by Kate Ratcliffe | Apr 9, 2020 | Blog, FaceBook Live, Uncategorized
Going virtual doesn’t mean that you lose everything that an on-site event has! A lot of what you had planned for your on-site event can still occur online, it just may look a little differently.
Here are six ways you can maximize sponsorships and attendee revenue in a virtual platform:
Exhibit Halls
In your conference website, a virtual exhibit hall can be built out to house all the resources a sponsor wants to distribute to attendees. In each “exhibit booth”, the sponsor can upload PDFs, videos, company descriptions and links, and other resources. The exhibit hall will be open 24/7 – giving even more exposure for the sponsors that originally intended. The “exhibit booths” can also be upgraded to allow chat room style discussions between attendees and staff from the sponsoring organization. Your sponsors will get maximum and continual exposure to your attendees and will serve as a resource for attendees throughout the conference with having to have a booth “maned” the entire time.
Branding and Logo Opportunities
Because you are building this virtual conference site from the ground up – you have the ability to make an al a carte sponsorship of nearly any page on the website. Have a poster session? Offer this page a sponsorship add-on, with their logo in a prominent location on this busy web page. Giving an option for boosted exposure on commonly used pages on the virtual conference exposure is another way the sponsors can ensure they are getting ROI.
Commercials or Pre-Produced Videos
Sponsors could upgrade their commitment level to include a commercial or pre-recorded video to play before or after a session in the virtual conference. All the sponsor needs to do is provide the video ahead of time and it can be queued up! This gives the sponsor the attendees undivided attention, as they are preparing for or concluding a session. You can also chose to have that video as a permanent part of the archived recording, which means evergreen exposure for the sponsor!
Session and Speaking Opportunities
There are numerous ways to offer speaking opportunities to your sponsors in exchange for financial support. You can offer an entire session to sponsors, or you can create a while section of your agenda dedicated to sponsors giving presentations! Allowing the sponsors to present gives them the feeling that they may miss of being in front of human people. It give a human interaction to a virtual setting.
Attendee Access Fees
Just as you would charge a registration fee for an on-site conference, you should be charging a registration fee for access to the virtual event. You can also break the access into per day or per session registrations if that suits your conference model better. You can also charge for access to various, high-profile discussions or resources. Attendee fees should not necessarily be less for a virtual conference, because while you are eliminating food and venue costs, you are now gaining hosting and technology costs.
Subscription Fees
Allowing your content to live on in an LMS is a smart move. You are able to continually add to your archive through the years of events and house more resources for 24/7 access. Just because an attendee paid for the conference does not necessarily mean they should receive access to the archives for an undetermined amount of time. You could restrict access to archives and other resources to those that choose to purchase subscriptions to your LMS platform. Entice your attendees to subscribe by offering exclusive content in the subscription model only.
Whether you are going virtual from the onset or rescheduling an onsite event, the conversation about monetization is important and necessary. There are many ways to drive revenue for a Virtual Conference, and these six options are only scratching the surface! Have any other ideas on how to boost revenue in a virtual format? We would love to hear from you at marketing@commpartners.com
Click HERE to see all the episodes from Going Virtual with Kate!
by Rich Finstein | Feb 26, 2019 | Blog
The CommPartners Approach to Onboarding Your LMS
Last week, I was speaking with a colleague who had just returned from an all-inclusive vacation in Mexico. During our conversation, I asked what some of the highlights from her trip were. The response I received sparked a thought about the true value that comes with genuine customer service.
Now, you would think that the first thing she would tell us about is the delicious food or beautiful beaches, but to our surprise, there was something that she thought stood out above those luxurious details. What stood out to her the most was every time she and her husband asked for something, the staff responded with “It’s our pleasure.” This made them feel valued for choosing to invest their time and money into this resort. It’s our pleasure, conveys a feeling of appreciation.
At CommPartners, we quite often discuss how grateful we are to be involved in the association community, surrounded by an amazing group of people, who we value and feel so fortunate to work with and support. We know education is a core component for most associations and what we do matters a great deal.
A learning management system is a significant investment, both financially and strategically, that can take months, even years, to make a decision on. Once the decision is made, the client and LMS provider come together to create a unified partnership and shared mindset, determined to fulfill the client’s overall vision. The onboarding process that follows is a critical time where expectations are confirmed and a foundation for working together is set. This is where “It’s Our Pleasure” comes into play.
Like any first impression, the first moments of the onboarding process are a sign of what to expect down the road. The first thing you notice is the tone of the communication. How professional and courteous is the project manager? Is this person responsive? Is he or she clear about what to expect, and with follow-up communications. Is this person detail oriented? These are all critical elements?
Just as important, is if this person has a positive attitude and is enthusiastic about your project? Do you, as the client, feel appreciated for the decision you have made and the faith you’re imparting on your selected provider? Are you truly in this together?
At CommPartners, we have gone to great lengths to support and empower our onboarding staff who in turn are giving and generous with their time and spirit. They recognize how critical it is that you are welcomed properly to our organization and that we are simply not just saying thank you for your business. Actually, it’s our pleasure to serve you.
by Rich Finstein | Dec 21, 2018 | Blog
As 2018 winds down, all of us at CommPartners want to express our gratitude to our clients, partners and extended community for your collaboration and friendship over the past year. This was our 25th year in business. Where has the time gone? It’s been fun to look back and see how technology and online learning has changed and how our company and all of us individually have evolved. We’re proud of our history and our evolution as an organization. We feel fortunate to work with so many wonderful clients over many years. These relationships make our jobs so enjoyable and rewarding. We are extremely blessed!
Recently Barbara Bouton, Vice President, Professional Development from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Association provided us the following quote:
I truly think CommPartners is the best company I’ve had the privilege to work with in my career. I value each of you and am proud of the work we’ve accomplished together – especially the innovations!
What Barbara said reinforced our sense that what’s most important is the relationship between our team and our client’s staff and the commitment to stick together to seize opportunities and meet whatever challenges arise.
So as we celebrate 2018, we take pride in our clients’ success and all you have accomplished through your education initiatives.
The Year’s Highlights
- We celebrated five years since Elevate LMS was developed. It takes this period of time for a SaaS solution to fulfill the promise you envision when it’s first created. This year we experienced over 100% growth in new client placements. We are thrilled to welcome so many new organizations into the CP Family.
- We had our first user conference in 2018 that occurred in the spring in Washington DC. The conference included keynote and breakout sessions, trainings, one on one consultation and exhibits. Thank you to our presenters, partners and attendees for making this event a success.
- We established our Advisory Board to receive feedback on new ideas and development and provide clients an active voice as we move forward.
- We created a new administrative portal in Elevate that makes creating, managing and tracking education programs simple, fast and convenient. Our team was determined to support our clients with the most intuitive and user friendly admin available.
- EventCenter our proprietary webcast software was redeveloped with a new design, attendance checks, interactive features, high quality VOIP and enhanced multimedia.
- Our Higher Logic Partnership continued to evolve allowing our mutual clients to bring together community and learning in a unified presence. We are now building the next generation of our integration to support further engagement and bring together content from thought leaders and peer sharing of ideas.
- We established a partnership with BadgeCert to seamlessly provide and assign digital badges from learning activities in Elevate. We feel this will be an important to benefit to our clients as they incorporate digital credentials into their education offerings.
- The National Credentialing Institute was unveiled by our friends at Limitless Association Resources. CommPartners will be hosting this new site which is created to provide associations with assessment-based, professional development based on industry best practice for current and emerging industry professionals.
- We created our own community called CommPartners Connect. It supports the opportunity to collaborate around important topics in online learning and events.
- We welcomed five new staff members to the CP Team.
CommPartners’ first client 25 years was the National Association of Home Builders. This year NAHB selected CommPartners and our Elevate platform for their LMS. We’re grateful to reestablish our partnership with NAHB and all of our clients who continued to depend on us to support their online learning and events.
May each of you be blessed with good health and happiness in the New Year.
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by Aubrey Mellos | Apr 3, 2018 | News
CommPartners is excited to announce the launch of an Advisory Board for Elevate Learning Management System. The Elevate Advisory Board is comprised of a variety of end users, staff, and industry partners. Our goal is to effectively share ideas and review valuable insight that can help frame our future organizational initiatives. Through hearing the different experiences and offering a deeper look into admin and user processes, we hope to advance how the system operates for both admin and end user optimization. The Advisory Board will meet every quarter and will serve a one-year term.
We would like to officially welcome the following members to the 2018 Elevate Advisory Board:
Erica Holman, LMSW, LNHA, CDP
Risk Management Consultant
HealthCap USA
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Ahren Hoffman, CTRS, CPE
Director of Education & Training
American Specialty Toy Retailing Association
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Pauline Judge, CAP-OM
Manager, Events & Operations
Weatherbee Resources, Inc.
Hospice Compliance Network
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Kellyanne Broom
Education Coordinator
American Gear Manufacturers Association
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Tara Bishop, CAE
Deputy Chief Executive
National Council of University
Research Administrators
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Adrienne Segundo
IOM, COO/Chairman,
Limitless Association
Solution Resource, LLC
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Molly Mazuk
Associate Director,
Professional Development
American Society of Addiction Medicine
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Josh Yavelberg, PhD
Online Education Manager
National Recreation and Park Association
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Gail Smith, PMP, CTT
Senior Event Manager and Training Lead
Society of Petroleum Engineers
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Anastasia Pruitt
Manager, Member Engagement and
Professional Development
Council on Social Work Education
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Holi Jones Kimbrough
Director of Education & Meetings
National Association of Enrolled Agents
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Katy Sidwell
Manager, Professional Development
American Academy of Audiology
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Devlin Bennett
Membership and Customer Service Coordinator
Accreditation Council for Accountancy and Taxation
National Society of Accountants
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Arianne Urena
Client Advocate
CommPartners
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Eve Finstein
Project Manager
CommPartners
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Aubrey Mellos
Marketing Manager
CommPartners
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Jen Livingston
Operations Manager
CommPartners
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by Aubrey Mellos | Nov 1, 2017 | News
Columbia, MD – November 1, 2017. CommPartners, a leading provider of Learning Management Software, webinar, webcast, and livestream solutions announced details for Peak 2018 Conference. The event will take place March 15-16, 2018 in Washington, D.C.
Peak is a conference designed to inspire, educate, and train association professionals in a wide range of e-learning topics. The event will feature two keynote sessions, eight breakout sessions, deep-dive Elevate LMS trainings, peer knowledge exchanges, and more. Topics include Social Learning, Building a Dynamic LMS, Credentialing, Course Design, and e-Learning Trends. A complete agenda can be found at www.commpartners.com/Peak.
“We are excited to host our first conference where association peers can come together and not only receive extensive training on Elevate Learning Management System and our other services, but to also learn from peers who share similar challenges.” Richard Finstein, CEO, CommPartners
Learning opportunities and trainings will provide value to all professionals who have a key role in their organizations education and professional development strategy. Attendees will be eligible for up to 4 CAE credits and will also have the opportunity to connect socially with peers, partners, and industry leaders during a happy hour reception.
“It is our goal that attendees leave Peak 2018 with clear direction on how to revolutionize their online learning programs and to arm them with the tools to help them get there”, explains Finstein.
Peak 2018 – CommPartners’ First Education & User Conference
March 15-16, 2018
District Architecture Center | Washington D.C.
www.commpartners.com/peak
About CommPartners
CommPartners is a leading provider of online education and event solutions. At the core of the company’s solutions is our Elevate Learning Management System. Elevate is the only LMS with fully integrated and embedded webinar, livestream and multimedia software to support learning, how and when it occurs. The connection between live, peer-to-peer knowledge exchanges and traditional continuing education programs leads to improved learning outcomes, as well as increased participation within an organization’s education offerings. To learn more visit: www.commpartners.com
