtual education has given enough confidence to the stalwarts of the education industry to invest in cutting-edge virtual education fairs.
This confidence has gone up manifold with the information that students interested in studying internationally are quickly beginning to look for available opportunities through virtual education fairs.
This very demand has also led to an increase in awareness & online traction for many regional & global educational institutions.
Virtual Education fairs are also a good way to generate quality leads & engagement through live Q&As, career counseling, roundtable discussions, & one-on-one video conferencing with the concerned authority person from the educational institutions.
This entire ecosystem of information exchange & academic discussions also creates an adequate stage for branding & sponsorship opportunities for agencies looking to plug themselves in the fiasco.
This article will tell you about some of the benefits of hosting virtual education fairs & shows.
Table of Contents
Speeds up the application process:
Hosting a Virtual Education fair on a virtual event platform takes care of streamlining & fast-tracking a lot of the processes associated with the application process in educational institutions.
Smart application tracking tools & information-checking features help educational institutions keep a track of the heaps of applications that come their way, & also lets them streamline the process of background checking & ensuring that the information provided is correct.
In some virtual education fairs, educators also have the option of turning on certain select filters that allows them to get in touch with their choice of students directly & have a one-on-one conversation with them.
Similarly, students can also check out the universities of their choice with the help of these specialized filters.
Attract a considerably higher number of attendees
Virtual Education Fairs also have a higher chance of attracting a higher number of attendees to their educational fairs. Since these fairs take place over a virtual platform, it’s easier for students to get into these, than it would be for them to with a physical, in-person educational fair.
Since event organizers can easily attract more students to their virtual education fairs by spending a lot less amount of money than would have spent on a physical, in-person educational fair, they can concentrate on the more important aspects of the virtual education fair.
The resources with all the money saved with the educational fair going virtual can easily be put into making the virtual educational fair more engaging & immersive for the students attending it from all across the world.
By virtually hosting an educational fair, educators also have the chance of attracting a global audience to their fair, which in turn helps increase their global reach & awareness.
Simpler, quicker exchange of information
Virtual educational fairs inherently don’t have the added burden of physical accommodation & the various challenges that ensue with hosting a large-scale physical education fair with thousands & lakhs of students. This allows them to have a greater level of adaptability & flexibility when it comes to allowing super-quick, simple, & direct exchange of information between the educators & the students via downloadable e-brochures, institute information booklets, information about the courses, & more.
Without the additional stress of red tape & other administrative blockages, virtual educational fairs have better chances of engaging their students with the best possible exchange of valuable information through the educational fair.
More Branding opportunities for the university & its partners
Giving students a glimpse of the university culture & environment is a huge part of any education fair. This task can easily be accomplished by setting up virtual booths & stalls inside the virtual premises to allow students to get an idea of their prospective university life.
In fact, with the sheer number of students attending a virtual education fair, the branding & partner sponsorship opportunities for a university & its partners will be infinitely more.
This fact allows educators to get increased awareness & outreach for their universities & specific courses, leading to increased revenue & sponsor satisfaction.
More choice & freedom for the students
To attend a virtual educational fair session, a student simply has to click on it to be admitted. This fact allows students to have a greater amount of freedom & choice when it comes to selecting the kind of counseling & educational sessions they wish to attend. Since they don’t have to wait around for the current session to end before moving on to the next one, it gives them greater freedom & choice to navigate the entire virtual educational fair more purposefully. All they have to do is simply view the roster of all the sessions going on in the virtual educational fair, read some brief information about the sessions, & click on the one they wish to enter.
In this way, virtual educational fairs give infinitely more choice & freedom to students.
Increased lead generation
In a virtual educational fair, unlike physical, in-person ones, every student or parent that attends the fair is a lead. Virtual educational fairs are highly specific & personalized in their recommendations & the kind of people that would attend. This makes every person that attends the virtual educational fair a person of interest for your college or university.
You can easily follow them around the virtual education fair to see if they can relate well to the courses being offered, or if their interests are being matched.
Since virtual education fairs attract a significantly larger audience than physical, in-person education fairs, the sheer amount of leads generated is also higher with those.
All of this leads to an increased lead generation metric for you.
Better quality of leads
Along with giving you a higher number of leads, virtual education fairs also give you the benefit of attracting more qualified leads. Those are leads that are guaranteed to lead to business & ROIs.
Backpedalling to the point laid before, since virtual education fairs inherently attract more visitors to your booth or stall, they also have a larger chance of giving you higher conversions & returns on those visits.
As most of these visitors will already be seriously looking for a good college or university of their choice to attend, brands & booths can easily utilize this opportunity to attract these serious-minded visitors to their courses & educational offerings.
The highly selective and personalized nature of these educational fairs implies that you will only be entertaining & providing your services to serious-minded individuals that are only interested in getting admission to the university or college of their choice.
Easy tracking of attendee engagement & digital footprints
Virtual educational fairs allow exhibitors to keep track of their attendees & all of the activities they are doing in the virtual event. This helps them get a better idea of what they like & where in the event they spent the most time at.
This information helps you better understand your audience behavior & formulate real-time engagement strategies based on the results. You can also use this to your advantage by employing engaging sales & conversion tactics in the specific areas of the virtual education fair which are working better than the rest.
There are many ways to get the most out of a virtual education fair. With the world pivoting towards virtual slowly & surely, there are only going to be more points added to this list of benefits.
Keep watching this space for more informative discussions & blog posts about the latest happenings in the world of virtual event technology.
