New Products :: Audio Conferences

Ten Lessons Learned During the Past Nine Years in the Distance Learning Trenches

Rick Olson, President
Mary Jackson-Pichotta, Account Manager
KRM Information Services, Inc.

Virtual seminars, as defined by my company, are live, interactive seminar events-mainly lecture-with about 25% of the time set aside for questions from the audience.  These events are almost always either 90 minutes or 2 hours in length.  The audio is delivered via the telephone and, in many cases now, visuals are presented via the Internet.  Registrant sites participate by queuing up to ask questions over the phone ("talk-radio" feature) when the speakers are ready to take questions or by submitting a question anytime over the Internet.  They also participate by use of a real-time voting feature (audience polling).  On average, four people are participating from each registered site.

In 1994 we tested the first seminar; however, we called it a "telephone seminar" back then.  The program was sponsored by the American Bar Association's Section of Family Law, an 11,000-member interest group.  Having been a co-founder of a seminar company that had sponsored thousands of continuing legal education programs since 1977 and having practiced family law, I had real doubts about the format.  Would lawyers want to receive their education using a format that resembled a conference call.

I soon had my answer.  More than 420 sites registered for the program, and at least 1,000 listeners participated.  The members' evaluations were very positive, with many comments dealing with how convenient it was to have CLE (continuing legal education) delivered direct to their office.  I immediately grasped the obvious:  this was a service that members would find useful.  Our virtual seminar business plan was born.

Since that time we have tweaked and improved the system dramatically.  As with any good education vehicle, changes are necessary over the course of time to stay in line with users' needs and expectations. Throughout these years we have learned certain lessons which we hope will assist others considering distance-learning initiatives.

LESSON #1:  Topic, topic, topic.

Successful seminars are about giving people information they need and want.  It's about helping people solve problems.  But in the excitement over the use of the technology, this can sometimes be overlooked.  Seminars, virtual or not, are only about the topic.  It is also true, however, that because of the convenience factor, a good topic delivered virtually will have a bigger turnout than a face-to-face program could have.

Sponsors often find success in seminars based on a recent change of great significance to their readers, i.e., the hot topic.  Often these programs are hugely successful; some provide as high as a 5% return on the promotion.  However, many of our clients have a strategy that calls for a program every month.  They cannot rely solely on having hot topics.  Therefore, here are some suggestions when considering a topic: 

. How practical is the topic?
o How many subscribers does it affect?
o How often does it affect them?
o How important is the topic to them?
o Does it help them to succeed?
o Can it be presented with handouts that include checklists or forms or a series of questions to ask?

. Is your publication the one to which your members look for this type of information?
o Is the topic in line with your typical offerings?
o Does the topic deal with the readers' main operational issues?
o Who else provides this type of information to your subscribers?

. Is the information sensitive?
o Is it a topic that participating at a face-to-face conference would be awkward, such as succession planning?

. Can the information be covered in 2 hours or less?
o Two hours is easily tolerated in this format.  Longer than that is questionable, but has been done.  Short, highly focused programs of a practical nature are successful.

. Can you take advantage of the format's strengths?
o Offer a program on a very narrow, "niche" type topic.  Because of the convenience of the medium, you can draw large numbers of attendees who would not travel to a face-to-face program on the same topic.
o Sponsor a program for hot topics less than three weeks from start of planning the program date - we have seen this done many times.  It is a great way to beat the competition to a hot topic.
o Invite speakers from geographically dispersed locations, such as government officials and experts whom you could never afford to have participate in a face-to-face program.
o Expand your offerings to international participants, since travel is not a barrier.

LESSON #2:  The cheapest promotions work the best.

Blast e-mail and blast fax seem to have the best response rate, and they are also the fastest and least expensive methods of promotion.

Sending a short "teaser" e-mail with a hyperlink to a full Web brochure generally works best for most clients.  The best teasers contain the title, speakers' names, program date and time, two or three key benefits, and a hyperlink to the complete program description.  In that way the reader can instantly get to the full benefits/features only a brochure can deliver, and can register immediately while their interest is high.

LESSON #3:  Promote one virtual seminar at a time.

Clients often succumb to the natural temptation to decrease marketing costs by putting two, three or even four seminars on one brochure.  Unless the programs are a series of programs on a single topic (e.g., part A, B and C on topic X), we have seen that this is a mistake.  It waters down the response on all of the programs.  And if you are using e-mail or blast fax as your market vehicle, they are inexpensive enough that you don't need to combine several seminars into one promotion.

If at all possible, do a stand-alone promotion rather than burying the notice of your virtual seminar within an e-newsletter or e-mail containing a lot of other information.  A stand-alone promotion will get a lot more attention.  Remember, though, you do need to actively promote the event.  Don't wait for people to find the information on your Web site.

LESSON #4:  Give enough notice of the program.

Unless it is a hot topic, you should give your target audience about five weeks notice before the program date.  Many people will still register at the very last minute, but they do want to know about it far enough out so they can pencil it in, before their calendars have filled up.  Many clients effectively market by using different media a few weeks apart, for example, a fax five weeks out followed by an e-mail a few weeks later.

LESSON #5:  Think differently about when to hold virtual seminars.

Scheduling this type of program can be counter-intuitive.  The best time of the day, day of the week and time of the year may all be different in this format than they are for face-to-face seminars.  We have found, for example, that Mondays and Fridays have the highest average number of sites per program.  Summer months, and even holiday weeks (e.g., the week between Christmas and New Year's) have worked very well for many of our clients.  When people don't have to leave the office to attend a seminar, scheduling can be much more flexible.

LESSON #6:  Focus on the content, not the technology.

No matter how you promote, use the real estate in your promotion to focus on the features and benefits of why this is a must-attend seminar.  The audience does not care about how it works; they just want to know that it is delivered to their offices (or wherever they want) and is, therefore, convenient.  In other words, do not let your enthusiasm with the technology carry over to the promotion.  The technology is just the delivery mechanism.

LESSON #7:  Participants understand the value of convenience.

Steve Rindo of the State Bar of Wisconsin, an experienced sponsor of virtual seminars, said it well when he wrote,

Perhaps the biggest mistake that sponsors make is under-pricing the tuition for virtual seminars.  Too often, sponsors remain locked on a traditional pricing model and price by the credit rather than the convenience and timeliness of the information being presented.  It is far easier for a sponsor to anchor tuition at the high end and move back than to start at the low end and have to ratchet upwards.  Remember, solid content combined with the convenience factor can overcome almost any prejudice.

Most program sponsors charge for the connection, not the number of listeners.  Registrants appreciate that multiple listeners can participate from the office for one price.  Your organization should consider this opportunity to rethink the pricing of your seminars.  Participants will pay a higher tuition fee than usual, and still appreciate the cost savings to them.  They avoid downtime, travel cost and frustration, etc.

LESSON #8:  Extend the life of the seminar.

Not everyone will be able to attend your live event.  And many who do attend may want to listen again, or share the information with colleagues.  Many clients earn substantial additional revenue by selling recordings of the program.  Whether you offer the audiocassette, audio CD or both, tapes and CDs are portable and allow one to multi-task, such as during commuting, exercising, etc.  If we take the number of registered sites and multiply it by 20%, program sponsors will, on average, sell that number of product packages.  So, offer this low tech, user-friendly service.  It will make your audience, and your bottom line, happy.

LESSON #9:  Online discussion groups do not work; in-room discussions do.

We believed we had a great value-added service when we offered a threaded discussion group to our clients.  Several of them tried it.  We found out that when the program was over, attendees did not seem to want to go online and engage in a discussion.  On a number of occasions, however, the group listening together at any given registered site would continue to discuss the implications of the seminar information after the program was over.  Many of our clients will ask their speakers to leave the audience with discussion-like questions to consider.

LESSON #10:  Visuals on the Web enhance and expand the program's content.

Using the Internet allows you to add color, depth and interaction to the presentation.  We still use the telephone for its universal accessibility, reliability and two-way communication.  However, the Internet allows you to add a visual component by showing color graphs, detailed schematic drawings, live Web tours, and demonstrations of any application running on the presenter's PC (e.g., a common spreadsheet program or some proprietary software).  It also offers a more immediate and visually interesting way for presenters to poll the audience with questions related to demographics, opinions, industry practices, and so on.

LESSON #11:  And beyond:

We are looking forward to learning more lessons as we have more experience with some of the following technologies:

. Programs archived on the Web or on CD-ROM - we now have the capability to capture a virtual seminar and, within days, have it up on the Web or stored on a CD-ROM or both.   To date we have learned that our clients experience more success with the live event than they do with the program archive. We think it's because:
o When people can view the program "anytime" they never get around to it.
o People value opportunity to interact with the speakers in the live event.
o The CD-ROM or Web access (as compared to audiotapes and audio CDs) are not portable media and therefore not as convenient.

. Streaming media - we are frequently asked about streaming a video feed over the Web, or even streaming the audio feed.   We are cautious about these media and have not yet adopted them because:
o They are substantially more expensive without adding substantially more value.  (Oftentimes all that is added is the ability to see the "talking" head.")
o Not all end users, nor all presenters, have the hardware necessary to utilize these media.  In addition they raise many issues in regard to firewalls, bandwidth, etc.
o They are not fully interactive - that is, even if the audience can hear and see the presentation on the Web, it is usually not possible for them to ask questions of the presenter in the same way.

We will learn more about these questions in the coming years - and we will encounter new questions that we cannot even imagine now!  We look forward to learning as we go!

KRM Information Services, Inc., 200 Spring Street, Eau Claire , WI 54703
(800)816-2640  Fax:  (715)833-5466  Web:  www.krm.com