Relationship marketing firm Carlson Marketing has teamed up with virtual event provider Unisfair in order to create a "Virtual Engagement Suite" that gives Fortune 1000 companies a way to virtually engage customers, employees and channel partners in e-learning, meetings, events, trade shows and conferences.

Introduced this month, Carlson's Virtual Engagement Suite incorporates several technologies—including webinars, video broadcasting, presentation and media sharing, virtual microworlds, and mobile and social media—in order to help companies engage in activities such as strategic planning, content development, audience communications, sponsorship acquisition, end-to-end project management and production, and more.

"What we've done is applied our engagement capabilities in an online setting," Fay Beauchine, Carlson's president of engagement and events, said in a statement. "New technology allows us to extend our expertise into new arenas, cutting across time and space, helping our clients expand the impact of their critical event strategy. Virtual will never replace face-to-face interaction for building stronger relationships and changing behavior, but can be very valuable in extending and supplementing experiences."

Powered by Unisfair, Carlson's Virtual Engagement Suite includes virtual rooms that meeting attendees can "visit" in order to watch presentations, participate in Q&A sessions, collect collateral materials, interact with sales reps and network with peers.

"Some virtual tools have been around a long time," Beauchine said. "Webinars, live chats, e-learning; we've been doing those for years, although it's always interesting to couple them with new technology and new approaches. The newest virtual, social media and mobile engagement tools get participants engaged sooner and longer. And our latest venture, virtual meetings and events, allows participants to go to 'rooms' online and interact with other 'people.' We're excited about the unique concepts we're developing by leveraging virtual tools to extend the life of our live events." This page is protected by Copyright laws. Do Not Copy