I wanted to take a moment to share one area of online outreach that has been highly successful in my office (and we’re seeing a huge adoption in our field): webinars. It started as a simple idea I had in covering a broad topic relevant to the field and has exploded to be our second major marketing and outreach tool for our office (next to our website).
Logistically, these are 60 minute events with presenters including trusted partners or experts throughout the industry. We typically have a 45 minute presentation followed by 15 minutes for Q&A from the audience. We ask attendees to complete a short, 8 question evaluation after attending the event. The following day we post an archive of the video online as well as a copy of the slides used in the presentation. Those are they key points – here are some of the numbers that drive this series.
We launched our monthly series last September (2010). We have traditionally seen about 300 attendees at our events; with attendance varying based on the topic and general applicability to the broader industry. In the past 2 months, attendance has drastically jumped to over 1000 registrations and over 700 attendees at our live events (image above is actual registration (blue bars) and attendance (red line) for the series). I attribute this 300% increase to an expanded online marketing effort. We’ve been working more closely with our partner organizations on cross promotion as well as with our government agency for broader coverage of the announcements. I believe this will level out to about 900-1000 registrations and attendance around 600 / month. Some key stats:
- Highest registration count: 1252
- Average attendance: ~56%
- Average evaluation completion rate: ~62%
- Average playbacks: 151 (times viewed after the event)
- Average “reach” per event: 667 (number of people who watched event – live or recorded)
Return on Investment (ROI): One quick note about the ROI on webinars. We purchased a service for $130 / month which includes hosting unlimited events and toll-free calling for attendees (toll-free calling comes at a large price for this service – probably about 50-60% of the cost). We spend, on average, 7 staff hours on each event, including all prep, live event support, and post-event support. At our current (and past) levels of outreach – this has been a huge marketing tool for my office and a great marketing tool for our government agency. We count our ROI not only in terms of attendance, but requests for our services, which has steadily increased since the launch of this series.
I’m not here selling any webinar technology, nor am I paid to promote anything. I just really think webinars are a unique, innovative, and creative way to share information with your audience and build interaction between you, your office/staff, and your constituents. Let me know if you have any questions – I get really excited when we find innovative ways to reach out to audiences online. Here are some ways I could see utilizing this concept in a variety of industries:
- Non-Profits: Share information about developments on your cause, host town halls with NPO leadership, share annual reports through an interactive medium, host membership/development drives, etc.
- Higher Education: New way to host parent orientations, give information about housing options, share information and answer questions in financial aid, etc.
- Political Campaigns: Host an online town hall with the candidate and constituents, share information about campaign topics and position, etc.
These are just a few ideas – lots of room for growth in the online outreach world. What are your thoughts of using something like a webinar in your organization?
