CatchTalk.TV recently conducted a survey of business professionals and their thoughts on attending conferences and B2B events.

We have noticed when conducting a recent survey of business professionals is that 46% of these professionals attend conferences 2-3 times a year. So nearly half of the business professionals we surveyed are attending multiple conferences every year. Within this same group of people, 35% stated that they have missed three conferences every year. 

Around half of those surveyed are missing three or more conferences per year. These results indicate that a lot of business professionals are missing out on a lot of learning opportunities.

What are some of the reasons business professionals miss out on these conferences and events? Speaking to a wider audience we often hear that cost and travel-time are often hurdles that can be difficult to overcome in many scenarios. 38% of business professionals surveyed spend more than $1000 on attending conferences, including transportation, badge and accommodation. 8% of business professionals answered that they spend $2000-$3000 to attend a conference, and another 8% told us that they spend more than $3000 to attend a conference. It is easy to see how attending multiple conferences a year can quickly add up to thousands of dollars spent and many weeks spent traveling.

81% of the professionals we surveyed stated that one of their favourite things about attending a conference was “learning new things”. 69% of the people surveyed told us their favourite thing about attending these events was seeing the speakers.

These kinds of results may reflect the overall rising popularity in online video consumption across multiple demographics. People may be placing a higher priority on learning material on their own time, in addition to focusing on the “social factor” of education. For business professionals, it is clear to see that networking is still one of the most important aspects of attending conferences. However, it is also clear to see that learning new material may be viewed as the most important benefit of attending events for most business professionals.

77% of the business professionals surveyed feel that watching the talks, panels & debates online would be a satisfactory alternative to attending the event in person. To back this result up, 77% of the professionals surveyed told us they watch most of their content online compared to Cable (12%) and TV (8%). 

Another result from our survey also seems to reflect the popularity of “learning by online video on-demand”. 81% of people surveyed stated they would rather watch an already-edited event at their own convenience, compared to the 19% of respondents who would rather watch things live with a chance for real-time interaction.

So the first step is putting all of your event content online. If people find your event online on YouTube or your website, what happens then? How can event professionals use the popularity and power of online video to convert the people who do not attend their conferences into fans of their brand? 

The question a growing amount of event professionals seem to be asking themselves is: “How do we turn this rapidly growing number of online on-demand video viewers into attendees of our future conferences?”

Our survey results and the current technology indicate that people throughout the world have a strong preference for learning new things using online videos. Our survey results tell us that people value connecting with event speakers in addition to connecting with other event attendees. As an event professional, you should provide your target market with the option to learn new material using online video. Give people the option to connect with the speakers at your event using online video. Increase the longevity of your events using online video. Attempting to further engage with business professionals using online video platforms and video distribution strategies that can deliver more than video views will put you a step ahead of what others in the space are currently doing. 

Creatively using videos of your conferences to engage business professionals appears to be an increasingly-necessary strategy if you want to grow your conference and grow your brand. Judging by the global growth in online video consumption, along with analyzing the results we’ve seen in our survey, utilizing online video seems to be an increasingly-effective strategy for event professionals. For event professionals, one of the important priorities going forward into the next few years will be to try and get the most information and engagement they can out of each and every video view. 

Putting your videos online presents lead-generation and engagement opportunities 365 days a year, anytime, anywhere. Even more video content will be watched as people find it easier to upload and download large video files. Putting all of your conference videos online now is an important first step in engaging with tomorrow’s conference attendees.

CatchTalk.TV is the destination for conference an event video content. For business professionals we enable search, discovery, speaker questions from conference talks and for event organizers we generate leads for you to be able to  convert views into ticket sales.