Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
Disclosure: Some of the links in the podcast show notes and transcripts are affiliate links (indicated with [Affiliate] in front). If you choose to make a purchase through these links GradBlogger will earn a commission from that purchase at no extra cost to you.
Dr. Barbi Honeycutt from barbihoneycutt.com recently ran an online conference aimed at helping academics. In this interview, she talks about her journey from academic to business owner, explains why she created the conference, and reveals which marketing channels were the most successful.
Barbi, who earned her PhD in 2005, worked at a university for 10 years. She launched Flip It Consulting, a part-time speaking business in 2011, and left academia to run the business full-time in 2015. After expanding her services to include online courses and workshops, she rebranded as Lecture Breakers, which is a podcast, blog, and conference rolled into one.
Growing An Audience in a Unique Way
“I was looking for a way to do something different with my business,” she recalls. “I had been writing and speaking so much and I was like, “I want a different way to connect with my audience. I want to grow my audience and I want to do it in a new way and I think a podcast could be a way to do that.””
Barbi researched several Higher Ed podcasts but couldn’t find many about teaching, which is her focus. She wanted to show academics how to break up lectures with activities or student engagement exercises so that they weren’t simply talking to their students for an hour.
“One of my superpowers is being able to curate information and elevate the people who are doing it,” she laughs. “I love to create my own stuff, but I love to help other people celebrate what they’re doing and share it with others. The podcast has given me the platform to do that.”
She says that the Lecture Breakers’ Facebook group has brought more traffic than she anticipated. She originally assumed that educators were not in that space, but since the group was launched in August 2019, it has grown to include over 1,200 educators, many of whom also joined her email list.
“I did not think that a Facebook group would fly in Higher Ed. I did not think that professors were in that space. Didn’t think educators were in that space, but I just tried it. I launched it in August before the podcast launched of 2019, just to see what might happen.
“My email list has also increased and then the visitors to my website have doubled over the last 12 months,” Barbi says. “So when we’re talking about growth, it could be monetary, but it could also be just how many people are engaging with your communities and with your content. So I’ve seen growth in both of those areas.”
The online conference originated in a survey she sent to her email subscriber in December 2019. One of the questions was, “Besides in-person conferences, how else do you like to learn about teaching? How else do you enhance your professional development?”
The number one response was reading. The second, which surprised her, was webinars. Intrigued by the idea, Barbi decided to put some webinars together and package them as a conference. In January 2020, she started inviting speakers and, in her words, “everything was going great.”
Then, in March, the pandemic hit. She was determined to go ahead with the conference, but also acknowledged that for the time being, she was not going to be able to travel or speak, which meant that she had to identify new income sources.
Barbi thought about her audience and knew that they were going to struggle with getting their courses online and making them engaging and interactive. Her conference could give them the insights and strategies they needed.
“That became my mission,” she says. “The cool thing was I did not have to reinvent the wheel and I did not have to pivot at the last minute like a lot of other summer conferences had to do. Those conferences were already set to be in person. So everybody was either canceling or scrambling or rescheduling. I’m like, “I don’t have to do that. I’m ready to go. I’ve been planning this since December. I’ve got a three month head start. So, I don’t know if that could be just luck or what.”
Going Ahead With a Successful Formula
The conference consisted of nine sessions over three days. Each session ran for 45 minutes and had breaks in between. Once it concluded, attendees could access the presentations for 30 days.
She attributes the success of the event to the research she did beforehand. When people signed up, she would email them and ask what they wanted to learn at the conference.
“They just kept saying, “How do I teach online? How are we going to do this with the pandemic? I got to get ready for fall semester?” I ended up making my last day all about online teaching.”
Barbi stressed the importance of getting engaging speakers. “Make sure that you have people that you can trust to do a really good job, because I had the most engaging speakers. They were fantastic. I think that elevated the conference as well.”
Regarding marketing, Barbi took multiple approaches. In addition to posting details on her website, she used the following strategies:
- Bulk rates: “I had a lot of campuses that took advantage of that,” she says. “I mean, I still had individual faculty members and professors and educators who purchased a ticket on their own. But I did have a lot of group registrations.
- Email marketing: Barbi says that her email list was the most successful marketing medium. “They trusted what I was offering and that seemed to be where the most energy was.”
- Sponsor support: Sponsors were her second most effective marketing resource. “I really worked hard to elevate my sponsors and promote them in the weeks leading up to the conference. So they got a lot of exposure and that then had them sharing the conference with their lists.”
Everyone who purchased a ticket received access to a community platform where people could connect with one another, the speakers, and the sponsors. This community quickly became a popular feature.
“That started to create some hype,” Barbi remembers, “and then once people were in there, they were reaching back out to other people to say, “Hey, you should come to this conference.” So I started to find that some of my attendees were becoming the people who were promoting the most.”
Conclusion
Barbi says that the conference earned her a year’s salary in three days. “ (It also) helped me grow my subscribers and get the brand awareness out there. I definitely helped a lot of educators. I know I did because they’re continuing to tell me how much they are using the resources and materials that we shared from the conference.
“I’ve had probably a dozen people asking if I’m going to do the conference again. So to me that was a pat on the back that maybe I did a good job.”
If you would like to connect with Barbi Honeycutt directly, you can find her on Twitter or LinkedIn. You can also reach her through her website at barbihoneycutt.com and download her free conference planning guide at barbihoneycutt.com/guide.
If you have questions or feedback about this episode, please leave a comment below!
