As a professional services firm that sells services through the dissemination of intellectual property we couldn’t just turn off speaking at events. Seminars and events drove close to 40% of our leads so we made the decision to shift almost everything online. Typically, we would do at least 30 plus events a year. In the second half of 2001, we ran 14 web events and 2 live events. It turned out to perfect timing because 9/11 put a nail in the coffin of live events. By the end of the year we were able to double our average attendance and our cost came back down to $100 per attendee plus…we add 700 names to our “opt-in” list.
Fast forward to 2008, we haven’t done a webcast in the last three years. Why? Because the format became overused and the effectiveness of reaching our key audience has been severely limited. Also, business has been good…we didn’t need to.
Yesterday we did our first VODcast and more are planned. Why? Because what is old is new again but this time you can see the presenter. A bad economy means the business slows, pipelines begin to get thin and business development using events is uneconomical…see above. But here’s something else we have noticed, people are going back online looking for free advice that they used to get from “experts” when they had budgets to pay for it.
We also learned during the last down turn that when you use a new technology there is the “novelty” factor. People will tune in just because they’re curious which boost your registration/attendance rate but it doesn’t last long…you have maybe 6-8 months before the novelty wears off.
So I happened to be the lucky guy (if you want to call it that) that got to go first. I found the experience to be very challenging… much harder than doing a live event and/or traditional webcast. Here are a few things I learned from the experience…starting with the basics.
- What is a VODcast – it stands for “video on demand” and it’s a pre-record video that may or may not have other assets integrated into it.
- Shorter is better – the VODcast came in at a little over18 minutes, for a 45 minute presentation I did live at a conference…and it’s still too long. If I had to do it over again, I’d chop it up into 2 minute segments and make it a series…still might.
- Personality/Sizzle – you need it, and I obviously had none. I get energy from the audience…the camera gave me nothing and it shows. Got to work on that, rehearsing into a mirror sounds hokey but I think it will help. Open to suggestions here…
- Color and lighting matter – we used a conference room with bright lights and burnt sienna colored walls…not good. Learned that lesson the hard way.
- Bandwidth matters - depending on the length of the video and the number of viewers you may need to check with the IT folks on the impact on your IT infrastructure. We had to move the video to a host server to handle to the load.
- Communicate the format – because this is a new format you have to explain how it works…a lot. We had calls from folks asking for the dial-in number. Communicate instructions often and on everything (email, registration page, under the event listing on your website, etc.).
All in all, this is the future, so you might as well try it. I’m convinced that it will soon replace traditional web and podcast. Additionally, it provides the viewer with a much better experience…there is no call-in number, no applet to download, it eliminates many of the technical issues of the past. In fact, I’m doing a webcast today for client. I’ve already received three emails asking for the call-in number….it was sent to them days ago. Bring on the Video!
