When the Covid pandemic hit, Yext transitioned their popular breakfast briefings for clients and prospects to the virtual sphere. But, a year on, Isabel Lowe, Yext’s marketing strategist and event organiser, felt it was time to shake-up her winning virtual event formula.
“It all comes down to differentiation,” she explains. “For our Back2Biz breakfast briefing in April we chose a visual style of communication because we’re aware that, after a year of staring at our screens, people don’t have an endless capacity to sit on webinars.
"We really need to keep innovating to engage people. And having Scriberia there to provide a visual aid and keep the audience interested throughout was so valuable.”
Kicking off the session was Mike Coupe, former Group CEO of Sainsbury's and Director of Testing at NHS Test and Trace. Having seen at first-hand the impacts of COVID-19 on British business and business leaders, Mike explained how the last extraordinary year had shaped the way he leads, and shared his top tips for leading through a crisis:
At regular intervals throughout, our scribe, Matt was able to share his work in progress with the virtual audience, allowing them to take in the key insights he’d captured from the session.
Scribing created moments of real impact and engagement, giving everyone a chance to stop and absorb what had just happened. People loved it so much, we'd be foolish not to use Scriberia again.
Isabel Lowe, Yext, Marketing strategist and event organiser
“People were so impressed. I was most impressed with the quality of Matt’s work - and to see the whole piece coming together in real-time was mind-blowing. I have no idea how he was able to produce something so polished; or how he was able to do it in such a short amount of time. It created moments of real impact and engagement, giving everyone a chance to stop and absorb what had just happened.”
After the event, Isabel used Matt’s scribing in her follow-up communications, on blog posts and on social media.
She also sent Matt’s scribing, along with a recording of the webinar, to contacts who were unable to attend.
“Not everyone will want to spend half an hour watching the recording,” she says. “But the scribing is such a nice thing to provide to our customers - and anyone else - who wants to absorb the information in a more interesting and digestible format.”
We intend to bring scribing to our future events, whether they’re live, hybrid or virtual.
As Covid-related restrictions begin to lift, Isabel foresees a shift away from virtual events and towards hybrid that will allow for both face-to-face and remote participation.
She says: “It’s certainly been a very interesting year, having to rapidly change everything we do. We have been forced to innovate and the great thing about that is that we've tried new things - like scribing - that we would never have thought of doing in other circumstances, but which we now intend to bring to our future events, whether they’re live, hybrid or virtual.
“People loved it so much - we would be foolish not to use Scriberia again. I’ve had so many people asking for Scriberia’s contact details after the event, I’m sure you’ve been bombarded with calls!
“From start to finish, Scriberia gave us a really great experience. Your team got to the bottom of what we needed. You took on board our brand guidelines, which are very important to us, and understood exactly what we wanted it to look like. You were straightforward, flexible and a pleasure to work with. Thank you!”