7 Compelling Reasons Why You Should be Live Streaming Your Conferences
By now, if you are not familiar with the term live streaming, you need to be, as it is an important tool for you to maximize the value of your organization’s digital strategy. Once you live stream one, you will quickly realize you should probably be live streaming most, if not all, of your meetings, both large and small. Here are 8 compelling reasons why you should be live streaming your next meeting/conference:
1. Fulfill Your Mission
Live streaming provides the opportunity to educate a broader scope of your members or community by bringing the education to them. The best way to maximize the ability to educate is to deliver your education in multiple formats – live on-site, live on-line and on-demand. This approach will help you better fulfill your mission of educating your community.
2. There is a 10-30% Conversion of Virtual to Physical Attendee
Are you racking your brain trying to figure out how to increase the physical attendance at your meeting? When you build an on-line community via live streaming, anywhere from 10-30% of those attending the conference as a fully paid virtual attendee will attend the physical conference the following year. That could mean 25 to 150 additional attendees each year without spending a dime on marketing.
3. Live Streaming Revenue Models are Generating Significant
When you need less than 50 virtual attendees to break even, you can see that generating a profit comes quickly and mounts up fast. Imagine how you could enhance your conference for your physical attendees with an extra $25,000, $50,000 or how about $250,000 from your virtual attendees. This is not a budgeted item to having live streaming, this is a revenue generating business opportunity for your Association.
4. The Virtual Attendees are Praising Their Organizations for Their Forward-Thinking Attitude
The virtual attendees are extremely grateful for their Association bringing the education to them and allowing them to be part of the event, even though they cannot make it in person. The rave reviews and comments we see consistently talk about how this is the best thing their Association has ever done, what a great member benefit, this is almost as good as being there, we have networked more online than we would have done in person.
5. Reach Millennials
Maybe this isn’t your focus yet, but, the Millennials are coming. Data shows that by 2025 anywhere from 50% – 75% of your Association will be made up of Millennials. Imagine what your event will look like if you haven’t done anything to attract them. Millennials are digital online learners. Attending a live stream is how you are going to hook them, educate them on the benefits of becoming a member of your Association and show them that your Association understands the needs of the digital generation. The time to start that process is now!
6. Saving Thousands of Dollars in Potential Lost Revenue for Your Event
Do you have cancellations at your event? Of course you do. That’s par for the course of running an event. Lots of things come up in life at the last minute that prevent them from attending your conference. For example, if it is flu season or bad weather strikes, the cost of those refunds can add up. Live streaming your conference provides you an alternative option for those cancelling that you don’t have right now. Clients are telling us that 80% or better of the people cancelling are watching the live stream instead of requesting their money back. How many thousands of dollars could that save you?
7. Virtual Attendees Happily Paying Full Registration Price
Regardless of the price of your conference, it has a business model that will result in your virtual attendees happily paying the full registration price. As a result, covering your costs and generating a profit comes quickly, and for most Associations requires less than 50 virtual attendees. Charging full price means that even if you lose some physical attendees to become virtual attendees, you do not lose any revenue.
Source: Compelling Reasons Why You Should be Live Streaming Your Conferences
