Governance Institute of Australia
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The Case Name: Mark Wanstall Organisation: Governance Institute of Australia Position: Director of Marketing and Membership Services The Challenge: Delivering membership value The Solution: Webcast
“Won’t I cannibalise my live attendance? How will I incorporate networking opportunities?” These are just some of the common questions asked by those looking to webcast live events. In this interview, Marc chats to Sara Gonzalez about how a well-timed promotion of the virtual offering at the right price boosted numbers and profitability, without losing face-to-face registrations, at CSA’s 2012 Annual Conference. Why does The Governance Institute of Australia Exist? The Governance Institute of Australia (formally CSA) is a National association representing over 7,000 members. Those members tend to be Company Secretaries, Governance Advisors and Risk Managers. As a leading professional association we also have a higher mission – to promote good governance practice in all sectors of Australia. We do this through short courses, post graduate education and professional development training. Speaking of your Annual Conference, in 2012 you decided to webcast this live, let’s talk about the main motivator behind this... Membership is a very important element of my role, meaning that everything we do at CSA has our member’s interests at heart. Primarily, the webcast was an additional benefit to our members and the fact that many of them belong to a variety of associations means that we’re one of at least two. Keeping up with three or more associations can become quite costly so we have to provide value and flexibility when it comes to providing CPD points – webcasting our annual event was the perfect way to do this. Your Annual Conference contained some very high profile speakers. When you told them you were going to stream their presentations live did you experience any reluctance? I thought there might be some reluctance – after all, you’re dealing with new technologies so to some it can be a bit voodoo. However, our presenters are quite used to dealing with the press and if anything, they like the idea of attracting a wider
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audience; it gets their message out and acts as another channel. One of the most common objections that we experience is that webcasts can have the potential to cannibalise your live attendance. Did this ever occur to you? Of course I worried about it! I think everybody out there who has either done it or is considering doing it has heard a thousand reasons not to do it. I think this all comes back to the membership idea… If you’re doing it to add value, then you’re doing it as an additional service. This was the first time we had done anything like this and we only went to market two weeks before the event, so it really was a test case for us.
Did it cannibalise our live attendance? No, we got the numbers we wanted and we got
over 30 members to register for the live webcast in the short period we had. On top of that, we made it clear to all physical attendees that they would receive access to the on-demand recordings once the event was over; another member benefit there. So it’s really about looking at the bigger picture? Like anything, it’s about looking at it from your customers or member’s point of view. Is it going to provide something of benefit? If it does, then I believe you do it and worry about the details thereafter. Let’s put your marketing hat on… how did you market the webcast, did you do anything differently? As I said, we really did only set this up at the last minute and I was glad we did, it worked really well. We tried to integrate it as best we could into our existing marketing plan; this included direct emails, display advertising and international trade magazines. We are looking at doing a webcast again this year and while we will go to market earlier, not a lot will change. There’s always questions about price… Should I charge for online access? Should I offer it free? You did charge for virtual access, what was your pricing strategy? First and foremost, I think that if you offer something for free some people tend to think… oh it can’t be worth much. You want a pricing strategy that people take up but at the same time you don’t want a price that’s too low or high. I know what we charge for face to face events so I had some sort of idea. We probably undercharged just to see if we could get the numbers but we will tweak that this year. Ultimately, I think you should be charging something, but it should be at a price point that makes it looks it look like it’s worth something and that people can get under their budgets.
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Now, marketing a webcast with two weeks’ notice is a challenge in itself, what other challenges did you experience? Most bases were pretty much covered by then, the main challenge was making this as seamless as possible. We had to make sure that the webcast audience felt like they were actually in the room. To do this you have to pretty much work backwards – you need to make sure the videographer is taking the right shots, that you can effectively get questions from both the floor and your webcast audience and that your MC and speakers are familiar with what is happening. If you get it right it’s actually a great experience for your audience in the room, it adds a bit of excitement to the event and makes everyone feel like they are part of something bigger! And lastly, what advice would you give to others? Definitely make sure that the webcast is part of your integrated marketing plan, not just a bolt on. Click on the below image or the following URL to watch the webcast interview! http://www.webcasts.com.au/redbacksuccess/index.php?enter
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