If You Build a Virtual Event, Will They Come? If They Come, Will They Stay?
Streamlogics is a webcast service provider that has just announced a partnership with Unisfair to provide bundled solutions for virtual event production. “We're integrating our webcast platform with their virtual event environment,” says Shaun McIver, CEO of Streamlogics. “People can still have the Streamlogics experience, but with a user-rich virtual environment.”
The partnership allows Streamlogics to concentrate on helping clients maximize the business end of a virtual event.
“So rather than just outsourcing a webcast to us, where we really can't affect the business outcome for the customer,” says McIver, “we can now help them achieve the things that most of them are looking for, ranging from audience recruitment to analytics.”
Audience recruitment can be tricky. There are two parts -- getting people to sign up; then getting people to show up. McIver says clients mistakenly assume that most of those who preregister will attend an event. "Guess what? Probably 20 to 30 percent will show up," he says. Streamlogics has found simple solutions, like targeted email and calling reminders, can more than double the percentage of attendees.
Audience recruitment goes beyond registration and attendance. After you get them in, they need to stay a while. If the content is not compelling, their view time is dramatically shortened. “Infotainment,” McIver says. “It has to be engaging.” Streamlogics provides content support, which can range from scriptwriting to speaker coaching, because it is such a critical element.
And part of engagement is knowing when to stop. Especially if the content is not live. “The on-demand content shouldn’t be any more than 10 to 20 minutes long,” McIver says. “We’ve delivered thousands of webcasts and you can see the view time is dramatically different on live versus on-demand.”
On the sophisticated side, Streamlogics analyzes data to calculate Return on Investment (ROI) that can be applied in several areas, from registration to lead conversion. "We have smart codes that we attach to webcast registration pages so we can determine where the lead source or registration source was," says McIver. Rather than just determining the ratio of the amount spent for an event to the number of leads generated, Streamlogics breaks it down. The smart codes might, for example, show that 80 percent of the registrants come from a banner ad campaign but only 10 percent convert to leads; while a small percentage of registrants that come from the client's internal database convert almost entirely to leads.
McIver stresses that a virtual event is an investment. If it’s treated like a one-off and the cost of the webcast dramatically exceeds the amount spent on audience development, there's a problem. "I've got some customers who spend up to $100,000 promoting one single event," he says. "The need to understand where you're investing that kind of capital is quite substantial. We can apply the technology to provide the analytics so that we can figure out what's working and what's not," says McIver.
The partnership allows Streamlogics to concentrate on helping clients maximize the business end of a virtual event.
“So rather than just outsourcing a webcast to us, where we really can't affect the business outcome for the customer,” says McIver, “we can now help them achieve the things that most of them are looking for, ranging from audience recruitment to analytics.”
Audience recruitment can be tricky. There are two parts -- getting people to sign up; then getting people to show up. McIver says clients mistakenly assume that most of those who preregister will attend an event. "Guess what? Probably 20 to 30 percent will show up," he says. Streamlogics has found simple solutions, like targeted email and calling reminders, can more than double the percentage of attendees.
Audience recruitment goes beyond registration and attendance. After you get them in, they need to stay a while. If the content is not compelling, their view time is dramatically shortened. “Infotainment,” McIver says. “It has to be engaging.” Streamlogics provides content support, which can range from scriptwriting to speaker coaching, because it is such a critical element.
And part of engagement is knowing when to stop. Especially if the content is not live. “The on-demand content shouldn’t be any more than 10 to 20 minutes long,” McIver says. “We’ve delivered thousands of webcasts and you can see the view time is dramatically different on live versus on-demand.”
On the sophisticated side, Streamlogics analyzes data to calculate Return on Investment (ROI) that can be applied in several areas, from registration to lead conversion. "We have smart codes that we attach to webcast registration pages so we can determine where the lead source or registration source was," says McIver. Rather than just determining the ratio of the amount spent for an event to the number of leads generated, Streamlogics breaks it down. The smart codes might, for example, show that 80 percent of the registrants come from a banner ad campaign but only 10 percent convert to leads; while a small percentage of registrants that come from the client's internal database convert almost entirely to leads.
McIver stresses that a virtual event is an investment. If it’s treated like a one-off and the cost of the webcast dramatically exceeds the amount spent on audience development, there's a problem. "I've got some customers who spend up to $100,000 promoting one single event," he says. "The need to understand where you're investing that kind of capital is quite substantial. We can apply the technology to provide the analytics so that we can figure out what's working and what's not," says McIver.
Tags: Shaun McIver, streamlogics, tips
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