September 7, 2007

Biznology Blog by Mike Moran

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Virtual Events Return Real Value

Not long ago, I wrote about a new marketing opportunity from Unisfair in a piece I called Second Life Meets WebEx. The concept looked promising, but now Unisfair has contacted me with a preview of a study they comissioned to show the business value of their offering. The results are very interesting.

Before looking at the study results, we need to keep in mind that Unisfair has an obvious vested interest in showing studies that support what it is doing—they might not have tipped me off to a negative study. But the study, conducted by research and consulting firm The FactPoint Group based on 200 Unisfair events, fits with what I would have expected, because Unisfair's offering looks like a very promising way to reach target markets. Musician's Friend personalized for guitar customers

Trade shows and other in-person events make up the lion's share of many B2B marketing budgets, but the study shows why you might want to consider a virtual event. While costing a fraction of what live events do, they deliver nearly 350 qualified leads (on average) from events averaging over 1,500 attendees.

The news is not all good—about half the folks that register for virtual events do not show up when the time comes. This would be appalling for an in-person event, but the low cost and far greater capacity of virtual events makes this much less important. It's no different than how appalled we were when we found out how many people abandoned their online shopping carts. It's OK if huge numbers are no-shows as long as you get the return on your investment you need. Virtual events' low costs make that nearly a certainty.

If you haven't checked out how a virtual event can drive strong leads at a fraction of the cost, maybe this study will give you the impetus to check it out.

Posted by mikemoran at September 7, 2007 3:06 PM

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Comments

I attended the Unisfair run Business-to-Business Marketing Conference on June 13, 2007. While I wasn't part of the half that don't even show up, I did find it difficult to get engaged. I can't blame Unisfair for the fact that I didn't totally block out the few hours for the seminars I was interested in, but that is a reality of their world. I like the concept of the organized "conference" online, but unless people are willing to dedicate the time, it won't take off. I think this is really true of anyone online "event" be it a seminar, conference or just online training. For any of these, the key is to have continual two-way communications to keep conversation going and customers engaged.

(Mike - the TypeKey link on your comments says "The site you're trying to comment on has not signed up for this feature. Please inform the site owner." Feel free to delete this note when that is fixed.)

Posted by: Scott Chapin at September 10, 2007 10:59 AM

Thanks for the feedback, Scott. I think virtual conferences will take some getting used to, I found the study interesting I guess because it confirms what I already thought. (I think we all like quoting statistics to back up our own opinions.)

Regarding TypeKey, I have had no end of trouble with it. It has worked in the past and now it looks like it is broken again. I think I am going to permanently remove it from my comment forms because I don't have the stomach to keep tinkering with it. Color me stupid, but some of this stuff is too much even for a Distinguished Engineer. :-)

Posted by: Mike Moran at September 11, 2007 7:59 AM