Webcasting Report Provides Insights for Virtual Events

ON24, a webcasting and virtual events company, recently released a new white paper titled “ON24 2010 Webcasting Report: Webcast Benchmarks and Best Practices ....” According to the report, the company evaluated 10,000 webcasts used by 700 corporate clients for demand generation. While the report looks at individual webcast stats, it does provide insights for those incorporating audio-only and/or video webcasting within a larger virtual events strategy or virtual environment

Key findings included:

Attendees viewed an average of 38 minutes
Average number of registrants to a webcast is 441
Average number of attendees to a webcast is 256
Convert an average of 58% of registrants into attendees
Video attracted and retained more attendees than audio webcast

Interactivity and Engagement

One concern of virtual events is how to measure the engagement or interaction of participants within that environment. Average viewing time is one statistic leveraged to support audience engagement. According to the report, the average viewing time for a webcast is 38 minutes.

Another statistic is the response rate to polls and surveys. With 62% of webcasts incorporating polls or surveys, a company spokesperson indicated that an average of 85% of the audience participated in this activity.

While these two stats indicate some level of engagement and interaction, we envision that future webcasting and virtual events technology to provide deeper insights into audience behavior beyond average viewing times and poll taking.

As the ON24 spokesperson explained, “As you probably know, webcast participants are usually coming in and out of a webcast as they multitask. So a participant won’t necessarily participate in every poll.”

Calculating Cost per Lead

From a lead generation perspective, the report provides a formula for determining the average cost per lead by registrant and attendees:

Webcast Cost / average number of registrants = cost per registrant

Webcast cost / average number of attendees = cost per attendee

According to a company spokesperson, the company estimated a webcast averaging $10,000 “for illustrative purposes, factoring in that the typical list rental is $5K (an estimate based on costs that our customers incur, on average). The cost of an ON24 webcast (excluding publishing events) can range from $1.5K to $10K, depending on media and services included.”

Under this assumption, the company determined the following averages:

$22.60 per registrant based on an average of 441 registrants per webcast
$39.00 per attendee based on an average of 246 participants per webcast

With regards to lead quality, the report estimates that 15-30% will be qualified leads. According to the spokesperson, this number was based on an informal poll of the company’s Customer Advisory Board representing the company’s largest 20 webcasting accounts.

While the above averages provide a guideline for calculating average costs at the top of the funnel, other factors must be considered when determining the percentage of qualified leads and overall value of a webcast lead within a demand generation program:

What is your definition of a qualified lead?
Does the webcast lead meet that definition?
Are these net new leads or existing contacts within your sales database?
If existing, how do you calculate the lifetime cost of that lead?
Is this part of a larger lead nurturing campaign?
If so, how do you evaluate the value of webcasting to move prospects through the funnel?
Are there additional or hidden costs that may increase your average cost per registrant/attendee respectively? Such as production, video editing, speaker fees, etc.?

Conclusion

Since this report looks at webcasts and not all virtual events, we anticipate this report to provide baseline statistics for those organizations building out a webcasting program and larger virtual events strategy. With that said, the cost per lead calculation presented in the report provides a high-level view of webcasts within a larger demand generation program. Rather, we recommend that each organization closely evaluates the role of webcasts within its demand generation and lead nurturing to determine the true value of a webcast lead.

As more organizations seek to extend the life of their virtual event investments, turning these into perpetual virtual environments, we anticipate that webcasts will play an important role in driving new and existing audiences into these 24/7 environments.

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