Category Archives: Intellor News
When Do People Attend Webinars?
In our last post, we broke down the wisdom of the masses and looked at the most popular month, day and time to host a webinar. The raw numbers have spoken, but what does the audience have to say? For starters, as the saying goes, the early bird gets the worm. Here’s a rundown of the months, days and early times that put the most bodies in the webinar seats.
Webinar attendance by month
- September
- December
- October
- November
- *April*
Webinar attendance by day
- Thursday
- Friday
- Monday
- Wednesday
- Tuesday
Webinar attendance by time
- 2 pm
- *7 am*
- 8 am
- 1 pm
- 9 am
Conventional Wisdom: When to Host a Webinar
Last year we took a deep dive into webinar timing. We’re reprising our research this year and over the next couple of posts we’ll look at 2012 as well as year over year trends. To get started, let’s talk “when.” Based on more than 1,000 webinars conducted on our platform in 2012, here are the most common months, days and times that our clients hosted webinars.
The most popular months to host a webinar
2012 produced a near dead heat, with a mere percentage point separating the top three slots. Interestingly, “vacation” and “holiday” months were well represented – more on that soon.
- November: 11% of the year’s webinars
- August: 10% of the year’s webinars
- October: 10% of the year’s webinars
- September: 9% of the year’s webinars
- December: 8% of the year’s webinars
The most popular days to host a webinar
- Thursday: 29% of the year’s webinars
- Wednesday: 24% of the year’s webinars
- Tuesday: 18% of the year’s webinars
- Monday: 18% of the year’s webinars
- Friday: 11% of the year’s webinars
The most popular times to host a webinar
- 8:00 a.m.: 19% of the year’s webinars
- 1:00 p.m.: 16% of the year’s webinars
- 10:00 a.m.: 15% of the year’s webinars
- 9:00 a.m.: 13% of the year’s webinars
- 2:00 p.m.: 8% of the year’s webinars
So that’s the conventional wisdom, or the raw numbers. Stay tuned for our next post – a look at the months, days and times that attracted the greatest number of attendees.
Intellor Works for Working Moms
- image credit: Violette79
I followed this summer’s Anne-Marie Slaughter-sparked “having it all” kerfluffle from, go figure, maternity leave. As a working mother of four, I nodded in solidarity at the old familiar ground being covered. As the mother of a brand new daughter, I hoped for better for her. But whether the question is really working moms or simply workers, if the American workplace doesn’t figure out a better balancing act in the next thirty years, I hope that my daughter will be fortunate enough to find a work environment like mine.
You all know Intellor Group by what we do. Perhaps a few of you know a bit about how we do it. What you may not know is who we are. In many cases, we are working moms. We are single and we are married. We have one child and we have many. We want a seat at the parent-teacher conference and the family dinner table. We’ve held high-stress jobs in disciplines ranging from global logistics to marketing, and we’ve lamented the toll the work has taken on our families. We are among the fortunate few now.
Flex schedules and job sharing seem like urban legends to most moms, but here at Intellor Group they’re the norm. In part, we have our clients (yes, you, with the 9 p.m. webinar) to thank for that; the inherently fluid schedule of global webinar production does make for “non-traditional” staffing requirements. But while many businesses turn to cheap and flexible offshore staffing solutions in similar circumstances, Founder Richard Rist had another idea – Mom.
Rich saw an opportunity to address the business needs – professional staff at all hours of the day and night – by attracting highly qualified working mothers from across a variety of disciplines with the promise of a truly flexible work environment. Unlike our fellow mothers, we don’t have to sneak out for an appointment with the pediatrician. Our kids’ photos and artwork adorn our offices. Schedules are bookended by babysitters or bus stops. And lest anyone think we neglect dads, know that Rich has returned afternoon emails from the sidelines of virtually every soccer field between here and Richmond.
Perhaps we have an unfair advantage as a collaboration technology company. (!) Perhaps our common circumstances make us more willing to cover one another when strep throat strikes. Perhaps the simple freedom to acknowledge – and revel in – our lives outside the workplace makes us better in the workplace. Whatever the case, it works for us – our clients, our team, and our families. So while I hope that the Slaughter debate is an “I can’t believe things used to be like that” memory by then, if it’s not, I hope that my darling new daughter is lucky enough to find her Intellor.
What’s a Webinar Moderator?
image credit: ryantron
When we bring a new client on board, this is a frequent question. Nearly everyone’s used some sort of web conferencing software – paid or free, personal or enterprise – before. They know how to start a meeting, share a PowerPoint, trade presenting rights. In short, they know how to run a meeting – a lot like they would in a conference room. And maybe that’s all they need – for a web meeting. For getting the team together. For a brainstorming session. For a sales demonstration.
But what happens when the meeting is a company-wide Town Hall? A mandatory compliance training? A press briefing? Who manages the invitations? The registrants? The speakers? Who makes certain that everyone gets logged in properly? That the materials are loaded and ready? Who welcomes speakers and guests? Gets them acclimated to the software interface? Manages transitions in the presentation? Ensures questions are captured and addressed? Enter the webinar moderator.
When your webinar is high-profile – whether due to size, audience, objective or any combination of factors – the devil is in the details. Your event needs a plan and a project manager to ensure its success. With staff spread thin and pulled in competing directions, the webinar moderator becomes a specialized member of your team; one with the expertise to quickly and efficiently put together and execute a project plan, the experience to ensure its success, and the professionalism to facilitate your event flawlessly.
Marketers v. Trainers
In the spring we reported our findings on the impact of webinar timing , and blogged the battle of hosts v. attendees. For a little summer fun we’re throwing down the marketers vs. trainers gauntlet.
In 2011, marketers ruled the day when it came to webinar promotion. They invested in advertising, email and social media efforts more frequently than their training counterparts. They tracked sources, evaluated the most successful channels and adapted efforts accordingly. They were rewarded with double the “bodies in the seats” compared to their training counterparts.
Trainers, on the other hand, trounced marketers when it came to converting registrants to attendees. They consistently created attendee-focused content and allowed it speak for itself. They were rewarded with a 33% higher conversion rate (registrants to attendees) than their marketing counterparts.
Make your next webinar a knockout by stealing an idea from your opponent.
• Promote effectively
• Ask WIIFM?
Webinar Hosts vs. Attendees
Intellor Group has just released its 2011 Webinar Timing Report. You can download a copy of the full report, or take a ringside seat for the hosts vs. attendees matchup here.
When Not to Host a Webinar
You’ve got great content, a brilliant presenter, and the right target audience. Now the question is: when should you host your webinar? If your audience is US-based, conventional wisdom suggests a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday afternoon. We decided to challenge conventional wisdom and the results are in: conventional wisdom is not necessarily wise.
Intellor Group compiled a data sample representing more than a thousand webinars (including corporate communications, lead generation, training, etc.) conducted on our platform in 2011.
Webinar Hosts See Safety in Numbers
The majority of webinar hosts stuck with conventional wisdom – mid-day, mid-week, avoiding vacations and holidays.
• 27% of webinars were conducted on a Tuesday
• 1:00 p.m. took the top timeslot
• 13% of webinars were conducted in October
The Webinar Worsts*
If we look at attendance as a measure of success (plenty of room to debate whether that’s the metric, but it’s certainly a metric, and an important one at that) conventional wisdom is sometimes wrong.
• Worst month: August
• Worst day: Tuesday
• Worst time**: 12:00
So the good news is, you should definitely still take that beach vacation in August. The bad news is, it might be time to rethink Tuesdays. Ready for the best? Stay tuned for more Intellor-gence.
*Based on average number of attendees
**Based on ‘traditional’ business hours (9-5) and stated in US Eastern Time
Happy Thanksgiving
The clock is ticking down (more slowly than some of us can stand) to our Thanksgiving feasts, our friends and our families. Before we race one another for the door, though, all of us at Intellor Group want to take a moment to say thank you. To our readers, our partners, and our clients, thank you for being here and Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
Hurricane Irene and the east coast earthquake
On August 23, 2011 Intellor Group headquarters in Gaithersburg MD experienced the 5.9 magnitude earthquake that was centralized in Mineral VA. Since most of us here at Intellor have only lived on the east coast it came as a bit of a shock. After straightening our pictures and a quick employee poll of the quakes magnitude, we were back to work. Though our nerves were rattled all of our live webinars went on without incident.
Four days later we were once again tested with Hurricane Irene. Falling trees, flooded streets, and power outages plagued the D.C. area but luckily Intellor came out unscathed. The threat of Irene allowed us to test our emergency backup procedures and also gave us a few new ideas on how to improve communication in an emergency scenario. Since our customers events are the most important thing to us we always want to make sure we’re prepared for the worst so their events go off without incident. Hopefully this is the last we hear from mother nature for awhile.
Domain name change in support of AT&T webinars and events
Intellor EMS Notification: Domain Name Change
Effective Date: April 23, 2010.
The Intellor Event Management System (EMS) established in support of Interwise marketing events and now used to manage AT&T Internal and Marketing events has been renamed from events.interwise.com to events.intellor.com.
The domain change was made to remove the Interwise name from the event URLs. The new domain name is events.intellor.com.
Impact: –Low– The events.interwise.com domain is being forwarded to the new events.intellor.com domain
Additional Information: The events.intellor.com is a instance of Intellor’s Event Management System dedicated to the hosting and management of AT&T webinars as provided under the 2010 partnership agreement between AT&T and Intellor Group.