Well, not yet, but we're getting there.
Earlier this week, my wife Susan and I were guests on a teleseminar hosted by Gina Bell of Networking Masters International. The topic was about lessons learned from putting on a virtual event. It was an interesting "round table" call with two other professionals where we all shared the things we did right and the things we'd do differently. I thought I'd share more about the subject here.
We have experience in this area because we hosted the Self-Publishers Online Conference (SPOC 2009) last May using software I developed for the event. We plan to use that same software to put on other events, including a pet sheltering and rescue conference this Fall and, of course, SPOC 2010 again next May.
Motivations
When we set out to create and organize SPOC 2009, we wanted it to be different from the other telesummits we've seen. We wanted to create an experience for attendees that felt more like a live conference, which is what I mean by "real thing." Most telesummits are really little more than a loose collection of teleseminars that are marketed together over a couple of days or even weeks. Attendees generally have little sense of community, and the seminars can be thinly-disguised sales pitches for whatever service or product the speaker offers.
Our primary goal for the seminars of SPOC 2009 was to provide useful information to people who are looking to self publish a book. We wanted the seminars to offer practical knowledge and advice. We wanted the attendees to walk away with the information and confidence they'd need to push their book projects forward. And all of this for free. If the testimonials we received during and after the event are any indication, we were successful at achieving our goal.
Monetizing and Generating Leads
As generous and altruistic as our primary goal may sound, we naturally needed some way to make all the planning, software development, copy writing, and organizing pay off. We considered charging a registration fee to attend, and we were told we were crazy not to do so by more than one colleague, but we didn't want to turn people away at the door just for a few dollars. Instead, we gave people two additional registration levels that let them opt for added value at additional cost. In the end, I believe we made the correct choice.
The other thing we did to make SPOC 2009 feel more like the real thing was create a virtual Exhibit Hall. Attendees could browse the "booth" pages in the exhibit hall to learn more about products and services related to self-publishing that might interest them. Each booth was essentially a marketing web page for a self-publishing-related resource. I added a Virtual Badge Swipe feature that let attendees click a button on the page to express their interest in learning more. We captured those leads and passed them on to the respective vendors.
Getting Traffic
However, none of these features are worth much if people don't visit the site. Attendees used the web site to register for the conference and sign up for the conference newsletter, but we also wanted them to log in and poke around after registration.
To make the registered "member" area of the site more interesting, we created a virtual conference room section with a dedicated page for each seminar. The page gave an outline for the seminar and provided a speaker bio. If the seminar included a handout, we provided a download link for it. After the seminar was over, a link would appear that let paid attendees download the teleseminar audio file.
The best thing we came up with was integrating Instant Teleseminar with the seminar page. Instant Teleseminar is the conference call system we use. They provide "widgets" you can use on a web page to give listeners the call dial-in information, let attendees listen over the Internet (streaming audio), and allow them to post questions online during the event.
Between the seminar handouts, the streaming audio options, and the question input box, our seminar pages had enough added value to draw attendee traffic.
Upselling
As I mentioned earlier, we gave attendees the choice of three attendance pass options.
- The free Basic Pass let attendees log into the member area of the SPOC web site and listen to the seminars "live." In other words, they had to listen in during the scheduled seminar times.
- The $97 Standard Pass gave attendees the Basic Pass benefits, plus it let them download the seminar audio files. This was a good option for people who were unable to attend the seminars at the scheduled times or who wanted to hear them again later.
- The $297 Premium Pass gave attendees the Standard Pass benefits, but added several bonuses. Our co-sponsor of the event Donna Kozik of Write a Book in a Weekend fame included a free pass to her Write a Book in a Weekend event. Our company Logical Expressions included a license to our IdeaWeaver writing software and a copy of our book Publishize. The first 100 visitors to register for the Premium Pass got sponsor "bling." However, the key element of the Premium Pass was the SPOC 2009 Complete Seminar Series package: a CD package of all the seminars plus a print copy of the conference program.
As you would expect, the vast majority of our attendees chose the Basic Pass option. However, in order to register for the conference, Basic Pass holders had to "activate" their pass by clicking on a link in an email we sent to them. This activation process allowed us to capture verified email address "leads."
Satisfyingly, a little over 8% of our attendees registered for the Standard Pass so they could access the audio downloads. Some of those were from Basic Pass holders who decided to upgrade, but most made the decision up-front. In addition, a little over 4% of our attendees chose the Premium Pass.
A Moment of Lucidity
Just a few weeks before the conference, we had one of our regularly-scheduled business meetings with our co-sponsor Donna. We talked about how we would deal with the conference package we would be sending to Premium Pass holders. As we discussed the options, we realized that the package would effectively be an information product once it was done. There was no reason that we couldn't sell it after the conference as a stand-alone product!
Yes, I know what you're thinking: "Well, duh." That's exactly what we thought as soon as the realization hit.
As a result, we now sell the SPOC 2009 seminars as individual, downloadable audio files, or you can buy the entire seminar series on CD with the printed program, just like our Premium Pass holders received. If you are interested in either of these products, visit the SPOC area of the Logical Expressions Store.
Running the Conference
Susie, Donna, and I were all very excited as the days counted down to the conference. All 15 slots in the conference were filled with recognized leaders in the self publishing industry who had excellent presentations lined up for us. The conference site software came together on-time and our marketing efforts were generating plenty of registrations.
We scheduled the seminars for 1 hour each with an hour break between each one. Donna and Susie switched off on hosting seminars, and I even hosted one myself. For three days, we all basically lived SPOC. In most cases, all three of us listened in on each seminar, backing each other up by answering questions that came in through the site's email contact form or helping generate questions for the speakers during the call. It was a blast.
Our listeners had a great time as well, if the comments they posted and the testimonials we received are any indication. By the time the conference was over, we had many people already asking about SPOC 2010.
Sponsorship Blues
Of course, the entire virtual conference experience wasn't all butterflies and rainbows. Just like everything you try for the first time, expectations don't always match reality, and moments of disappointment are inevitable.
Our biggest disappointment was in the area of sponsorships. We knew that our conference would provide self-publishing vendors access to a highly-qualified audience of prospects. As self publishing service providers ourselves, this very fact was a primary motivator for why we created SPOC in the first place. What we didn't anticipate was how critical the timing can be for getting outside participation. It wasn't like no one was interested. We got plenty of interest, but we just didn't allow enough lead time. Vendors either couldn't respond in time for the conference or their budgets had already been allocated to other events for the year. Several expressed an interest in participating in SPOC 2010, and you can bet we'll be making arrangements with them as early as possible.
Our efforts to get sponsors exposed another difference between live conferences and virtual conferences: budgeting. One of the main benefits of a virtual conference is the fact that it is virtual. For a vendor to exhibit at a live conference requires a tremendous amount of logistics and expense to get the right people over to the conference venue with the marketing materials they need. Budgeting for these events is often a big deal that is planned months in advance. Exhibiting at SPOC was as easy as creating a web page, and even the higher-priced sponsorship options were only about the cost of a typical newspaper or magazine advertisement. When we said "exhibit at our conference," vendors had a very different expectation than if we had said "advertise on our conference web site."
We were afraid the exhibit hall was going to look pretty thin, so in the last week before the conference, we gave our speakers the unexpected benefit of a free exhibit hall page. Several of our speakers came through with content, and every one of them got leads from it.
So, lesson learned: next year we'll plan farther ahead and do better.
Surprising Take-Away
Our biggest snafu during the event also turned out to be one of our best discoveries.
It all started when one of our speakers didn't show up for her call. Susan stalled while we tried to get in contact with the speaker or her staff, only to discover that her staff was concerned by her disappearance as well. It turned out that the speaker had an emergency and was out of contact for a while, but she was fine and we scheduled the call for a later date. Here's another advantage of a virtual event: you can hold one of the seminars after the event is technically over and still invite all the attendees.
Meanwhile, Susie was stuck stalling an audience of listeners who wanted to hear about publishing. Well, as they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!
Donna and I jumped onto the call and the three of us held an impromptu Q&A session. We told our listeners to ask ANYTHING they wanted to know about self publishing, and they rose to the challenge. The call turned out to be one of the most well-attended of the conference and we got wonderful feedback from it. Consequently, an open Q&A call is going to be a standard fixture in the SPOC seminar line-up.
Email Annoyances
Email communication is always a problem area, and SPOC had its share of issues. Between aggressive spam filtering, mis-typed addresses, and intentionally invalid input, between 25% and 30% of our registrations never activated themselves. That percentage sounds terrible, but it is actually quite consistent with typical email newsletter subscriptions and other email-driven enrollments. In fact, our figures were right in line with what AWeber reports on their site.
In many cases, attendees contacted us through our contact form to let us know they had a problem. I was able to get our activation rate up to 82.5 percent by manually activating the people who bothered to ask for help. Fortunately, we anticipated having these problems and solutions were already built into the web site software.
The other issue we encountered was confusion between registering for the conference and subscribing to the conference newsletter. We wanted to keep these lists separate so people could control their subscription to the SPOC newsletter, which would endure from year to year, independently from their registration for the 2009 conference. However, the newsletter list was done through AWeber, and the registration activation was done through the SPOC site software, so visitors who signed up for both had to click through two separate activations. Naturally, we had some people who signed up for the newsletter thinking they had registered for the conference. For 2010, we're going to figure out a better way to deal with this issue.
A Sense of Community
One of our goals for SPOC was to go beyond the typical telesummit and try to generate some of the excitement and camaraderie one gets from the "crowd effect" at a live event. We succeeded in that to a very small extent by leaving the lines open for introductions and comments for a few minutes before the seminar, and by giving attendees access to a question input box so their questions could be integrated into the seminar itself.
What we really wanted was a way for attendees to connect with each other. We simply didn't have enough time to integrate social networking features into the site software before the conference (along with all the security issues that entails), and we didn't want to require people to sign up for some third-party tool like NING.
We aren't entirely sure what form it will take, but SPOC 2010 will definitely include more interactivity for attendees. Replicating the crowd effect of a live conference may be difficult in a virtual event, but to whatever degree we succeed at doing so, we have the advantage that our efforts can endure beyond the few days of the actual event.
An Economical Alternative
The high cost of air travel, lodging, and registration for exhibiting, speaking, or even attending at a live event is becoming a big problem for organizations during these uncertain economic times. Virtual events may not yet be ready to completely replace live events, but they certainly offer an economical alternative.
I believe that over time, online conferencing tools will improve, and live conferences will evolve into niche workshops and other gatherings that absolutely require a hands-on experience. I'm proud to be one of the participants in that transition.
Physical mobility may have helped make our country what it is today, but virtual mobility will define what it looks like tomorrow.