How To Monetize Participative [Amateur] Conferences

Answer: Don't hire amateurs to sell sponsorship.

Chris Heur has written a great post on Participative Conferences. He calls them amateur. But, I don't think that participative conferences need to be amateur. Who wants to be referred to that way?  Of course, they don't have [or need] million dollar budgets or millions of dollars of revenues. But, just because a bunch of people get together to cross fertilize ideas and make stuff happen, doesn't mean that they are amateurs.

Anyways, I love what Chris is doing with BrainJams:

BrainJams Events are open spaces where the participants decide on the content of the event within a basic framework that includes one on one knowledge networking in the morning and open discussions on how to best use emerging technologies in the afternoon. The knowledge and information shared amongst participants will be gathered and redistributed online to further the discussions, learning and idea manifestation after the event       and beyond. Please read Chris Heuer's blog post discussing the proposed format for this event and then read about registration details below.

Here's an alternative description from Scott McMullan of Jotspot:

If you don't know what a BrainJam is, think speed-dating for jeans and suits (geeks and "biz" people), but where the goal is to meet new people unlike yourself to share, learn, help, and get help.

I like what he is doing even more because of the conversation he is starting about figuring out how to let people without big marketing budgets to attend conferences (Since I fall into the category of not being able to afford to attend most conferences): 

I don't want to get much deeper than this today except to say that there has been a lot of talk lately about how to support conferences where people don't pay to attend?

And here is my contribution to the conversation...

I think certain people have a tendency to re-invent things. Especially, if they don't have experience doing what they are trying to do. I certainly have a proclivity towards this. Luckily, my partner keeps me in check. Chris Heur picked up on a post by Brian Dear, where Brian is attempting to coin a new phrase: user generated advertising. Chris runs with it. But, I still don't get what it is OR how it happens.

So, from my perspective, there are a few ways to make money from events. Here they are:

1. Charge attendees.
2. Charge presenters/exhibitors/panelists.
3. Charge sponsors.
4. Sell stuff. (merchandise, beer, etc)
5. Solicit donations.

From my experience, proactively selling sponsorship is difficult. It requires a dedicated salesperson. It is equivalent to selling offline advertising because it is difficult to measure effectiveness. We actually hired someone to sell sponsorship for about six months. We broke even and parted amicably. Ironically, now a lot of local people contact us about sponsorsing local events. Luckily, I don't have to plan them. And passing on a sponsor to a customer usually covers the cost of our services. So, I definitely see business opportunity in aggregating events, understanding which events are attracting what audiences, and facilitating sponsorship sales. But, calling it "user generated" is a stretch.

Lastly. On a related subject, go read what Greg Narain is doing around Participative Conferences. If anyone has an idea on how to leverage social networking and interaction at conferences and bridge the online world, it is Greg.

Comments

[Brian Dear]

Peter, actually I am not attempting to coin a new phrase. Ask anyone at work: I've been calling this particular idea "user-generated advertisers" for over a year. It's just what I call it; I don't particularly care if nobody else likes or uses the term. I was amused when BusinessWeek picked it up.

Now, as for the idea itself, I think there's a lot of potential there. Adsense is self-serve for both stakeholders, the advertiser and the publisher. But the user isn't a stakeholder. I want the user of any given local community to be a stakeholder, a participant in the money flow. If a user can sign up local advertisers to advertise on some web service, they ought to get a commission. Why stop at just content with users? Why not have them find advertisers too?

[Peter Caputa]

Hey Brian. Interesting. Now I get it.

Interesting idea. It'd certainly be nice to have your users generate leads for you. And if they could close the sale, that'd be even cooler.

In general terms, it isn't a lot different than affiliate advertising.

But, if applied to events and sponsorship sales, it would definitely shake-up the event business.

[Chris Heuer]

Brian's take makes good practical business sense and I now understand his perspective better as well. I was really thinking of it terms of the participants, as a group interested in similar ideas, attracting sponsors by their nature. Especially in that I did not have to sell anyone on the BrainJams event, they all came to me really.

I posted some additional thoughts back on my post in response to your comment and Jay's.

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