The RootsTech conference is the largest genealogy conference in the world. For the first 10 years, the conference was held in Salt Lake City, UT as an in-person conference with only 40k attendees. When the pandemic hit, the challenge was how to take an in-person conference, make it virtual and expand the global footprint of the business.

As head of marketing for the event, I used three specific strategies to grow the event, both for the 2021 and 2022 virtual events.

1. Localize, don't translate - Creating and promoting content in language that was relevant to the specific area of the world had a tremendous impact on engagement. In short, we gave people online event experiences (videos, really) that were promoted to them in their language and in channels they frequented.
2. Highlight the fancy stuff - We had several guest speakers including Matthew Modine from Netflix's Stranger Things. We put together a whole campaign about how family history can be strange, but also wonderful.
3. Value, value, value - Every few days, we would send an email to our list with some new activity, video, fun fact or whatever to keep them engaged. We tried to make all the stuff before the 3-day conference feel like you were actually at the conference. It really helped to get people excited.