From Pulpit to Purpose: Repurposing Your Events Content to build a Congregation
Repurposing Event Content Can Extend Your Reach and Keep Your Audience Engaged Long After the Event Ends
“Conferences are the churches of the 21st century. They fulfill the functions traditionally attributed to the church: bringing the community together, inspiring it, enabling it to network.”
This quote by Hugh Forrest, Co-President and Chief Programming Officer for South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences, can be applied to in-person events, in general. And if events with the human touch have stepped into the realm of religion, it’s probably worth asking: Is there an afterlife for events?
Better put: Are event professionals repurposing and versioning the thought leadership and insights generated during their events into content that can live long after the podium and attendee seats have been stacked away?
Certainly, in the world’s leading economy, the US, around 75% of event professionals say they are serious about finding ways to repurpose content, according to research by Boldpush, a global management consulting company for the event industry.
Julius Solaris, Boldpush founder and events consultant, explains why everyone should do this. By repurposing event content, organisers will:
Reach a wider audience;
Maximise the value of their investment;
Fill in the gaps for those who could not attend all the sessions;
Build up a library of content to sell more event tickets in the future;
Feeds your social media channels; and
Tap into analytics to amplify the topics and speakers who got engagement so you can make informed decisions about your next event’s agenda.
Simply put, this is below-the-line marketing. Get it right, and you can spend your advertising budget on cocktails.
Having attended countless events during more than 35 years of journalism, I witnessed polarised results. On the one hand, high-cost production companies will capture the event. On the other, the event just happens. Unless you were there to witness it, the insights and expertise are lost, which is a shame, given the logistics and costs of an in-person event.
But there is a happy medium – capture the event, repurpose the content, but keep a lid on costs. The recipe is simple: a videographer/editor, a skilled writer who can produce copy across platforms, and a person who understands social media. Depending on the size of your event, one competent person can do it all but they’ll need to be pretty adept at multitasking. If you want results, invest in a small but nimble team that knows content is king and that the fundamental ingredients remain telling a good story, knowing your audience, and adapting your content for the appropriate channel. The results will follow.
And if your repurposed, reimagined and versioned-up content is excellent and exclusive, you can monetise it. There are many ways to do this but more about this in a later stack.
The point is, if you’re going to go to church, make sure you record the sermon; otherwise, you’re preaching to the converted. There’s only one way to grow your congregation – and that’s content.