Webcasting a conference successfully
Webcasting a conference often causes all sorts of problems because conference organizers do not know what to expect, primarily due to lack of experience webcasting.
The biggest obstacle is working out how many people are going to watch the webcast.
We are often told that there are tens of thousands of members of a professional body who could potentially watch the webcast, which naturally leads to a potentially massive cost, which in reality is way off the mark. In reality about 0.5% of the people who receive information about a webcast might tune in for a brief period of time, and certainly not 100% for every hour of the conference! So what should you be doing to make your conference webcast a success?
The questions that you should first be asking are:
How do you work out how big a conference venue to use?
For a professional body with 10,000 members it is unlikely that you will hold a conference in a 10,000 capacity auditorium. Normally you will request that delegates register in advance so that you know how many people to cater for. If a venue has been pre booked you may limit the number of people who can attend, or if you get an unexpected response you can sometimes change the venue to a larger or smaller facility as necessary.
There is no reason why you cannot do this for a webcast, and it is actually easier allowing people to register on-line.
By knowing how many people are registered for your webcast you can significantly reduce the cost of the webcast. It is like booking the “right sized room” as opposed to a “massive auditorium”.
How much are you going to charge?
Most people charge delegates for attending a conference, so why not charge for the webcast? The cost per head for running a reasonable sized webcast is currently in the region of £1 GBP per hr. Compared to attending a conference which may cost several hundred pounds a day this is insignificant and probably amounts to less than the catering costs! By charging for your webcast, users are forced to register, and by virtue of the users paying, you do not get an expensive bill. For a popular conference you could easily profit from it!
Why should people watch the webcast?
Like a conference, you have got to sell a webcast to delegates - they will not just turn up. You must promote the webcast, remind people when it is, who the speakers are, and what they are going to get out of watching. If people do not know when it is, or what is in it for them, there is no way they are going to “turn up” to watch it. Make sure you remind them again the day before!
Who will watch the webcast?
The most likely people who will watch a conference webcast are people who would like to go to the conference, but for some reason or other cannot make it:
People who are too far away:
Overseas delegates can save a significant amount of money and time by watching a webcast instead of attending in person. Remember that they are in a different time zone though, so it might be worth doing a simulated live webcast (that is playing a pre-recorded video as if it were live), or providing on-demand videos after the event.
People who have other commitments:
For people who have other commitments the day of the conference, providing on-demand videos for them to watch at a later date are very useful.
People who only want to watch specific parts of the conference:
Often conferences have multiple speakers talking about different topics. If there is only one speech that you want to listen to you may not want to go to a full days conference, but if you can watch that on a webcast it is much more appealing. Make sure that the conference schedule is clearly stated on your website next to the link to the webcast(s).
People who want to ask questions:
When you go to a conference, you are able to ask questions. Likewise when you watch a webcast this facility would be useful. It is easy to provide an email address of a speaker for viewers to contact and receive a reply later on, or if planned carefully with a moderator can be turned into a fully interactive webcast.
People who were at the conference:
If you provide an archive of the conference then attendees of the conference can r-watch any material that was highly relevant to them, and also pass this on to colleagues who would benefit from that material themselves.
These are just some of the questions to ask which will help you work out what to expect. The people who run successful conference webcasts are those who run successful conferences and proactively moved their strategy over to the web as opposed to making wild guesses and hoping that people will just turn up!
Add comment August 11th, 2005