If you’re here, you know getting people to show up to your event is more than half the battle. But once you’ve got them there, your focus immediately switches to the next challenge — getting them to stay inside your event.

At Goldcast, our research has revealed an average webinar engagement score of 4.9 out of 10. As a baseline, that’s actually not bad, but it does signal room for improvement.

So how can you keep your digital event attendees active and engaged for longer?

It all comes down to your ability to craft an experience. And there’s a lot more that goes into it than just throwing content out there and asking people to watch it.

Every event, no matter the scale, is a brand moment. These five engagement features are an excellent place to start if you’re ready to keep your attendees active while staying mindful of the memory you’re creating.

Looking for a deeper dive into boosting your digital event engagement? Watch this 30-minute crash course on how we tackle engagement during our own Goldcast events ⤵

✨ Psst:You can unlock all of our Webinar Week content on-demand here

In the fast-paced world of digital events, you can’t rely on pixelated powerpoints and a one-way chat to keep attendees in their seats.

Expectations are different now. The bar is much higher. When an organizer cuts corners on event features and format, attendees can immediately sniff that out.

According to the 2023 Attendee Sentiment Report, 72% of attendees believe it’s the technology that makes a virtual event excellent.

And not all event tech is created equal. Let’s take a closer look at the tools you’ll need to level-up your engagement.

76% of webinars have an open chat

Having a live chat at your digital event is critical—it’s table stakes.Because with 90% of attendees citing networking as the top reason they enjoy in-person events, facilitating those opportunities in a digital setting has to be high on the priority list.

But not all chats bring the networking features modern attendees expect.

With live chat positioned front and center in the app where it belongs, Goldcast helps you leverage the full benefits a highly engaging chat can offer — including the ability to say a lot with a little via animated gifs and emojis, and session-level chats for deeper networking at multi-session events.

✅ Why it works:

• Live chats are a great way to keep a finger on the pulse of your audience’s likes, wants, and needs
• Chat data is an excellent source of post-event attendee insights
• It’s a cost-free way to invite warm leads to approach you (and vice versa)

💡 Elevate the engagement:

• Go beyond session chats with peer-to-peer messaging for targeted networking
• Enable video Q&A to foster two-way conversations
• Encourage attendees to have fun with animated gifs and emojis
• Enable session-level chats during multi-session events

Sometimes you might see people not using the chat function, but that’s only because they don’t know how to behave. So teach them! Tell them what you want them to do — drop in their notes, use it for questions. This gives them a better sense of how to engage.” — Amanda Natividad, VP Marketing, SparkToro

60% of webinars offer at least one poll

You’d be forgiven for thinking that polls have been done to death. But believe it or not, the data shows that polls remain a fan favorite for 39% of attendees.

Polls are crowd-pleasers because they allow attendees of all personalities — from your extroverts to your introverts and everyone in between — the chance to voice their opinion in real-time, sharing votes based on their own experience or even shaping the direction speakers take in their individual sessions.

✅ Why it works:

• You can tailor the conversation to meet the needs of attendees in real-time
• Attendees feel more comfortable participating
• Polls provide valuable data to use in event follow-ups and future planning

💡 Elevate the engagement:

• Kick off your event with a poll to set an interactive tone from the start
• Use icebreaker questions to show attendees how easy it is: What’s your biggest goal for this year?
• Prep speakers on how to use polls and encourage them to use them to help guide content discussion.

Goldcast lets you utilize both single option or multi-select polls. In a click of the “Share” button, you can easily share the poll on screen for attendees to click directly on that stage to cast their vote. After the event, you can use your poll data for relevant and timely follow-ups.

60% of webinars have a Q&A

We know — Q&As have done the rounds on the virtual event scene. But when it comes to building engagement, the right event Q&A is still king.

An engaging Q&A helps attendees feel extra connected to speakers and peers by fostering meaningful conversations throughout the event. With video Q&A, you can invite audience members on stage to ask their questions and ask them to share the spotlight with their peers.

✅ Why it works:

• Q&As provide a prime opportunity to reinforce your core messaging or product information
• They offer a window into what attendees want to see from your content
• The right Q&A feature makes it easy to drop in links to products or features that answer the question in more detail

💡 Elevate the engagement:

• Use video Q&A to create an immersive Q&A experience
• Create a separate tab for Q&A, so questions don’t get buried in the chat

Engagement apps are an added bonus for 12% of attendees

12% might not feel like a lot, but we’re pretty sure that if attendees knew exactly what apps were out there, and had the opportunity to utilize them more frequently, that number would skyrocket.

Every time we use embedded apps in our own events at Goldcast, we notice that attendees engage more and stay longer.

With integrated gaming solutions like Drimify and Engamio, twine for creating in-event speed-networking opportunities, and WeBooth or Snapbar for ultra-shareable, branded photo booth content — why would attendees ever want to leave?

✅ Why it works:

• Branded photo booths extend your social reach
• They also make for great brand-recall momentos
• Adding in a multiplayer gaming experience helps folks connect on a non-work level

💡 Elevate the engagement:

• Brand your widgets to give them a bespoke feel
• Utilize embedded apps as part of a larger event gamification concept or format
• Incorporate widgets from other vendors via a simple code snippet

73% of attendees miss visiting exhibitor booths at in-person events

If you’ve nailed your sponsorship selection criteria, engaging with sponsors should be something your attendees actually look forward to.

The same goes for your sales demos. By positioning your reps in a virtual booth that comes up seamlessly after a highly engaging session, you avoid that ‘salesy’ feeling and create a consultative environment attendees can appreciate.

Today, 57% of webinars list documents or resources for attendees to download, so be sure your booths are jam-packed with relevant and valuable resources. In Goldcast, we make it easy.

With naturally placed virtual rooms and booths, you can transform impromptu conversations into meaningful relationships. You can even stage your own dedicated virtual spaces for product demos to provide attendees with the closest virtual equivalent to an in-person experience.

✅ Why it works:

• Presents an organic opportunity for 1:1 conversation
• Gives sponsors an easy way to measure event ROI
• Creates an ideal space for product demos and workshops

💡 Elevate the engagement:

• Use your booths to host videos, add links, and upload resources around a specific theme, topic, or sponsor.
• Give people a dedicated space to access more content about specific topics by providing a resource center alongside your booth

You already know engaged attendees have the highest impact on the business. To get the most out of your event, you’ll want to prioritize and nurture your most engaged attendees immediately after the event.

But first, you need to know what “engaged” means to you.

Within our own event marketing team at Goldcast, we define engagement as an experience where every interaction is a brand moment. From there, we assign a weighting to each of our top five engagement metrics:

1. Time spent
2. Chat
3. Q&A
4. Polls
5. Resource

Of course, everyone’s event strategy will look a little different. Goldcast gives marketers access to a further 16 engagement data points that can feed directly into your existing tech stack — from Hubspot to Marketo, Salesforce, and more.

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Goldcast lets you see all of your engagement analytics during and after an event.

So now, you have a clear roadmap of how your attendees engaged during your event—great! But what the heck do you do with all of this data?

It can be hard to know where to start—but we’ve got you covered. We recommend using engagement data in these three ways to increase your event’s impact.

Each attendee touchpoint is an insight you’ve gained into their needs, wants, and interests.

From which topics they loved vs. liked to the most popular feature requests for your dev team — attendee engagement data can provide deep insights into the best ways to optimize and improve both your event programming and your product offering.

By giving every attendee action a clear engagement weighting, you can pinpoint what stage of the buyer journey an attendee is in and customize your sales outreach accordingly.

With seamless integrations, event data easily feeds into HubSpot and Salesforce for simplified lead scoring and qualification. When the time is right, the sales team has everything they need to hit the ground running.

How folks vote on polls, what they say in the chat, questions asked, and resources downloaded — it all provides powerful context for your sales team to start relevant conversations with event attendees.

Don’t miss an opportunity to make a powerful impression that could ultimately convert into more revenue for the business.

With these five simple features, attendee engagement doesn’t need to require more time, money, or resources.

By simply being intentional about the kind of attendee experience you want to deliver and supporting that vision with a powerful digital event platform to bring it all to life — your attendee engagement rate will be off the charts in no time.