• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, July 23, 2007

Offering Archived Webcasts Improves Registration Measurably

According to a new study by ON24 Inc., a media marketing provider, focusing on the B2B publishing industry, webcasting can be a powerful marketing and lead generation tool as webcast type (live vs. on-demand), and interactive features (polling, surveys, Q&A) and streaming formats (audio vs. video) are considered.

The report shows that registration and attendance is cyclical depending on the time of year or week:

• Forty-seven percent of all registrations occur in the 10 days before a scheduled webcast, with 10.41% registering on the day of the webcast
• The months of December, June and August registered the highest registrant-to-attendee conversion percentages of 64.71%, 58.43% and 57.14% respectively
• Most registrations occurred earlier in the week - Monday (23%), Tuesday (21%), Wednesday (19%) - with the fewest percentage over the weekend

ON24 compared webcasts lasting less than 60 minutes of a cross-section of 35 B2B publishers, planned, scheduled and held from January through December in 2005 and January through December in 2006. In 2005, the data included 1825 total webcasts,1,015,908 total registrants, and 590,716 total attendees. The same criteria in 2006 yielded 2705 total webcasts, 1,544,706 total registrants, and 862,332 total attendees. According to the report, the findings have an error rate of +/- 2-3%. 

Some key findings of the stuey include the following observations:

Webcasting is a cost-effective method for lead generation and delivering complex messages. With webcasts averaging $20,000* to market and produce, the study shows that:

• With an average of 571.06 registrants per webcast, the average cost per registrant was $35
• With an average of 318.79 attendees per webcast, the average cost per attendee was $63
• Attendees spent an average of 40 minutes viewing webcast content

Once a live webcast ended, says the report, archiving that live webcast contributed a significant percentage of additional registrants and attendees for that content.

• In 2006, 15.34% all registrations occurred in the 30 days after a live event had been archived
• In 2006, when reviewing registrant to attendee conversion ratios, if 100 people register for an event, 29.53% attended during the live webcast, while an additional 24.70% viewed the archive

Though a smaller percentage of B2B publishers incorporated polls & surveys into their webcasts from 2005 (87.07%) to 2006 (73.83%), the percentage of attendees who participated increased from 29.16% in 2005 to 34.01% in 2006

With regard to the impact of audio or video webcasts impact on registration and retention:

• Video webcasts attracted a higher average number of registrants and attendees with conversion ratios over 50%
• The average number of registrants increased by 14.41% for video webcasts while audio webcasts experienced a .77% decrease year over year

The report's notable conclusions for webcast planners suggests that:

• There is a cyclical trend of when publishers schedule and deliver webcasts, with registration and attendee levels seeming to rise when there are a lower number of webcasts scheduled
• Archiving a live webcast contributes 15.34% of all registrations, indicating that archiving extends the ROI of the live webcast
• Forty-seven percent of all registrations occurred in the 10 days before a webcast  while most of these registrations occurred earlier in the week (Monday-Wednesday) versus later in the week and weekend

To obtain the complete report and charts from ON24, please visit here.