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Live Interviews Can Draw a Big Audience and Be a Membership Perk

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We’ve talked here before about initiatives that can be more effective during this unique time. Reaching a bigger—and if it applies, more global—audience through live interviews certainly ranks near the top. “With the dramatic drop in live conferences and events, it comes as no surprise that 72% of publishers have increased their virtual events and webinar offerings,” Brand United reports.
I spoke with Donna Jefferson yesterday of long-time SIPA member Chesapeake Family, and their 2 pm Friday live interviews continue to thrive—often taking on serious topics. She posts them on Facebook and their YouTube channel; here’s the description for Friday’s talk: “Join the discussion with coaches Stephy Samaras and John Downs III as we talk about the impact of COVID-19 on student athletes and what can be done to turn it into a positive experience.”
“I really like to do those virtual interviews as long as we can give 2-3 days notice,” Jefferson said, adding it’s a good platform to talk about timely topics. Previous interviews focused on Virtual School From Home Tips and Navy Football Takes on Racism with an assistant coach and running back. (That interview received more than 700 views. I will report more on this great series titled Third Floor Views another day.) “By doing virtual interviews, we get things out there quickly.”
I love that Chesapeake Family’s Facebook promotion begins with “Join the discussion.” Remember the first advice yesterday that Christine Weiser of Future’s Tech & Learning gave: “Always have some opportunity for interaction with your audience. So if it’s a passive event that may not be outwardly compelling, we always add some live element. If it’s a pre-recorded keynote, we’ll end with a live Q&A. Also, if you can see the chat, that’s fun, it gets the audience interested and engaged through the Q&A.”
Publishers are also using these talks to build their membership programs (which Jefferson will also soon be initiating). TechCrunch has introduced Extra Crunch Live, a virtual speaker series with live Q&A exclusive for Extra Crunch members. Tomorrow they will feature Anu Duggal, founding partner at Female Founders Fund. “Hear from Duggal on how her thesis has changed, the competitive advantage of diversification, and what she defines as fast-growing and female-led.”
Inc. launched a weekly interview called “Real Talk.” “It’s people who have had success and are willing to give back to entrepreneurs and the small business community and answer questions for an hour,” said Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief and host.
A recent Real Talk featured one of my favorite speakers and was titled Daniel Pink: How to Not Be Overwhelmed Right Now. Along with the hour-long interview, they offer a short summation: “Start with small wins. Not long ago, popular business thought encouraged leaders to aim ‘for the moon’ to motivate themselves to stay on track in pursuit of goals, says Pink. But research has shown the opposite is true, he says. People are best inspired at work by making meaningful, day-to-day progress.”
They are also inspired by timely, live dialogues. According to WNIP, FT (Financial Times) Live drew 5,500 attendees to its four-day FT Digital Dialogues event in April. And FT Global Boardroom, a fully live, global digital event, had 100 remote speakers and 52,000 delegates.
“We now have unlimited inventory and seats in our virtual conference rooms,” FT Live’s MD Orson Francescone, told The Drum. “We can sell infinite tickets to a global audience. That is pretty powerful. Revolutionary, even.”
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‘Help Your Audience Have the Best Experience’ – Event Engagement Tips

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If you’ve ever been to a live talk show—or even a taping—you might recall that they usually have a person come out to warm up the crowd. She or he might tell a few jokes and let you know how to engage and get involved—applause signs, audience participation cues. I recall this from attending The Late Show With David Letterman once—that and how cold the Ed Sullivan Theater was. Apparently David liked it chilly.
I read something this week in Associations Now that reminded me of that, in respect to virtual events, including webinars.
“It’s very important to bring a specific level of intention to your virtual event to help your audience understand how they can have the best experience,” said Beth Surmont, 360 Live media director of experience design, in a recent ASAE webcast. “Tell them how to engage. For example, submit your questions here. Raise your hand this way.”
Surmont offered four dimensions to think about: engagement: physical, physiological, intellectual, and emotional. For the physical dimension, for example, consider where people are participating from and offer tips on how they can create the best environment for themselves, light, sound, etc.
Here are more engagement tips for virtual events:
Polling questions. These “are super helpful when it comes to engaging with a live audience,” writes Omeda. “It allows the audience to provide their own feedback when a speaker poses a question and to feel like they are a part of the conversation. Not only do they make the virtual event more personal, but the information can also be used for research on a specific topic that you or the speaker may want to know more about.” Adds Jeffrey Cufaude from Idea Architects: “Polls can be used… at the start as a ‘pre-test,’ throughout the webinar to assess needs or facilitate content application, and/or at the end as a review. Announce a response rate goal to prod recalcitrant folks to engage.”
Open mic night. I haven’t seen this phrased this way, but it makes sense. “This is a tricky, scary and exciting idea!,” Omeda writes. “What better way to allow your audience to have their voice be heard than with an open mic session? Have an open mic night or forum with a group of people to share what trends, good and bad, they are seeing, and invite audience members to join the meeting to listen.” I’d say 4 or 5 pm would be best, and bring your own beverage of choice.
Build a virtual environment that’s conducive to conversation. “While pre-recording sessions often gets a bad rap,” said Matchbox Virtual cofounder and CEO Arianna Rehak, doing so allows speakers to engage actively in the conversation that is going on while attendees are watching their session. “The speakers love this by the way,” she said. “They are seeing their content come to life.” Of course, you want to add a live Q&A after, if possible.
Offer amusement or trivia between sessions. Just like we might gamify attendees’ visits to exhibitors with a check-off list, we could run a trivia contest with questions between sessions. And then give a prize at the end to who got the most questions right or some equivalent to pieces of candy in the giant bowl. “Really, the world is your oyster in terms of what you can offer attendees during these breaks,” Rehak said, adding meditation to the mix.
Make the comments visible. Seeing a steady stream of comments should be one of the advantages of a virtual event. “If you can see the chat, that’s fun; it gets the audience interested and engaged through the Q&A,” said Christine Weiser from Tech & Learning. I second that!
Share all follow-up resources in the community. “This way, you can continue to engage attendees even after your event ends,” said Kaila Timmons, Higher Logic’s community manager, strategic services. “They can discuss ideas with each other, ask for notes on sessions they couldn’t attend, and find all presentation materials in one place. Ask the speakers to share additional resources in the resource library that complement their presentation.”
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Two Event Pros Have Done the Virtual Trial and Error to Help You Succeed

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On an American Society of Business Publication Editors webinar last week focusing on virtual events, Christine Weiser, content/brand director, Tech & Learning, a Future plc division, posted a sample agenda from one of the first virtual events they hosted this year. The agenda makes a chemical engineering flow chart look simple.

“I share this to say we did this, we survived, but don’t do this.” And she laughed.

The “conference had 7 tracks [and went] for 10 hours—exactly 10 hours, you can ask my colleagues—and it was very well-received. We had over 1,300 attendees. But this is not the place to start. This is where you learn your lessons.”

After learning their lessons, their events have been worthwhile. Since launching a series of virtual events in March, they’ve had over 4,100 registrants. “Events have been great to introduce our content and brand to a whole new audience,” Weiser said.
Components of the events hub they ended up building included sponsor booths, live chats, video, and a registrant directory—“networking is such a missing piece right now,” she said.
The other speaker was Stephanie Martinez, general manager of ASU GSV Summit. They launched a series of webinars with over 17,000 registrants and are now planning a virtual event at the end of September with over 5,000 attendees. She also pointed to the opportunities now to build a bigger audience.
“A ticket to the event I’m working on now was $3,300 last year; [this will be much less], but we’ll have a chance to extend to a new audience, especially globally,” Martinez said.
“I had googled Zoom fatigue and there are 143,000,000 results, so now we’re competing with the attention of our audience” with so many things… “We should respect the limited attention of our attendees and think about not only the form but the function. We want to connect with them and not demand that they sit for hours on end in a chair watching a screen. They won’t be happy with us and will disengage.”
She also laughed briefly—just at the enormity of the challenge I think.
Here are some of their recommendations:

Start simple. Or you’ll end up with the engineering flow chart agenda.

“Always have some opportunity for interaction with your audience,” Weiser said. “So if it’s a passive” event may not be outwardly compelling, “we always add some live element. If it’s a pre-recorded keynote, we’ll end with a live Q&A. Also, if you can see the chat, that’s fun, it gets the audience interested and engaged through the Q&A.”

Keep individual sessions short, said Martinez. A larger panel can extend it a little bit. Something I noticed very quickly is you can’t allow individuals to dominate. It’s tough enough in person, but virtual you’re watching other people get disengaged. We’ve seen people looking at their phones and turning off their cameras. You just don’t want to be in that situation. The moderator has to keep things moving along especially in a panel discussion, making sure they’re giving equal time to the presenters.”
Repurpose. Even if you do live events, you should repurpose for podcasting. With Zoom, it’s very easy to push out an audio after the event. “We put a podcast out every week and gotten really good response,” Martinez said. “It’s really good to meet your audience where they are.”
Be willing to learn new skills, said Weiser. And apply them to the virtual world, though it’s all fairly similar. It’s a big misconception that virtual events don’t require the same skills sets.
Target your audience to meet their needs. They said half-day afternoons are the best for them, Weiser said. “They’re teachers. The nice thing about access on demand is that people know they can pop in and out during the day.”
Market to a global audience. They don’t have to pay for flights.
Give some choices if possible. This is good because people like to have some control over their experience.
Choose your platform with attention to what your audience wants. It’s a misconception that if I just get this cool platform it will happen. Martinez said she got matched with six people she didn’t know for 5-minute conversations. “And if you like someone, then 5 minutes isn’t enough. (The platform was Run the World.)
Experiment with pricing. Weiser said they charged just $25 but the got over 1,300 people. “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.
An engaging speaker is an engaging speaker. Asked about the difference between presenting in-person and virtually, both did say that yes, there are differences—such as more speaker prep—but if they are a good speaker then it shouldn’t matter. Just ask how they prefer to present and check your contracts so the on-demand is included.
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‘What Molecule Am I?’ The Many Positive Outcomes From a Quiz

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On the American Chemical Society homepage, there’s a heading for a big Virtual Meeting & Expo this week; then there’s a very cool member invitation: “Me Becomes We, Improve the world through the transforming power of chemistry” with a super-diverse, 16-square face box; and also a Personal Stories area with testimonials.

One more element on the page must get a lot of clicks to be so prominent: “Molecule of the Week: You’ll get a bang out of making me. What molecule am I?” (There’s always a clever question.) I click for the answer. “Azidoazide azide.” When I click on their archive, I see they’ve been doing this feature since 2005! (Bullvalene was the first. Superbowl was the fifth.)

People like quizzes, trivia—virtual nights still attract a big crowd—and puzzles. The Wall Street Journal studied how different reader habits affected subscriber churn. They looked into how various products and subscriber actions affected customer retention during the first 100 days after a reader had signed up. They found that “playing a puzzle had a more dramatic impact on reader retention than other actions the team had been promoting.”

Quizzes and puzzles also bring people back to your website. What’s the molecule going to be next week? Northwestern’s Medill research determined that the frequency with which a reader comes back to a publication’s website “is the single biggest predictor of retaining subscribers—more than the number of stories read or the time spent reading them.”

Here are more reasons for using quizzes:

To sell products and build archives. MedLearn Media has a popular Compliance Question of the Week. Typical “Laboratory Question” is: “I’ve heard there is a CPT® code for COVID-19, is this true?” After the answer is given, readers are told that “This question was answered in an edition of our Laboratory Compliance Manager. For more hot topics relating to laboratory services, please visit our store or call us at 1.800.252.1578, ext. 2.”

To educate readers about your topic. “Who are these Five Influential Women Engineers?” the American Society of Mechanical Engineers asks. “Many influential women engineers are role models and mentors for the next generation of female engineers. How many of these women do you recognize?” Then after I got just 2 out of 5 questions right, I got this: “Interested in finding out more about these influential women engineers?” Hit the Learn More button.

To convey positive information about your audience or members. The American Association for Cancer Research does this to show the progress they’ve made. “Thanks to cancer research, the number of cancer survivors is increasing year after year. How many cancer survivors are projected to be living in the United States by 2040?” I chose the highest number—26.1 million—and was correct! “Research is driving advances in cancer detection, diagnosis, and treatment that are helping more and more people to survive longer and lead fuller lives after a cancer diagnosis.”

Lead generation. After a brief hiatus, Education Week quizzes are back and they’re timely. “Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Elementary Remote Instruction? How are elementary educators responding to the shift to remote learning, and what challenges do elementary students and teachers face with remote instruction?” It’s sponsored by Square Panda, but Education Week maintains editorial control. You have to give your email address to see the results. For this quiz, there were 994 participants. In the past, Education Week would regularly achieve nearly 90% quiz completions and around 60% of people who completed the quiz filling out the registration form.

To raise money for a good cause. The Investment Week Virtual Quiz 2020 was designed to help “heroic frontline NHS [National Health Service] staff tackling the coronavirus crisis.” They held a live quiz “hosted by a special industry guest.” Participants were sent a link and also could dial in to a video/audio call. They would even show a leaderboard in real-time so the winner can be revealed instantly. To take part they asked people to choose a donation fee with all proceeds going to CASCAID’s NHS fundraising campaign (minimum donation was £15).

To get sponsors and increase knowledge. I came across this quiz recently on a site called The Fulcrum: How Much Do You Know About the Electoral College? Good to see that on the bottom it says, “This quiz is powered by CredSpark,” one of our vendor members. “Think you know all there is to know about the Electoral College? Test your smarts with this quiz.” I didn’t do very well—got about half right. But it certainly engaged me.

More lead generation. Lessiter Media has been getting good results from their sponsored quizzes. How Much Do You Know About Soil Enrichment Practices? they ask. “Take this quick 6-question quiz to find out. We didn’t create this quiz ‘just for fun,’ but to act as an educational tool.” For a previous quiz, they received 3,346 total submissions from Nov. 2019, through the end of March 2020. About 1,658 were new email addresses and 120 new subscribers.

To sell a webinar. Lastly, I always hark back to a quiz that OPIS did. The questions were tough, so that when you got one wrong, the answer led you to an upcoming webinar where the correct answers would be discussed. The email with this quiz drew the most sign-ups for that webinar.

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Virtual Event Benchmarks Call for a Clear Strategy and On-Demand Push

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I mentioned this briefly yesterday, but a company called Nucleus has taken data from three virtual event benchmark reports to create some insightful infographics. Here are a few of their findings with comments:
58% of virtual events include some form of interactivity; the average attendee watches 68% of a session.
With all the distractions that we have working from home, some form of interactivity seems key to at least reaching that 68%. “Polling is the most interactive of the various Zoom features,” said American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians Executive Director Bob Moore. “The chat function works well, but since not everyone has a question, polling is a nice way to keep all engaged.” People like polls, especially if they’re relevant and one-button easy.
59.8% have no specific virtual event strategy.
I thought BVR’s event strategy outline in my post yesterday is worth noting—a three-day event in September surrounded by a free preview a week or so before and then one bonus session a week for the three weeks after. “…when people are intensely interested in your content for a very specific reason, everything feels changed,” said Jeremy Gilbert, director of strategic initiatives for The Washington Post. “We need to think how we can make our news and information [continue to be] relevant, but especially how we can make people aware… about the width and breadth of coverage we can do.” The longer you can keep an audience engaged in your virtual event, the better the chance that they discover other content you have.
49% of attendees registered 7 or more days before the event; 51% registered within 7 days.
We are used to seeing many webinar registrations come in later, but for conferences this is a shift. Some of it is because many events either start out free or become free after an initial underwhelming registration period. (The ASAE event taking place now is in this category.) It may be harder on the nerves, but the numbers say don’t give up if registration is low as your event approaches. “Increase promotion the week before your [event]—post more on social and send one more email blast the day of,” said GoToWebinar’s Amber Tiffany. (17% of registrants sign up the same day.) “For recipients who haven’t registered yet, send out a ‘last chance’ email to encourage last-minute registrations.”
30% are charging the same price as their in-person event, 30% are charging significantly less, and 39% are charging somewhat less.
Obviously, this has been the biggest question. How do you price your events now? It really is trial and error. But as BVR’s Jared Waters and others have pointed out, there are ways to pile on the value—future discounts, extra sessions, credits, special chats with editors and VIPs—so if you market it that way, then price it accordingly.
Tuesday is by far the best day to send out promotional emails. 
We all use Monday to recover, get settled and have meetings. So by Tuesday we’re listening again. Next comes Thursday and Wednesday. Friday is way last, more so in August I’m sure.
44% check out the on-demand version after. 
This number has gone up during the pandemic, especially if you do have a more global audience. In the past, we didn’t really want to market that as much in the beginning; we wanted people there in person. But in this climate, it makes sense to market on-demand from the get-go. MDM does it with their webinars: “Even if you can’t make it, sign up anyway! We’ll send you the recording.”
44% have not received any sponsorship or exhibitor money for their events.
That percentage should be lower. Sponsors, vendors, exhibitors need leads right now, and your virtual events are still great places for that. Talk to your sponsors during your event planning. Ask them what platforms they’ve seen or used. What has worked best for them? What can you do to bring them on board? What do they need to become a sponsor?