Customer Counseling: Advice From an Event Planner on Going Virtual
When challenges arise, it’s helpful to hear from others going through the same thing, especially in the current COVID-19 era we’re living in. Online communities have formed with members sharing their personal experiences, and it’s surprising how much insight can be gained from a conversation with someone who’s in the same boat as you.
SlidesLive is here to help the community of event organizers connect with one another through the sharing of virtual event stories. Al Adamsen, founder and CEO of the People Analytics & Future of Work (PAFOW) Community & Conference Series, shared his experience using SlidesLive for his organization’s in-person and virtual events.
“I was thinking about doing a professional video recording of our conference,” Al said. “We had formerly done that informally, meaning we had a guy come in and he had his own kit and he did a good job. But in terms of the scope of services, it didn’t compare to what Katherine (from SlidesLive) had shared with me, and she talked about live streaming and doing the pre-production, communication with the speakers, setting them up for success, then doing the post production and having it look really well-branded and professional, and actively outsourcing that capability to them.”
Al realized that hiring a video production company could take his conferences and events to the next level; however, he still had some concerns to address before investing.
“Initially, I was a little cautious given the price point and given I had no idea who SlidesLive was,” Al said. “I then found out that they were based overseas, which made me a little bit more nervous. There were three options really. To do it in-house like I had, which carried a lot of risk. And then there was going with a very high end provider. And it carried a lot of risk because the financial commitment was prohibitive, and it just did not make sense.”
And then there was the third option: SlidesLive.
“And so we finalized it really nicely as being a cost effective, high value solution,” Al said. “And now with COVID, it is even more the case. And so I am very fortunate to have developed a relationship with SlidesLive prior to everything happening. Now that we’re in this virtual world, we’re well-positioned to meet the needs of our sponsors and broader community. So, so far, so good.”
Yet there’s still the fear of every event planner: to make the event happen, no matter how. And Al learned to get over that fear over time with the help of SlidesLive.
“The biggest concern I had, and frankly, it took me a couple, maybe three conferences to get over it is, once you say you’re going to do something, you have to do it,” Al said. “And if you don’t, then the world knows about it. And it’s not like the world cares about what we do. But our community is very well connected. They’re very engaged. So if we put a promise out there to livestream for example, and we don’t livestream, a bunch of people mark their calendars and it doesn’t happen. That’s not a good thing. That’s happening.”
But not with SlidesLive.
“So when (SlidesLive) said, ‘Oh, yeah, we can livestream on LinkedIn and YouTube at the same time,’ I’m like, ‘Really,’” Al said. “I had to see it to believe it and when I saw it, I was like this is super, super cool. And so we got a lot of positive feedback from people around the world. They really appreciated that we were offering that service.”
SlidesLive offers a unique visual experience in an era where Zoom fatigue is real. Whether it’s for classes or team meetings, many people are finding themselves logged into Zoom for hours, watching the same screen with different voices. There needs to be some sort of motivating factor for viewers to stay logged on.
“You can’t just keep looking at a Zoom screen all the time or Google Meet screen all the time to be at the level of interaction and engagement that warrants viewing, you know, eyeballs; that is the metric, that people not only come and look, but they stay,” Al said. “And they stay because it’s unique. It’s not just looking at another Zoom call, which everybody does, so we can’t do it on Zoom.”
Al shared his concerns regarding sponsors and pricing and how PAFOW achieved success in both arenas.
“If we don’t get sponsors to pay then we don’t have a bit,” Al said. “Similarly, if the delegates of the participants don’t find value in the content, then they’re not going to come back. So we charge $160 for access to the recordings after the content or after the conferences. So that’s very different from $1200; even so, getting people to pay $160 for something is hard. And we’re getting people to do it because of the quality of our content. Because of the quality of the visual experience.”
It may be difficult to take a leap of faith and invest in a virtual event platform like SlidesLive. But the outcome could positively change the way your company plans events in the future. And the level of trust between your organization and SlidesLive may even make the process of planning much less stressful for you, your organization, and your audience.
“At the end of it, if we didn’t have SlidesLive we would have to find a solution provider for them,” Al said. “I have high levels of trust now that things will work.”
When asked about the future of the event industry, Al expressed his concerns with disengagement as well as recovery in the virtual world.
“Formerly people went to a location to experience a conference, and you got what you got,” Al said. “And there were a bunch of alternative ways to spend time if you didn’t see a session that you liked. But the ability to disconnect from a session online is immensely easy and now you’re off to something else. So the ability to recover is really difficult.”
On behalf of PAFOW, Al stated his community’s new strategy regarding content creation.
“Formerly I had put us as a community and conference series and I still do that. But really, we’re a community and a media company now. And we’re all about content, not only content creation, but input, content curation, and, you know, our ability to create proprietary content is one of our most valuable services. Without that now we would not exist. So that’s the bottom line.”
As a team, SlidesLive hopes to help you and your organization meet a higher level of virtual success than ever before. But don’t just take Al’s word for it. Check out this article if you’d like to learn more about the basics of hosting a virtual event, and visit SlidesLive for contact information and estimates. Check back next week for our next post on pre-recordings. We’re in this together.
