Increase your return on investment for events

Events are a significant part of all Associations to bring their members together, provide educational opportunities and also generate revenue for the organisation. The team work incredibly hard to put the events together whether they be virtual or in person events so ensuring maximum return is vital.

Registration and sponsorship are the most common ways of generating revenue from events; however, selling a recording of the streaming or webinar can create long-term revenue. There are a number of platforms available that make doing this easy such as Intuto, Zoom Webinars and Webcastcloud.

Creating a “Webinar Library” of courses, workshops and information sessions available on-demand is a great way to engage your membership (and industry) by providing useful and trusted resources.

There are some key considerations to make when deciding to add this as an additional revenue stream – we have provided some below:

1. Ensure the platform integrates with your AMS

Ensuring the platform you use links with your Association Management System (AMS) will save on resources in the long run as data won’t need to be double handled i.e. entering new contacts manually into your AMS or tracking content that individual members engage with.

This will ensure you can track how many members are engaging with the on-demand content, what areas in particular individual members are interacting with and identify any other patterns that will be helpful in developing future content.

2. Understand what is most important to members

What challenges are your members currently facing? What are the hot topics in your industry? How can you enhance the skills of your members?

These are some of the questions to ask yourself when considering what topics to focus on for your video content to ensure you are providing what members need right now.

Zoning in on the current needs will allow you to have a bigger impact and increase engagement from members and the wider industry which could support in attracting new members. To have the most success, your Association needs to have its finger on the pulse of what is happening.

3. Quality content (information + visual appeal)

Of course, having high quality information and presenters as part of your events is a must to ensure value is delivered to attendees but creating a professional finish to the video content is just as important.

If you are recording an in person event – there needs to be just as much consideration to the production for virtual attendees as the people attending on site. This means you need a high quality video camera, ensuring the presenter and screens are visible. It can be difficult to master but is vital, especially if you are going to be charging for the content.

If you are recording an online event, it is a little easier to ensure quality with screen recordings producing a high resolution video.

4. Designing your monetisation strategy

There are a few different ways you can monetise your video content and it really depends on your Association’s needs and the type of content you produce.

You can have a simple on demand product where people are able to purchase a video recording to watch when it suits them for a one-off price (this means they get unlimited/ongoing access to the content).

If you produce a number of workshops, you could offer packages where you bundle the content into categories or people can create their own packages.

Monetising live webinars is also an option where users need to pay in order to access the digital event live.

Every Association is different – choose what works best for you

Each Association is working within a different industry, targeting a diverse range of people so it’s important to consider your audience and what is likely to provide them value.

Events take a lot of work so maximising your return is key – creating digital content / recordings of your events is an easy way you can increase the profits and also the reach of your events (particularly in person events).

Membes Users: Membes AMS integrates with Intuto, Zoom Webinars and Webcastcloud.