Categories
News

Webinar prep to keep audiences engaged

Now that most of you have probably selected your webinar platform of choice, and run a webinar or two, there is one element that can vary greatly from one webinar to the next and that is engagement. So how can you control this and what webinar prep can you do to prevent your audience from screen flicking, multitasking or grabbing a quick coffee? View Webinar.

Luli Adeyemo from Best Case Scenario and Therese O’ Dwyer from RDA Sydney sat down with radio presenter Alexi Boyd to discuss how a two week planning window achieved a 100% attention rate and a very low drop off rate during their webinar entitled ‘Remote Working Strategies’ attended by Government, Councils, Universities & Australian businesses.

The key points addressed during their discussion include webinar adaptation, speaker collaboration and key steps to preparation all having a measurable impact on webinar engagement and beyond the webinar itself.

Highlights From Webinar

How can you achieve 100% audience attentiveness during a webinar? Secure an expert moderator – Luli mentions this is probably one of the biggest ingredients to success – an expert moderator who can keep the conversation on track between speakers and deal with questions from the audience. Ensure diversity of speakers and perspectives – This keeps the content engaging and interesting. Build speaker rapport before the webinar – This is probably one area that differs from a live event.  Luli suggests a ‘dress rehearsal’ prior to the webinar.

“The prep work that is done in developing a rapport between speakers before a webinar is important, there is then a natural element that flows between them”

The right content for the right audience – Therese referenced how they shaped the webinar on issues that they knew their audience wanted to know more about.  It was here that Luli used her network to source three of the four speakers for the webinar.  One additional valuable asset was the independent research report authored by the moderator and speaker (Tim Sheedy, Principal Advisor, Ecosystm) on the topic of remote working.

The outbound engagement strategy was a success because of the ideal marrying between great content and access to an audience who wanted this content.

Ask participants for questions when registering – another simple engagement game changer was adding a field on the webinar registration form for delegates to submit a question they would like addressed during the webinar itself.

“Participants were asked to submit questions before the webinar, rather than stumbling on the day with questions, the answers were coming quickly from speakers. One really good aspect was also the answering of questions that were asked during the webinar in a follow up email, this was really good.”

A screenshot of a webinar with Luli Adeyemo, Teresa O'Dwyer and Alexi Boyd

Therese also mentions that the post event content that is sent out to audiences was a great way to engage people and to keep them staying on until the end.

The webinar closes off with Luli discussing the adaptability of the events space and how it is evolving in the current climate.  She mentions webinars have always been available, but their adoption and use is now on a massive scale.  The current situation just showcases to people that webinars deliver the same engagement you get with physical events and it shouldn’t just be used in a crisis.

She also hopes it will drive people to ask the question, why are we doing this webinar, is it necessary? She has noticed that when working with her clients there is a real purpose behind each webinar.

Based on the processes and methodologies used in building RDA Sydney’s webinar a simple blueprint now exists on the ingredients needed (or ‘secret sauce’ as Alexi refers to it) to continually ensure webinar engagement and attentiveness during webinars. Contact us for the blueprint.

Please contact me at luli@bestcasescenario.com.au to discuss if our framework is suitable for you.

Webinar prep to ensure high engagement and low drop off rate

Categories
News

Collaboration to address changing trends in event consumption and expectations

Best Case Scenario (BCS), Sydney based conference marketing company has today announced a partnership with Ecosystm, the disruptive technology research and advisory firm.

BCS identified a need to build and validate their client’s marketing strategy and event program messaging and development with support from independent, real-time and fact-based research.  They have also witnessed a major shift in their clients’ needs as they want to give event participants more opportunities to collaborate, co-create and discuss content.

Ecosystm is in a unique position to provide BCS and its clients with access to its growing network of technology influencers and can further support their messaging and thought leadership requirements with its unparalleled real-time-research-as-a-service tool.

“Through this partnership our clients can experience how event content can be used beyond the time of the event itself.  It’s the combination of Ecosystm’s self-sustaining online peer-to-peer community, best in class analysts and primary research that can bring true business value to my client’s event strategy.”

According to EventMB 2020 will shift the bar tremendously when it comes to delegate collaboration at events, eliminating the lack of presentation engagement  in other words, ‘death by PowerPoint scenario’.  Their analysis shows that 73% of conferences and 50% of trade shows offer some level of workshop as a component of their event.

Events with a strategically-aligned purpose bigger than money and revenue outperform their competition by over 350%*.

“As the event landscape gets more and more competitive, along with changing trends in delegate consumption of experiences and expectations at events, a much more purposeful, sophisticated and collaborative approach to event creation is a must.  Our clients can further foster thought leadership, collaboration and credibility amongst their target audience by leveraging both BCS and Ecosystm’s capabilities”.

Download their quick guide on how to leverage this new service to amplify event experiences for all event participants.

“Ecosystm’s mandate is to democratise market information to empower and support every business and IT stakeholder in making well informed and fact based decisions.  The partnership with BCS fits perfectly into our belief that a strong ecosystem of best in class experts and providers, empowered by dynamic and relevant information, is what the market demands to navigate through these disruptive time.”

“We are extremely excited to collaborate with BCS on some joined projects and solutions. BCS has established itself as a leading provider for marketing and event solutions and their culture and professionalism and partnership approach with their clients is a natural fit to Ecosystm’s business and values” Ullrich adds.

About Best Case Scenario

Established in 2007, BCS has been serving the Australian market place for well over a decade and this track record has resulted in it becoming an invaluable partner to its clients who continue to work with BCS in order to leverage their market knowledge and networks.

BCS through the provision of end-to end event management services strives to help its’ customers including Government, Healthcare & Technology organisations to harness the business value of events.

For media enquiries, please email Jennifer Murray at jen@bestcasescenario.com.au

About Ecosystm
Ecosystm is a digital Technology Research and Advisory Platform that brings together tech buyers, vendors and analysts into one integrated platform. The firm moves away from the highly inefficient business models of traditional research firms and instead focuses on data democratisation, with an emphasis on accessibility, transparency and autonomy.

With technology becoming the number one source for innovation and differentiation, and global annual spending on technology due to exceed US$5 trillion by 2020, Ecosystm aims to enable all companies to harness the power of real-time market data and insights from best in class analysts to make informed decisions. Offering data and research input, sourcing and subscription services, Ecosystm promises its users in-depth and relevant research by default.

For media enquiries, please email David Bass (Bass Public Relations) at david@basspr.com.au

OR Chris White, Director of Tech Communities, Ecosystm at chris.white@ecosystm360.com

Categories
News

AI-driven app wins AIMed Shark Tank Innovator Award

Presented at AIMed Australia’s inaugural summit in Sydney on 12–13 November 2019, the AI-driven app, Theratrak reflects AIMed’s mission to excel AI adoption in healthcare to change lives. The award was presented by Dr Anthony Chang, cardiologist at CHOC Children’s Hospital and founder of AIMed, who is spearheading the AI global movement designed by clinicians for clinicians.

“Theratrak was founded in early 2018 and launched the first version of the app later that year. The digital platform supports allied health clinicians to work collaboratively to create, monitor and track custom therapy programs for their clients. To receive this coveted award less than a year after Theratrak’s launch marks a great milestone in our journey — at AIMed we pitched our innovation to experts in the field of AI in medicine. We are delighted to be in the company of other AI innovators who are using AI to enable better-value health care. We will continue to work harder to change patient’s lives and remove the administrative burden of clinicians.”

Dr Ian Oppermann, one of the AIMed Shark Tank judges and Chief Data Scientist and CEO of the NSW Data Analytics Centre, acknowledged how important digital innovation is to the Australian healthcare industry.

Transforming clinician workflow burden and getting the most out of treatment sessions for clients

Laura Simmons is a passionate paediatric occupational therapist, helping families and working with children living with range of disabilities. She has worked in the private health sector in Australia for over seven years, and in this time has noticed a distinct lack of innovative technology solutions targeting the ongoing care of clients outside of direct therapy and how this is impacting the client’s overall treatment. Simmons identified a problem on both the clinician and client side.

“AIMed Shark Tank attracted many AI innovations hoping to win the AIMed Shark Tank award; however, Theratrak was a clear winner in the category Enabling Better Value Healthcare. This award is about letting clinicians, innovators and the public know that AI in Australia is fuelling better patient outcomes now and not just in the future.”

For clients, she identified research suggesting that the minute a client leaves a medical practitioner they forget 40–80% of what they’ve been told, which reduces the ability to get the most out of every treatment session. The solution? Theratrak captures visual information and therapist’s notes and sends this directly to the client to enable them to easily complete their program at home. The patient is at the forefront of Theratrak’s design.

For clinicians, Simmons identified that clinicians are significantly time poor, treat clients with significant care needs and have increasing medicolegal requirements. The solution? Theratrak works with the therapist to create custom home programs that are sent to the client within a therapy session. Theratrak’s platform also enables clinicians to track their clients’ progress from a distance.

Categories
News

Event social media marketing

How can event planners differentiate their event social media marketing?

Hypothetically speaking let’s say an event planner secures a speaker with a very active social media profile. Let’s imagine it is Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, first on the list of top 10 CEOs using Twitter, with 2.34 million followers. Let’s take this dream scenario to the next level, Eric is so impressed by the content of the event he happily ‘boasts’ he is speaking on more than one occasion. Job done?

Event planners have every reason to believe they have hit the jackpot, especially since research conducted by CEO.com revealed social media adoption is sluggish among Fortune 500 CEOs: 61% are not active on any of the major social networks, so this is a dream situation.

Let’s get back to reality, when it comes to event social media marketing a robust plan should be launched at least 14 weeks out from the event date.

Recently, Best Case Scenario was approached by an organisation who had an established event but wanted to increase their delegate attendance by 30%.  This wasn’t an unrealistic goal, we researched their target audience in terms of potential growth and also reviewed the event’s social media footprint.

We were very impressed with the volume of attendee-generated content during and post-event. To us, this was more than an Eric Schmidt moment.  It was the event attendees who were consumers of the event generating content.  According to a Comscore study , when people are exposed to a mixture of user generated content (UGC) and professional content, engagement can increase by up to 28%, taking the burden off event organisers.

Leveraging this content for our client’s next event is a no-brainer but is often overlooked in social media marketing plans. It’s easy to get mislead by vanity metrics, such as likes and followers.

The below principles for event social media will avoid any over reliance on an Eric Schmidt moment.

  • Event content should be at the heart of the social media campaign
  • Make conversation a focus, as well as a structure around storytelling for each topic focus
  • Address the delegate journey from awareness to registration in your social media planning
  • Encourage collaboration with clients, sponsors and media

Do not use social media marketing as a stand-alone campaign, leverage traditional marketing opportunities also such a PR, Telemarketing etc…

Jen Murray has worked in the field of event marketing for over 20 years. Recently she earned herself a Diploma in Digital Marketing (Distinction) from the Digital Marketing Institute. Her background includes working for organisations such as Polycom, BancTec and Gartner.

Categories
News

Microsoft at eResearch Australasia

The Best Case Scenario team are in Melbourne this week at Pullman Albert Park, project managing Microsoft‘s silver sponsor investment at eResearch Australasia, 2018.

Their mission during the conference is to ensure they meet Microsoft’s clear business objectives:

  • Generate awareness of the Microsoft Azure platform to researchers at the event
  • Drive engagement at the exhibitor stand
  • Capture event highlights

Of course their engagement and planning of this event began well in advance of the conference, the team used their unique process and methodology to ensure that both Microsoft employees and conference delegates have an enjoyable experience when they visit the Microsoft exhibitor stand.

Team Best Case Scenario Responsibilities

  • Project manage the entire process end to end, from booth design to customer experience on the stand.
  • Create a ‘show book’ for all Microsoft staff attending the event to ensure they were fully briefed on the journey of the delegate while on the stand.
  • Ensure staff readiness, the show book is instrumental to this and included a checklist so all staff are prepared on the day.
  • Liaise with exhibitor stand designers to ensure the exhibition stand was configured to constantly drive engagement.
  • Set up and manage the lead generation process to ensure all leads are effortlessly captured during the conference.
  • Select merchandise that will excite, delight and engage conference delegates.
  • Manage all legal and logistical requirements to run a competition for delegates.
  • Test all Microsoft devices and demos pre-event.
  • Prepare and present a comprehensive post-event debrief for Microsoft.
Categories
News

Spice News monthly guest columnist

Each month she will share her opinions and insights that will delight and entertain readers. Read her latest piece on Human Rights and Technology.

Luli’s content is an honest and sometimes harsh observation of how we as an industry have a responsibility in making digital inclusivity a reality. Her intention is to generate awareness, educate and create action among event and marketing managers when it comes to web accessibility at events.

Spice News is full of fresh ideas and techniques, it’s the most comprehensive news service for the Australian MICE and event management industry.

Spice News and Luli Adeyemo at Best Case Scenario Event Managment
Categories
News

Do one thing today to up your delegate numbers

Event planners do this exercise and the pay back can be huge in terms of increased social engagement and promotion of your event, resulting in a boost of delegate numbers.

If you are an event planners, event coordinator or an event organiser you should always start by defining your ideal social media influencer, i.e. the person you think will add incredible credibility and reach to your target audience. Here are some simple profiling questions to get you started.

  • Do they have over 1,000 followers? Visit LinkedIn first to get a feel for numbers
  • Scan their social media content, does it relate to the topic within your event
  • Do they have a blog and if so, does it rank high on SERPs? (search engine results page)
  • Klout uses social media analytics to rank its users and if you use Hootsuite you can view the individual’s Klout score.

So, you’ve now compiled your list of top social influencers what next? How about creating an ‘I’m attending’ social media card, with the purpose of allowing delegates to advertise the fact they are attending and a shout out to colleagues to meet and network if they intend to go also.

Add a little humour to the mix, send a ‘wish list of things to do’ (graphic format) in the city they are visiting (for out of town visitors) for example, where to find the best pancakes, the best beach, the best gift shop! Encourage delegates to share the ‘I can dream… my wish list for down time at XX event’.

There are so many ways to boost delegate attendance and the pressure is always on just weeks out from an event, add this tactic to your contingency plan today.