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  • 1.  Virtual Events + 10x increase in registrations - How are you managing these?

    Posted 09-01-2020 10:28
    Looking for solutions for how you are managing the increase in audience and the cost for adding registrations to your plan.  We are an association and pivoted to virtual in March.  We run an extensive list of virtual events and are consuming our registrations numbers at a quick pace.

    We are getting a lot of people to sign up to get the recordings and are evaluating ways to have them opt out to a mailing list for the recording.  We want to use registration only for those that actually want to attend the session.

    We are currently running the bulk of our webinars for free and are evaluating a costing model.  The issue is we are a member-based org and need to show value for the membership during this difficult time.  

    Would love to hear any creative solutions people are using to address this.

    #Flex-Creating/ManagingEvents
    #ManagingVirtualEvents

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    Nigel Reeves
    Director - Corporate Services
    YPO
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  • 2.  RE: Virtual Events + 10x increase in registrations - How are you managing these?

    Posted 09-09-2020 11:03
      |   view attached
    Hi Nigel, 

    Firstly, congrats on the increase in numbers! 

    We too are a member based association so I understand the need to keep the benefits valuable, especially now. Do you have non-members or out-of-state members signing up who could be charged? We often will charge around $15 for non-members and $7-10 for non-Texas-members, and keep it free for our Texas members.  

    Another idea would be to find a sponsor. With Flex, there are so many options for you to add a banner ad or logos of your sponsors throughout the registration pages and in the emails, even during the live and pre-recorded content. You could use your data that shows your increased website traffic to sell the sponsorship and the price you charge can cover the extra fees you are paying for that increase :)

    I'm not sure if you will find it useful but I am attaching our Sponsorship prospectus for our virtual conference. It has a stack of ideas you could pull from if you do choose to go down that route. 

    Good luck!

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    Sharna Pascolo
    Program Director
    Texas Society of Architects
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    Attachment(s)



  • 3.  RE: Virtual Events + 10x increase in registrations - How are you managing these?

    Posted 09-21-2020 13:19
    Thanks for this Sharna

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    Nigel Reeves
    Director - Corporate Services
    YPO
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  • 4.  RE: Virtual Events + 10x increase in registrations - How are you managing these?

    User Group Member
    Posted 09-10-2020 12:08
    Can you set your event to 'by approval only' and then ask a question if they'll be attending live or not live. The live you can approve registration for, the ones not live don't approve registration for and you don't get charged. Then post-event do an email to those in the pending queue with a link to download the webinar?

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    Rachel Sigley
    Sr. Brand Marketing Manager
    Tata America International Corporation
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  • 5.  RE: Virtual Events + 10x increase in registrations - How are you managing these?

    Posted 09-14-2020 10:11
    Good idea Rachel.  I will test this option and see what the impact to the registration flow is.

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    Nigel Reeves
    Director - Corporate Services
    YPO
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  • 6.  RE: Virtual Events + 10x increase in registrations - How are you managing these?

    Posted 09-14-2020 12:00
    Hi Nigel and Rachel,

    I wanted to jump in here to provide a bit more information. While enabling Registration Approval in your event is a great way to control your overall invitees and registration counts, pending and denied registrants do count towards your agreement. Here is a helpful article that breaks down how your registrations are processed in your account. If you have any questions, I would suggest discussing further with your Account Manager. 

    I'll let other users add on here if they have additional suggestions for you to consider!

    Best,

    Danni

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    Danni Czark
    Senior Associate, Online Community Marketing
    Cvent
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  • 7.  RE: Virtual Events + 10x increase in registrations - How are you managing these?

    Community MVP
    Posted 09-14-2020 09:38
    Hi Nigel,
    I imagine that many of us are in the same boat! We blew through our registration allotment and had to purchase a couple more small batches until our contract renewal date. 
    We look at this increased cost in a couple of ways:
    1. It's a small price to pay, compared to an in-person event
    2. It's frustrating that we are paying Cvent for registrations that are no-shows; which statistically is 33-50% of registrations because as you mentioned... they have no intention of attending, but want the deck. *We do not provide the deck to anyone who is a no-show; but that doesn't seem to have cut back on our numbers much. 

    I would love to see Cvent provide a new payment model in which they do not charge us for webinar no-shows, or they charge us a smaller amount. Perhaps we should formally request this!

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    Lori Wildman
    Senior Marketing Manager
    DuCharme, McMillen & Associates, Inc.
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  • 8.  RE: Virtual Events + 10x increase in registrations - How are you managing these?

    Community MVP
    Posted 09-15-2020 10:12
    Hi Nigel,

    A possible work around would be to add a page at the beginning of the registration process that says something like:

    If you are attending, please click the "Next" button below. This will send the registrant to registration.  You could change the text on the button to be clear they are registering to attend the event.

    If you are unable to attend and are interested in receiving the link to the on-demand video, CLICK HERE.  Have this linked to a survey or whatever method you are using to capture the opt-out data.

    Design wise you could also add an image box and link to the survey or you could add button links on a website page for the "I cannot attend" people.  There are a lot of other variables to consider such as will this setup encourage people not to attend your event?

    Please let us know if you find a solution.  

    Thanks!

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    Loretta Peterson
    Events Associate
    CDW
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  • 9.  RE: Virtual Events + 10x increase in registrations - How are you managing these?

    Community MVP
    Posted 09-17-2020 14:17
    Hello, 

    Lots of good suggestions already. We are in the same boat: as a union, we want to be able to provide our virtual events for free to our members, but have noted that only 50 to 70% of registrants actually attend anything. 
    One idea we are toying with is to have registration be $10-$20, with the clear understanding that anybody actually attending the event live (you could set the threshold at one session, 50% of sessions, 100% of sessions...) gets a gift certificate in the same amount for Starbucks, Target... This incentives people to actually show up to the event, plus you are getting some revenue as most bulk gift certificate purchases come at a discount to you. 
    I would also be very clear during the registration that the recorded content will be available for free after the event!

    Hope that gives you some ideas,

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    Béline FALZON
    Conference Program Specialist II
    California Teachers Association
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