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As her event team began planning their company’s biggest conference
of the year, Heidi Lorenzen was looking for a way to differentiate
their event from others. “We have always been good at attendee acquisition,
but this year we needed to reach out to new audiences and wanted
to drive higher attendance as well,” she said.
“We felt that if potential attendees could actually hear an enthusiastic
preview of things to come from the keynote speakers and session
leaders themselves, they would have a more personal glimpse into
the compelling content we developed just for them; we would separate
ourselves from the conferences and activities competing for their
time; and our attendance would increase.”
To make this idea a reality, Lorenzen’s organization turned to
podcasting. As a result, attendance went up, and the audience mix
moved in the right direction.
No matter where you are in the events industry, you’re probably
familiar with this conundrum: How do you differentiate yourself
from competing events and create enough excitement around it to
inspire people to take time out of their busy schedules and/or spend
the money to attend?
While most individuals tasked with driving attendee traffic use
traditional techniques, doing the same thing as everybody else makes
you look like… everybody else. In marketing terms, that means you’re
“functionally equivalent.” Not exactly a selling point that will
get attendees to your show.
This is where a great podcast can make a difference.
Chances are, you’ve already heard about podcasting. For many, it’s
simply something teenagers listen to on their iPods. Others think
that without an iPod, there can be no podcast.
Both assumptions are wrong — and believing them will lead you to
miss an opportunity to reach out to your audience in a way that
humanizes your conference and generates interest in your content.
For those not familiar with podcasting, a definition: A podcast
is an audio or video file that has been recorded and placed on the
Internet to be enjoyed at the listener’s convenience. According
to technology research firm ITG Research, there will be 33 million
podcast listeners by the end of 2008. More importantly, it’s not
just about iPods: If somebody can click a play button on a Web page,
he or she can listen to a podcast. And according to Neilsen/ NetRatings
and Podtrac, between 58 and 64 percent of podcast listeners are
between the ages of 25 and 54.
Potential attendees can also subscribe to your podcast, which means
they will automatically receive each episode the moment it becomes
available. The ability to send your podcasts to all your subscribers
is like being able to run a radio spot with the promise that 100
percent of the audience will care about what you have to say. Not
possible in radio — always possible with a podcast.
For conference-specific podcasts, we ask conference speakers questions
that create curiosity, the number-one technique in motivating people
to take action on your behalf. What questions? Here are a few examples:
- What's the one thing you plan to talk about that might surprise
the listener?
- What was it about this event that made you want to come
and present to this audience?
When delivering a podcast, keep in mind these four principles as
a guide to doing a show correctly:
- Plan -- an episode map to ensure the timely
release of new episodes and reduce the risk of "podfading,"
or the premature conclusion to a podcast series without warning
- Produce -- Audio and content problems kill
credibility. Be sure to work with a firm capable of both audio
expertise as well as providing content that resonates with listeners
- Publish -- Your job is to increase the probability
of listenership and reduce the risk of incompatibility. If somebody
wants to listen, make sure it's easy for him or her to do so regardless
of the chosen method.
- Promote -- There are many ways to promote
your podcast beyond placing the show in podcast directories such
as iTunes. Use them!
And what about after the event? If you've recorded each session,
distribute those recordings to all attendees via your podcast, saving
people the anxiety of missing one session because they selected
another instead. You can also take excerpts from sessions and make
them available to nonattendees as a means of demonstrating what
they missed, motivating them to not miss next year's event.
Next time you're thinking of new ways to increase event attendance,
don't forget to research what a podcast can do for you.
Guest columnist Scott Whitney is president and CEO of PodWorx
Inc., a podcasting production firm in Las Vegas.
Contact: swhitney@podworx.com
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