Its been a couple of weeks since my last post. Rather manic at the studio with projects for the NHS, a local ambulance trust, the Fire Service College, the Health Protection Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. A mix of audio and video work.

So what has happened with the webinar that we did for EUFIC on November 5th?

We had just over 300 people listening in live on the day but it is what has happened since that is proved amazing. Since then the total number of listeners has reached just a handful short of 6000! You can check it out here. As you can imagine this has driven the cost per listener even lower that 70p. Taking into account the cost of the second event (the earlier one was on 24th Septerber) and that we did two webinars on 5th - one for the media and one for other people - the cost per user is now below 60p.

To be honest what was achieved could not have been done in any other way for anything close to the budget. Trying to mail out and get 6000 responses would have meant a 120k mailer (using 5% response rates). Using a cost of £1 per mailer the project cost would have been about £20 a response. A seminar programme would have been logistically impossible as we have had visitors from over 30 countries but assuming we could do a multi-country seminar programme of say 20 locations with 300 people at each we would have been talking about £50 per person to cover room hire, presentation equipment hire and refreshments etc. We would still have needed to get all the speakers travelling and I would guess even now two weeks after the event we would at best be only half way into the grand tour! (Having spent a while on the road doing these sort of tours I know how hard they can be on the people and that you need a break of a day between each event so a 20 location tour would take about 1.5 months to complete - a massive investment of management time and resource). For the EUFIC webinar we had the presenters in their office and linked to the studio in Southampton so it was really easy to reach an audience globally without the travel costs and time associated. Half a day of their time is all it took not including preparation time.

What we have found that has been really interesting is the social networking done by listeners. When one person attends a physical conference a few people back at the office may get a debrief and to look at the delegate papers but the 'pass-on' effect is usually low. What seems to be happening with the webinar is that those who listened in have e-mailed workmates with the link and then told us that is what they have done or asked us directly if it is OK to do so! (Err...yes!) Some of those that missed the live session also mailed us asking for a link to the recording. Obviously if it was a real seminar anyone who missed the date would have missed it completely. Not so with a webinar. Months after the event it is still 'live' for each and every new listener. Looking at some of our podcast and webvideeo for other clients many are still going strong thanks to Word of Mouth/Mouse marketing months and in some cases years after the event.   

It is just over a week to go until the next EUFIC webinar on their pan-European research project into consumer behaviour and use of nutritional information on food labels.

So what has been the results so far? They have had almost 300 people register to listen on the 5th November.

The results of the September webinar have been amazing. As mentioned in an earlier post the 'listen again' using the recording of the live event has been listened to over 2600 times in just over a month. Considering we only had a specially invited audience of about 50 the post-broadcast version has been taken up fast, far and wide.

We are hoping with more people registering an interest the numbers listening after the event will be even higher.

Looking at budgets it means that cost per listener is now just over 70p. On some earlier podcast the cost has fallen to under the cost of a second class postage stamp. A great ROI.

Pictures of the camera and video mixing desk set up are on Flickr.

We had two crewed cameras and one locked off. The lock-off was a wide angle on the panel and off to the side. One of the operated ones focussed on the audience - using close ups as necessary - and the other did panel and audience close-ups. That way we were able to capture all the action with a mini crew of three. The third person was on the mixing desk switching between camera feeds and mixing and editing as they went along. The mixed feed was being recorded onto tape for later post-production editing and special effects. This meant that by early afternoon the next day the finished production could have been with the client.

Equally if they had wanted to they could have takedn the feed straight out onto the internet as a live webinar.

Corporations could use similar set-ups to capture team meetings and events where all employees would find it hard to attend.

The NHS are usinbg it as part of their public outreach and engagement programme. Not everyone could attend but now those that did not can see what happened and listen to both sides of the debate.

We have now done 2 webinars for our client - the European Food Information Council (www.eufic.org).

A few months ago they asked us to help them with their communication outreach programmes. We have previously recorded a 2 day seminar for them and podcast that (almost 200 people attended the conference. Over 2k have listened to it since).

We have also podcast a number of round-table conferences and events for them. Over the last two years these podcasts have been listened to or watched by close on 50k people. That is big ROI in terms of numbers of people reached. Looking at all the project costs over that time the cost per listener is about £1 and of course is falling everytime a new person listens in. Now compare that to the costs of direct mail, newsletters or brochures or even a physical seminar!

What did we do?

We built them a customised webinar system so they could present to the world from their offices in Belgium (or anywhere with an VoIP or internet connection). They have a web based master control panel that they use to control the slides and talk into a microphone. Their 'desktop' and their audio line feed is fed into our studios in Southampton in real time and via us (we are recording it for later podcast) to a streaming server so anyone can listen and watch the slides at the same time via a web site. After it is over the recording is uploaded to a web site so that anyone who could not virtually attend live can listen whenever they want.

So what was the result of the last webinar?

We had a restricted invitation list and 48 people listened live. They were able to ask questions via an IM/e-mail button on the web site. The presenters read the questions to air and then answered them. We recorded the presentation and linked it to the PowerPoint slides. We also recorded the Q&A session. This was all then put on a microsite which we hosted but was linked through from the EUFIC site. (Check out the EUFIC link to listen to the webinar). The client notified a few e-mail lists but mainly it was left to 'word-of-mouth' marketing to promote the webinars availability.

The result? In just under three weeks a total of 889 people have listened in. That is an 18X multiple on the live audience.

Looking at the results of the Food In Action conference we did for EUFIC almost a year ago this result is very similar. For Food In Action we had just over 150 people physically attend the event. Over 2250 people have listeded to the podcast recordings of the 2 day event since. That is a 15x multiple.

Looking at all the webinar budgets the cost per 'listener' is just under £2.50. Everytime a new person listens this cost goes down! Compare that to the cost of organising a physical seminar or even doing direct mail or newsletters. Webinars are very cost effcetive.

So what does the client think?

They have just booked their next conference for November 5th!

They have also asked we look at creatively reducing the cost per person attending by another 20%. They do not want reduced budgets but more people listening!