On the 9th of March 2010, ICAP organized a tremendous CFO Conference in collaboration with Terrabiz in Karachi. Attended by more than 600 members from the Finance and Accounting community, the Rising CFO had the likes of Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Former State Bank Governor, and many others from the distinguished business communities.
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Thanks Saqib! You’ve written out a lot of points, so let me take them one by one:
Full webcasts – I completely agree. But keep in mind that a 5-hour conference requires a considerable amount of bandwidth. If the organizers wish to, they should make it a point – They could even manage the entire webcast recorded by simply recording it on a 3rd party server and keeping it available for later consumption. But this wasn’t our event and hence, it wasn’t done. For ours, where we arrange the connectivity, we try and livecast our events along with keeping the entire duration of the event for later access.
Marketing page – It’s actually not just our marketing page, and if you think its just that, you’re being very nice! We’re in the process of tweaking all sections and pages. Having said that, our first priority comes to ensuring that the stories are filed, promoted and projected in the manner that does justice to the efforts of the local industry. When we get to our own work, it tends to take a backseat, but we’re getting there…
Thanks!
Really good effort in covering the CFO conference. It was high time that someone started covering the numerous conferences and seminars that take place every month. It’s a huge marketing opportunity, and although CIO’s webstudio has initiated the process, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
For starters, Webstudio needs to cover the entire length of the event and not just tids and bits. Tids and bits are good especially with participant feedback interspersed in it, but that alone is not going to tempt the companies to advertise on this new channel. How about a webcast of the entire event? That is more likely to get the attention of the target market. Just ensure the voice quality is crystal clear.
Then CIO needs to spice up its marketing page. Instead of just putting a bland contact form, it needs to showcase the different ways in which companies can advertise on the webcast/video feed. And if it can include the price points as well for the different placements, all the better.
The reason it needs to spoon-feed the different advertising options is because this category is still in its infancy. Majority of the companies who can be tempted to advertise wouldn’t make the effort to contact until and unless they know what they’re getting into. Showing them just what exactly they are going to get will not only aid in the temptation, but also propagate awareness of the category. A video guide if possible would do wonders for this communication vehicle.
Sure, other web publishers will emulate this strategy, but then at least the category will grow and develop. Remember companies are only drawn towards those communication vehicles which are adopted by many and not towards new innovative modes.
I wrote a detailed review of the MPF’s entrepreneurship conference that was held last year on my website. Now there’s no comparison of the written word with the actual video of the event, but in the absence of any video coverage online, I’m still getting sizeable hits on that article to this day. That goes on to show that such events are in demand, especially by people who somehow miss attending them.
One other thing CIO can do is profile the target market. Not everyone is going to watch the entire event. I will watch an entire event if it’s related to marketing but not one related to finance or supply chain. So they need to know who are the people that are going to watch the entire event and then approach the prospective clients with the demographics and psychographics of this niche.