Making Your Live Event Webcast Pay for Itself (and then some!) [Video]

How to recover the costs of producing a live event webcast & even make a profit!

A simple, run-of-the-mill webcast done with a single camcorder or webcam is not an expensive proposition, but it would certainly betray a lack of professionalism, not to mention being utterly boring and of limited value when it comes to communicating information effectively.

However, when you start adding bells and whistles designed to make it look more professional and sophisticated, the costs can start adding up. This is especially so if you start adding more and more features designed to bring more value to an audience.

A professionally produced webcast combines not just audio and video, but also incorporates additional factors like: – Direct digital capture of PowerPoint slides – With dual screen display and picture-in-picture, – Multi-camera views with live switching just like a TV show – Screen sharing Live with Skype from remote presenters – Simultaneous online Chat screen – Online Surveys – and more… all designed to make your webcast more informative, more interesting and presenting more value to your viewers.

So here’s the challenge – how do you cut down production costs while still keeping a high production value with all the high-end features in your wish list?

Now if you are charging an entrance fee for attendance, that sort of takes care of the issue. But what if your entrance fees are not high enough, or if the number of attendees is too low to cover all your costs?

Or what if your webcast is a free service which does not collect ANY entrance fee at all? This is something I am often asked by non-profit groups who are not allowed to charge a fee for attendance.

This situation now requires you to get a bit creative when it comes to raising enough funding to cut down on your production costs – and maybe even run a profit!

Here are some ideas on how to generate revenues that do not depend on ticket sales…

The most effective method is Sponsorship: Have corporate sponsors contribute to the production cost in return for promoting them on the webcast – this can take the form of advertising – e.g. static ads on the webcast screen, displaying their logos on the first PowerPoint slide, mentioning them by name and thanking them during the introduction segment, or even running a short video commercial (should they have one ready) before, after or between presentations. More often than not, the entire cost of a live event webcast can be entirely defrayed using this method.

Next we have Advertising: Display paid advertising on the webcast page – e.g. in a side column, with the logos linking back to the advertisor’s website. Make sure their site opens in a new browser window, so the viewer does not inadvertently close down your webcast screen. Generally advertisors get less promotion and exposure than do sponsors, but the methods are closely related.

By the way – do make sure that your sponsors or advertisers are in non-competing fields.

Selling the webcast video Online as On-Demand Video: All live webcasts must be archived (make sure that your producers offer this feature as part of their offer and not as an additional extra). These archives should be web-ready video files, which should then be placed online and sold to viewers on a pay-per-view basis. Viewers who may be interested in this facility would be those who might have missed the original webcast due to scheduling conflicts, or even those viewers who might want a second (or even third) viewing.

DVD Sales: provide a more permanent record of the live webcast on disk, for viewers who might wish to preserve their own archive of the event because of the importance of the information it contained. Don’t forget to add your sponsors and advertisors to the DVD production – both within the DVD and maybe even on a full-color disk cover – for which you could levy an additional charge!

Allowing Sponsor Presentations: Giving your sponsors the opportunity to increase their exposure by presenting their business as a brief (very brief) presentation would be a very attractive offer that could be worth an extra charge to the sponsor. However, do make sure that their presentation is based on a subject that is related to the topic of your event and would be of interest to your viewership. Their presentation should be no more than 2-3 minutes in duration, since your audience expects information and not a sales pitch. However, if the sponsor presentation is more information-oriented rather than salesy (as it should be), this would be an added bonus for your audience as well.

And what about selling the Sponsor Presentation back to the Sponsor?

Naturally, you will be archiving the entire proceedings, so it would be easy enough to extract the sponsor presentation and either give it to the sponsor as a thank you for future use – or even sell it to them as yet another revenue stream!

These are just some of the methods you could use to not just defray your live webcast production costs, but to actually profit from the event and put some money back into your piggy bank.

You can get more information on how to webcast your next event live, on our website at www.mediastreams.ca or call us at 604.970.5055