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What Price Events? Value, Not Pandemic, Should Dictate Your 2021 Pricing.

by COVID 19Media

While publishers and media companies worked hard last year to provide similar and even more value for their virtual events, one element that varied was pricing. Low-priced—and even free—registration became the norm. But a pricing consultant wants you to now remind your audience that 2020 was an outlier due to the pandemic, and you have to return to a sustainable model, especially as hybrid models get closer.

“I think discounting and knee-jerk reactions to make everything free need to stay in 2020,” said Michael Tatonetti, a consultant who specializes in organization pricing, in an excellent article on Associations Now. I understand that for 2020, we wanted to get the right education to our members. That’s noble, but moving forward, it’s not sustainable financially. It can undervalue you if you eventually decide to do hybrid [events] or if we go back to in person.”

No one had definitive answers on virtual event pricing in 2020. Attendance fees ran the gamut from free to $600, and no one seemed sure about their strategy—at least until after the fact. ASAE—after starting with a fee to attend—and The Atlantic both made their major annual events free, but with several sponsors.

I just checked CES which begins next week—it was $149 up until yesterday and now jumped to $499. That’s actually interesting; I would guess that they are trying to price against the major trend that people sign up very close to the start for virtual events. (Can be a bit nerve-racking, especially for a big event like that.) Will be good to check with them afterwards to see how that strategy works.

“Sit back and ask, what is the value? What are we charging? What is the strategy?” Tatonetti said. “When we get into conversations about value, we are actually having a conversation about innovation because we are saying, what else can we do? How else can we serve? What new things should we be doing? What should we stop doing? Is there anything that is no longer of value that we can sunset?”

Here are some pricing examples from last year:

Charge for access. The Financial Times put their value on special access and on-demand networking. For their FT Live event in October, they offered three tiers: The Knowledge Pass ($299) gave you access to the live talks and the Q&A and polls. The Professional Pass ($599) added meet-the-journalist sessions and that networking—and video—on demand. The Group Pass ($3,000) multiplied everything by six people.

Price low, aim high. On the lower end, Christine Weiser, content/brand director, Tech & Learning, a Future plc division, said they charged just $25 for a big virtual event they put on—with good value—and more than 1,300 people signed on! “We had no idea,” she said. “Will they pay more? For education they do have professional development budgets.” She said if you do price low be ready for late signups.

Add value. “We feel that people are getting a lot more value [this year],” Jared Waters, training director for BVR, said about their Virtual Divorce Conference. “We can do a lot of things to add value to an event. So we figure a price point—[they charged about half of last year]—and then throw a lot of value on it. It really is a great deal for our attendees.” That value included pre- and post-conference bonus sessions and a $200 credit on their registration to a future in-person event.

 

Waters will be delivering a webinar for us on Jan. 21 titled Pricing & Product Evolution from Single Sale to Multi-headed Monster. Register here – free for members.

 

Keep pricing similar but deliver more value. “There had been, at least back in March, a sense that virtual should be cheaper,” Heather Farley, COO of Access Intelligence, said at SIPA 2020 in June. “But people are starting to appreciate the value of what we bring [virtually]. It still has the value of live, and [brings] the experience to connect buyers and sellers. The connections that you’re bringing aren’t all of a sudden cheaper. And the same amount of time that goes into [putting together] live events goes into virtual events. We have to make sure we don’t give deep discounts.”

Cut prices but get more sponsors. TechCrunch’s Disrupt 2020 cut ticket and exhibition prices roughly in half. Individual ticket prices started at $350, down from $695 in 2019, while exhibition passes went from $1,000 to $445. There was also a Disrupt Digital Pass for $45 that offered access to one stage of programming, but did not include CrunchMatch. (It’s amazing how many names there are for virtual networking now.) Sponsorship revenue was actually up, thanks to more expensive packages (by about 6%).

When you do decide to raise prices, Tatonetti advises communicating the value you’re still providing to your audience. “As we do come back to some level of normal, now is the time to introduce some new things, and try some new things, and reprice a bit because it’s almost expected,” he said.

 

Woman connecting with her computer at home and following online courses, distance learning concept

Pause Your Day, Collaborate More and Add Diverse Sources to Get 2021 Off to a Fresh Start

by Media

By Ronn Levine

Two years ago—almost to the day!—Fast Company posted an article titled How to Redesign Your Days to Give You Back a Few Extra Hours Every Week. The author listed five categories where we can make changes:

Quit Something;

Limit Something;

Pause Something;

Delegate Something; and

Add Something.

A lot has changed in two years but I think we could all use those few extra hours back every week. Contemplating these five areas during a pandemic, cultural reckoning and domestic insurgency brings a somewhat different light, but here are a few suggestions to ignite your thought processes.

For Quit Something, they wrote “Quit a recurring meeting. Quit a committee. Quit Facebook. Quit Candy Crush.” I’d say it’s a good time to quit a poor policy: going with the same old speakers for events, sources for stories and members for your audience outreach. Some favorites are okay but take some extra time to do research to find new and diverse sources for your next article and speakers for your next podcast, webinar or virtual event. Almost everyone is available these days. With those new speakers might just come a new audience. Growth consultant Robyn Duda, who moderated a great events panel for us at BIMS, led a charge to Change the Stage earlier this year. “Whether the content is digital or physical, I am challenging us all to set the bar higher, to make our stages and screens inclusive of new, different voices.”

For Limit Something, how about limiting a lack of collaboration? “Journalism has become more collaborative, but our culture, for the most part, has not,” writes Bo Hee Kim, director of newsroom strategy for The New York Times, in NiemanLab’s Predictions for 2021. “Leaders will need to believe that newsroom culture has a bigger impact on the journalism than they understood in previous years—that a strong team dynamic is as important as their sharp and shiny stars. Managers are key to this transition and will need to reset with a new definition of success, followed by support and training to change.” True collaboration was never easy and has become even harder during our remote lives. “The challenge before you as you craft your narrative,” DEI expert Leslie Mac eloquently told us at AM&P 2020, “is how to motivate in a way to lift humanity and be bold as you go about your work. This is not the time for casual work. Together is where we can create change.”

For Pause Something, they wrote: “[Go] on a walk in the middle of the day. [Give] yourself permission to run an errand during your lunch break. Stopping for a moment to assert your ability to do the non-urgent reduces the sense that everything has to happen at a frenetic pace, and that there’s no time to slow down.” Wow, this has just multiplied in its relevancy! Many of us are starting our work day earlier and ending later, amplifying the need to take breaks. There is one problem, however. In his book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Dan Pink wrote: “Research shows us that social breaks are better than solo breaks—taking a break with somebody else is more restorative than doing it on your own.” That may not be easy right now. I greatly miss my walks around the office during the day. Try reaching out to a neighbor for a socially distant walk or call a friend while you walk. I need to do more of that.

Delegate Something has become a bit tougher in these times, for two reasons. One, we’re interacting even less, of course, with co-workers so delegating something takes more intentional outreach. And two, maybe “delegate” isn’t a great word anymore because we only think of giving tasks to someone less senior, rather than sharing tasks and perhaps giving one or two to someone who is more suited to them, regardless or your command chain. Wrote Fast Company: “As you plan your day, ask yourself: Is this something that I really need to do myself, or could someone else do this instead?” If this makes you reach out to a colleague, then that’s a good thing. A 10-minute phone call can supersede 30 minutes of emails sometimes.

For Add Something, their advice now makes me chuckle a bit. “Add an exercise class, book a trip, plan a get-together with friends.” No, no and no. Okay, well, actually, I do have a virtual yoga class Thursdays at 5:45 pm from a woman I met in Jamaica three years ago. These can be a bit awkward—move over Romeo (the cat)!—but very helpful. At our last staff meeting, our CEO got such a good reaction to his request for favorite holiday cookies that he’s now asking for recipes to compile into a guide. That is one very enticing and tasteful addition that can be replicated in many different ways. Business-wise, how about adding more member photos to your publications. “It’s always nice to feature the faces of your members and [worth the effort] tracking down those photos,” Lilia LaGesse, senior creative strategist, GRAPHEK, told us at AM&P 2020.

Ronn Levine, editorial director for SIIA, can be reached at rlevine@siia.net.

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Behind Questex’s New ‘Modern’ Information Model: Combining Content, Data and Events to Go to Market Faster

by Media

Editor’s Note: Join Paul Miller at our virtual Business Information & Media Summit on Dec. 2 for a look at The New Go-to-Market Strategy: How Questex Launches Products Faster, Better and More Profitably. Join the discussion as Paul shows how Questex aligned internal assets to create a more efficient structure and leverages data to drive the entire process. Register here. 

In June, Questex announced the creation of a “modern” information services model that leverages audience data to tie content and events closer together to create a year-round customer engagement framework.

And as publishers scramble to make up for lost event revenue amidst the pandemic, the new approach also gives Questex the ability to launch new products and go-to-market at accelerated rates (think virtual events being produced over the course of a few weeks, rather than a full year, as with a live event).

Questex debuted the new approach with its Fierce Life Sciences group, aligning the Fierce content business with ExL Events, a Questex division acquired in 2016 that produces events in similar markets such as life sciences, pharma and healthcare, but until recently had operated as a separate business from Fierce.  

Tying events more closely to digital isn’t a new idea but one that hasn’t been well executed, according to Questex CEO Paul Miller [pictured]. “On a personal level, we’ve been talking about this for many years—how we combine different types of content and data and use learnings from that to bring together the community,” he adds. “We’ve almost gotten there a couple times in our past lives but not quite.”

 

Miller points to live events tacking on an online directory or virtual floor plan. “There’s nothing wrong with that but it’s not a real translation. Those of us coming from a digital background say, we’ve got all this data on content consumption, wouldn’t it be great if we use that to pull together conference programs around what’s trending.”

The Immediate Payoff

The new approach paid dividends almost immediately as Questex shifted to virtual events, with Fierce and ExL coming together to produce the Virtual Clinical Trials Online on April 22-23. The virtual event attracted over 2,000 registrants with 50 percent generated by the FiercePharma content websites. The sponsors saw over 600 booth visits and there were 2,800 downloads of content providing strong sales leads for the vendors.

“For the first time, we had complete collaboration between ExL and the Fierce team based on content, speaker recruitment and reporting on what’s going on at the event,” says Miller. “We’re thinking, let’s do things differently. If something is really trending, let’s change our conference program and launch it quickly, taking a couple weeks to plan rather than a full year.”

Elsewhere, Fierce is working with Arizona State U to launch a new virtual event in July for the education tech marketplace called Remote that will focus on how institutions are adapting higher education in the coronavirus era. The event already has “many thousands of registrants and high-level sponsors,” according to Miller.

With 70 percent of its revenue coming from live events prior to the pandemic, Questex hasn’t avoided a major revenue revision or the significant lay-offs that came with it.

But the Fierce group is up 20 percent year-over-year and there’s early evidence that the model can pay-off across the entire organization, including Questex increasing the overall number of webinars it produces (up from 199 in all of 2019 to 347 through May 2020), while its American Spa business capitalized on the CBD craze by launching a CBD-focused virtual event over the space of just four weeks, securing a quarter of a million dollars in sponsorships.

A Second Attempt at Reinventing B2B?

In many ways, the new Fierce approach borrows from Questex’s first attempt at reinventing the B2B media model with The Beauty Experience, a content and marketing platform that the company launched last fall for its beauty industry vertical that upended the “search and click” way of scrolling through websites by enabling users to choose specific content tags that they want to follow, which then serves up relevant content.

The idea was that the data produced by the feed and follow approach would help program events, identify prospects for sponsors and create opportunities to serve users beyond the events itself. Unfortunately, the Beauty Experience Event, scheduled for March 7, was one of the first to be canceled due to COVD-19. 

“Beauty is a pro-sumer market and we learned a lot of lessons from that community, says Miller. “Social is really important there and we were able to get very good in the social world, seeing which keywords work and using artificial intelligence to personalize the journey. Unfortunately, we were not able to see that come to full fruition due to the event cancellation and some market dynamics in the beauty sector.”

Getting There: Culture is the Biggest Obstacle

While Questex needed the right tech infrastructure to get the right data into the right hands, Miller says that getting beyond perceived cultural differences between Fierce and ExL was the biggest challenge. 

“We were dealing with two different cultures that hadn’t been integrated and the team didn’t do a lot together,” says Miller. “Fierce thought it did this, ExL thought it did that. But did they really? The fact of the matter was, they needed to be doing stuff together.”

While COVID-19 has been the bane of B2B publishing, it has helped Questex pushed through some of the inertia that would have held up change in the past.

“In terms of collaboration and bringing these groups together, I have to say the COVID situation helped us do this more quickly than we normally would of,” says Miller.

Miller credits Questex’s ability to break down siloes and get groups working more closely together to its Centers of Excellence, in which experts across the company come together to produce best practices in a variety of areas including audience and database, content, customer experience, and product, with topics ranging from protecting customer privacy to identifying where the customer is in the buying cycle to hosting virtual events to which headlines work best and why.

“The first thing is you need to do it to make the decision on what you want your internal core competencies to be, which is easier said than done,” says Miller. “Usually, you’re saying collaboration gives you more of a competitive advantage than really deep product knowledge. We combine the two—the markets work with the Centers of Excellence by saying ‘Our audience wants this, our advertisers wants that’, and the Centers of Excellence say, ‘OK, we have that over here, which parts work for you and what do we have to create as new?’”

Having that expertise on hand has enabled Questex to move quickly. “Someone asked, how have you pivoted so quickly to virtual events?” says Miller. “We just did it, but in essence we didn’t just do it because we have six people on our team in our Centers of Excellence who were part of creating the first scalable virtual events about a decade ago.

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Connectiv To Merge With Major B2B Publishing Associations

by Media

Editor’s note: The following is an announcement from Jeff Joseph, President of Connectiv parent SIIA; Meg Hargreaves, SIIA Board Chair; and Kevin Novak, Connectiv Board Chair. 

We hope that this email finds you and your organization in good health and steering to solid ground during this time of upheaval and transformation. We have seen Connectiv members move with impressive agility and originality in accelerating and shifting strategies and operations and we have been pleased to see strong response to Connectiv programs designed to help you navigate these turbulent times.

We are excited to announce change is coming to Connectiv as well. SIIA, the parent association of Connectiv, is pleased to announce the consolidation of Connectiv, Association Media and Publishing and the Specialized Information Publishers Association into one newly branded association, designed to bring greater value to your membership while retaining the high value programming, content and networking opportunities that have long been hallmarks of each division. This change follows a vote and passage by the SIIA board of a streamlined FY21 budget (effective July 1) and a strategic plan framework that included both this merger and the elimination of two other separate divisions, ETIN and SSD.

The board moved with both strategic and financial considerations in mind as the organization seeks to shape a compelling future-focused value proposition, retain popular programs and conserve resources under a single leader, unified brand and updated website. These efforts were obviously accelerated following COVID-19, which has dealt the Association as well as our members difficult challenges around live events. We are confident this new streamlined and consolidated membership group will be the premier membership organization for the specialized publishing, content, and media community, as we convene, develop, educate and advocate for current and emerging leaders of an industry undergoing rapid and continuous change.

This important effort is not taking place in a vacuum. We have convened a working group consisting of board members and representatives from the three associations to help develop value-added programming, content and a governance and operating structure that provides myriad volunteer opportunities. As we move forward, your interests will continue to be well represented via a new advisory board, which we expect to announce in the coming weeks – along with the new association’s branding, staff leadership and additional volunteer opportunities for you.

Of course, we need and desire current and recent member input as we take the next steps toward building the new organization. To that end, we are working with Readex Research to conduct an online survey designed to probe on membership benefits, service gaps and needs. The insights gained from your survey participation will help ensure that SIIA continues to serve as a valuable resource to you and others in the media, content and publishing industry.

Kindly be on the lookout for a survey link from Readex this Thursday, August 13. The short survey can be completed in about 10-12 minutes, and your participation is greatly appreciated.

This letter is the first of regular updates you will receive throughout August discussing the changes and our new path forward. On August 31, we will hold a live webinar providing an update, further describing the rationale and strategy, and taking your questions. FAQs, which may answer other questions, are now available on the SIIA website.

As our members have long recognized, SIIA operates at a pivotal and difficult juncture for trade associations, exacerbated by the pandemic. We believe this consolidated approach sets a strong foundation to launch a new division, poised for the growth, serving both for-profit and non-profit entities. We hope you will share our excitement as the vision takes shape.

Please feel free to reach out to Jeff or SIIA staff with your questions, comments, or concerns. We greatly welcome and value your input as we move forward. And please let us know if you wish to opt out of future communications on this matter.

Jeff Joseph
President
SIIA

Meg Hargreaves
Chair
SIIA

Kevin Novak
Chair
Connectiv

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Remind Registrants, Do Dry Runs and Give Attendees a Clear Guide Are Just a Few Virtual Event Lessons

by Media

As The Economist recently pointed out, late flights, noisy conference halls, time away from the office, bad coffee, and too much swag gave way in 2020 to a “new set of clichés: Forgetting to unmute. Arcane sign-up processes. Over-complicated technology platforms. Connectivity snafus.” Needed kids and pet breaks. Welcome to the not-so-new normal.

Having looked at virtual event life from both sides now—as an attendee and as part of the team putting it on—I can offer at least a partial list of lessons, good and bad, as we push forward to 2021. A move to hybrid events will hopefully follow by the fall, but in the meantime we are still in virtual event mode.

 

Put as much energy into attending as into registering. This may be one of the biggest differences. Yes, a couple people may have opted for the beach when our BIMS event was in Fort Lauderdale, but most had paid and traveled and were coming downstairs for the sessions. But now, with registration fees much lower or often free and Zoom fatigue hanging over us, we need to remind attendees why they registered and that our event looks even better now. This should go all the way up to the event. I’ve seen analytics where an email 10 minutes in gets a good amount of clicks.

 

Conduct a dry run. The Economist agreed on this one. “Invite presenters and exhibitors to tech-check sessions to introduce them to your chosen platform’s idiosyncrasies, and check network links, cameras and lighting. Ask presenters to use exactly the same set-up they will be using for the live event.” This may not always be possible, but if it is, it will help alleviate some things that the 15 minutes or less that a speaker joins you on the event day doesn’t allow time for. There’s just so much more that a dry run will do for you than the explanations of the best platform organizer.

Give as clear instructions as possible for attendees—and then go over them. This is all still pretty new, and as technologies get better, much will still be new. “Let participants know what is happening and when, with easy-to-navigate event schedules. If your event contains multiple tracks, make it easy for attendees to compare what’s happening in different tracks at a given time.” We get frustrated so easily these days—I’m put off when the toaster goes wrong. So your extra attention will be appreciated—especially when you want more networking. Set up a helpline to assist attendees and provide a separate “backstage” helpline for presenters.

 

Schedule breaks, anticipate shorter attention spans. We had a running joke here after the very content-strong SIPA 2020 event in June. One session went right into another with hardly time for a break, if you know what I mean. So lunch, bathroom breaks, checks on the kids and pets meant missing session time. It’s certainly a balance—you want to provide value above all else. But there’s just so much we can absorb now. Of course, also emphasize the on-demand-ness of all the content. “If it doesn’t work for you now, come back and consume at a time that does!” But again, this needs reminders and easy access as well.

 

Try not to panic in your marketing. People register late for virtual events—often in the last week. It’s just a fact. See what the analytics are telling you about your early emails. What are people looking at? Have a strategy and adjust to what seems to be getting eyeballs. And definitely keep at it until the end.Give extra focus to that last week.

 

Be okay with—and maybe even encourage—recorded sessions, as long as there are live Q&As. I’ve always been a proponent of live talks, but what’s gained from the spontaneity and “this is live” button can be made up for in the Q&A. And there will just be so many other things that you have to worry about, that if by recording sessions you can reduce that list, do it.

 

Diversify your speakers, in every sense. Our FISD Division just had a special event day in December, and for one particular session, I recall seeing perhaps five of the six speakers were women. For an international financial services group, this has not always been the case. It was just so impressive seeing this, and a big audience followed. Spend a little extra time reaching out. Diverse experts are out there; they may just be a little under the radar and not in your rolodex. Reach out on LinkedIn or in other places where you might find new speakers. The Plug is one new site focusing on Black entrepreneurs that our BIMS keynote, Sherrell Dorsey, founded and runs.

 

Networking is needed and wine tastings are being duplicated for a reason. At BIMS we had an excellent sommelier lead us through some great wine questions. People asked, they chatted and spoke to each other, they smiled and they sipped a bit as well. We had ours a couple hours after the last session, around 4:30. If you do this, send reminders.

 

And three more from The Economist:

 

Set clear expectations for presenters on technical standards, dress code (how casual?), and whether you expect them to use a virtual background or a real one. Ensure they have a decent webcam, microphone and lighting setup. Ship equipment to presenters in advance if necessary, particularly for keynote speakers. Provide a ‘how to prepare’ document that summarizes all requirements in one place.

 

Give every session a moderator, even those with just a single speaker. Don’t ask a presenter to be a host, manage chat sessions, or decide whom to answer during the Q&A. Speakers have enough going on. (One added tip—encourage communication between those moderators and the platform people, so they know exactly what will be taking place.)

 

Think about providing transcripts. Pre-recording sessions means event organizers can arrange for text chats, closed-captioning, even ASL interpretation. Even if you do the presentations live, providing transcripts later is enthusiastically welcomed. And there is now a wide range of AI tools that can provide accurate transcripts.