How To Increase Non-dues Revenue From Seminars, Workshops & Conferences
by Brian Duvall
It’s important to notice that the title of this article is How to Increase Non-dues Revenue from Seminars, Workshops & Conferences and NOT how to increase Attendance at these events.
There is a big difference.
If you have been doing live workshops, conferences and seminars for a few years, then you have probably noticed a decline in attendance as the economy has slowed. Your members begin to question the value of your workshops compared to their cost of attending. They have to seriously consider their time away from work, travel expenses, hotel expenses, meals, etc. in addition to the conference fees.
If the value of attending isn’t immediately apparent and an overwhelming benefit to them, then they choose to do something else instead. Also, the hundreds of dollars each member spends on these travel related expenses become hundreds of dollars they CAN’T spend with your organization.
Believe it or not this creates a huge opportunity for you that simply wasn’t available even just a few years ago.
The question becomes, “How do you make more money from what you are already doing with declining attendance or NO attendance at a live event?” The solution is that your members NEED the information your experts present at these events but what your members WANT are choices in HOW they get that valuable information.
So, how do you give them choices? Simple. VIDEO ON DEMAND.
Technology today makes professional quality video production, distribution and syndication affordable. Just ten years ago if you wanted to broadcast a live show to your market, it would have cost tens of thousands of dollars for local, hundreds of thousands for statewide, and millions for national broadcasts.
Today, web savvy video enthusiasts can webcast a live show to the entire world practically for free using services like Ustream.tv.
By video recording your workshops, seminars and conferences you can make your presentations available to your members in a variety of formats… for a fee.
- PHYSICAL PRODUCT: You can offer your members and customers video content in the form of physical products like DVD’s, CD’s, printed and bound materials all neatly packaged and branded.
- VIRTUAL PRODUCTS: You can also offer your content over the web as streaming video, flash video, or video file downloads so your members can watch your presentations whenever they want from the convenience of their office or home.
Both of these alternatives save your members hundreds of dollars in travel related expenses for every event you offer. This means they now have hundreds of dollars they can spend with your organization.
You might be thinking, “Won’t I lose money on my events if members can watch them online or on DVDs?”
Back in the 1980′s, Hollywood thought the same way about allowing their movies to be recorded and played on a dreaded new technology called a VCR. Movie execs were worried that the VCR would kill attendance at theaters and bleed their box office receipts dry. It came down to a very narrow vote that nearly banned the entire video recording industry.
Today, the film industry enjoys a multi-billion dollar annual revenue from DVD and Blueray Disc sales on top of their traditional box office profits. The technology they once feared has literally saved the industry.
How many members does your organization currently have? Now, consider your typical workshop, seminar or conference. How many members usually attend? Be honest. Think of all the reasons a member might not attend. Weather conditions, schedule conflicts, short staffed, too far, can’t afford the travel, not budgeted, etc. All legitimate reasons.
Now, how many of your members have computers and DVD players? Probably all of them.
Look back on all the reasons your members don’t attend. Which ones are still valid when you offer them choices through video and the web?
Do the math. Consider your organization for example. If your organization has 10,000 members and 10% attend your annual conference, then that’s about 1,000 people. A pretty good attendance rate. If you charge $600 per person to attend, then you make $600,000 on the event… minus the expenses of putting on the event like venue rental, audio-visual fees, speaker fees, catering, signage, manpower, staff-time, etc.
But what if you also recorded the work sessions and offered them to your membership for $400 and an additional 10% bought the video recordings? That’s an additional $400,000 in PASSIVE non-dues revenue. And if you keep the recordings available for the entire year, then you can expect to sell an additional 5 to 15 percent. That’s another $540,000 in totally PASSIVE non-dues revenue.
Even if nobody shows up at your annual conference, you still make $940,000 in totally passive non-dues revenue. That’s more than $300,000 extra income than you would have made doing the conference only.
Bonus Tip: Turn your highest demand content into video presentations first. Your highest demand content is that information which your members absolutely MUST have.
Many professions have regulatory and compliance issues they must stay well informed about or face stiff fines or worse. Content like this will almost guarantee that members will buy… creating higher than usual sales rates. The great part about this type of content is that it needs to be updated each year creating an ongoing revenue stream for your organization.
O.k., so now you are seriously considering the next step to launching your own video projects for passive non-dues revenue. How do you get started?
There are basically three ways to make your video content.
- The cheap way – do it yourself using staff and volunteers. This appears to save you money up front but the reality is you’ll need to buy some professional video cameras for about $3,000 each. Then you’ll need some quality tripods for about $100 each. The cheap ones for still cameras won’t cut it. Next is a good wireless microphone. If you’re recording more than one person at a time then you’ll need an audio mixer. Remember to get a set of high power lights so we can see your presenter. Once the video is recorded, then you’ll need to edit it with some decent non-linear editing software like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premier. Each runs about $1,200. You’ll also need a script, graphic designs, video duplication, printing, assembly, packaging, shipping, order fulfillment, tracking, video hosting, and more. Who do you have on staff who can do any or all of this? Do they have the time and the the equipment? Suddenly the do-it-yourself option doesn’t seem like much of an option after all.
- The expensive way – hire a video production company to shoot and edit the video. Typical pay rate is about $1,000 per finished minute of video. They’ll probably do a beautiful job and I recommend using this type of service if you plan on putting your video on broadcast television.
- The Best way – joint venture with a professional content creation and marketing company that will provide a turn-key solution by professionally recording your workshops and seminars, creating the marketing materials to promote your new video product, provide duplication, packaging and fulfillment services, help you market and promote your videos to generate sales. A joint venture partner like this will provide all this at a low cost in exchange for earning a percentage of each sale on the back-end. This type of performance based compensation ensures your project’s success because if the product doesn’t sell then the company doesn’t make money.
I’ll share tips on how to REALLY ramp up your revenue stream by leveraging your video content with corporate sponsorships in a future post.
Stay tuned.
Cheers,
Brian Duvall
