H2 2020 dental cpd industry report
This is the second edition of the CPD Junkie Industry Report. The second half of 2020 saw ongoing innovation from CPD providers with a huge move to online based CPD events and webinars, and some return to normalcy to in-person events resuming in various parts of country. Overall, 2020 was a challenging year for most industries and one that rewarded the innovative and adaptable. At CPD Junkie we are proud of the work that we did in 2020. Our systems and functionality continues to evolve to provide a more seamless experience for both dentists looking for quality CPD and event organisers looking to market and advertise their courses. Our user base is growing and we have successfully started segmenting our users to allow for unparalleled matching of dentists looking for specific CPD to event organisers offering that CPD.
CPD Junkie is not just another cpd list, it is the most comprehensive place to find Dentistry CPD in Australia. Whether you’re a dentist wanting to know what’s best or an organiser with plans to raise the dentistry bar in Australia, the data extracted from CPD Junkie gives insights, trends and an understanding previously unrecognisable.
We’ve got the data and we’re sharing it to help make dental CPD better.
The data included in this report is drawn from the hundreds of events listed on cpdjunkie.com.au and from it’s thousands of users and visitors. At CPD Junkie we strive to provide a comprehensive directory of all CPD Available in Australia and this report is a synthesis of this comprehensive directory.
Considering the recent COVID-19 events and the many cancellations and rescheduled events as a result, there are some unknowns around event cancellations and some assumptions have been made. Including:
As mentioned, the dental CPD industry has been through an unprecedented shakeup during COVID-19. Although there was a shift in the number of online CPD, many courses and topics did not translate effectively. As such the resurgence in live, hands-on and interactive courses was strong in the latter half of 2020 with many of the webinars being replaced again by in-person courses. However, online courses still remained relatively high given the amount of uncertainty and state restrictions in place.
It is too early to assess how effective the rebound has been. However green shoots are appearing, especially in the form of new and redevelopment courses and programs.
Although the impact of COVID-19 on the dentistry events industry was evident, especially at the beginning of 2020, this notably changed following the ease of restrictions. Businesses were beginning to re-open and there was a resurgence of in-person and interactive courses. Participants were able to attend courses in person, however travel restrictions and the sense of uncertainty still posed as potential challenges.
Many event organisers still opted to offer courses online, while others actively cancelled/ postponed events to future dates. It was still not ‘business as usual’, but it was getting there.
Another challenge associated with COVID-19 is travel restrictions and an uncertain return to normalcy. Many event organisers are unsure of when they should re-schedule events to and if these dates will be suitable in the near future.
As restrictions eased, the number of in-person and interactive courses increased considerably especially during the latter months of 2020. Participants were able to attend courses in person and engage in demonstrations, while upholding the current restrictions and maximum capacity of the venue. Participant engagement was once again increasing.
Interestingly, the number of webinars and online content remained relatively high. Online learning was now accepted as the new norm as organisers continued to find creative ways to combat webinar fatigue and increase participant interaction. A blend of both hands-on and online lecture content was also gaining popularity with some organisers combining the two modalities to increase effectiveness.
Online was still the most popular way to learn for the second half of 2020.
Live, online events, including webinars, are a great way to increase engagement and the richness of the events, compared with pre-recorded webinars. Live events encourage greater participation from attendees with an ability to provide real-time feedback and engagement. Although not perfect, live on-line events are the next best option considering the present challenges around travel and public gatherings.
Despite the ease of restrictions on public gatherings, webinars still remain to be an effective means of teaching. Webinars have proven to be a fantastic way to promote and teach a limited amount of material but also faced important challenges such as poor audience engagement, dilution of quality and clearly lack “hands-on” teaching. Much of this trend was brought on as a response to the growing restrictions with organisers in the industry helping to provide dentists with an avenue to grow in spite of the limitations imposed on clinical practice. The benefit to the organiser is brand exposure and building a subscriber list from webinar attendees which offers a chance to continue a relationship with the attendee. The value of this still remains significant.
“The challenge with Webinars is engagement and attendance. On average, Webinars have a 46% attendance rate across industries.”¹
1. https://99firms.com/blog/webinar-statistics/#gref
Blended learning models continue to be growing in popularity. Organisers combine online components for didactic portions of their courses and reserve the hands-on components to later in the year when restrictions may be lifted to allow for such events to proceed.
Similarly, other organisers are offering on-line and virtual hands-on teaching by mailing out the necessary components to participants such that they can follow along online instruction on their own typodonts at home or in their practice.
By providing an outstanding tool for dentists in the form of our comprehensive directory of CPD events, CPD wish-lists and CPD logs, CPD Junkie has grown a large user base. Our users gain ongoing value in the form of newsletters, educational e-books and much more.
From our users and subscribers, we have been able to collect a lot of data pertaining to their CPD interests, budgets for CPD Spending etc. This data-set is unique and offers unmatched insight into the most engaged members of the dental industry.
Top 3 States
TOP 5 DISCIPLINES SELECTED BY OUR USERS AS AREAS OF INTEREST
The data in this section is derived from CPD Junkie’s comprehensive listing of over 300 courses that were listed for the second half of 2020 and does not take into account all the cancellations discussed in Part 1. The data is beneficial in providing a quantitative overview of the dental CPD industry that was in place for the first half of 2020 and where the industry will hopefully return to once restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have been lifted.
The delivery of Dental CPD has evolved and even prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic, a lot of CPD courses were offered online vs In-Person. In-Person and hands-on courses remain the most popular method of CPD delivery.
There were CPD courses listed on CPD Junkie covering 20 different disciplines within dentistry. Here are the 5 disciplines of dentistry with the most CPD events on offer in the second half of 2020.
There is a large variety when it comes to CPD events. Free events, mostly in the form of webinars were quite popular in the first half of 2020; however, this differed considerably during the second half. Here is the breakdown of CPD cost of the hundreds of events listed on CPD Junkie for the second half of 2020.
It has been a challenging start to the year but there are a lot of opportunities for creativity and novel marketing approaches to build awareness for events and promote contents in the second half of 2020 and beyond.
The attention is on social media and to stand out in 2020 and beyond, event organisers need a good understanding of social media to engage with an audience and to promote and sell out events. To engage with an audience and to stand out among the competition, event organisers need to provide value to the audience.
With the improvements of Facebook, Youtube and Instagram Live features, one great way to engage with your target audience is by hosting live talks, interviews or even tutorials. This novel feature is being used by some industry leaders in dentistry and other fields but is an area that has a lot of potential.
Companies have creatively initiated private group training directly with the course organiser to provide a more focused, customised and convenient learning experience. This can be beneficial for larger groups as training is conducted at your own practice with the length and content of the course customised accordingly. This ensures that teaching is tailored specifically to the practice’s needs and availability.
CPD Junkie can take the guesswork out of marketing your CPD events. As Australia’s most comprehensive CPD directory, we have the audience as well as the data to help promote your events to the people who want to hear it.
Targeted. Effective. Simple.
From Full listings to Ticket sales, we’re currently helping event organisers sell out their courses, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
You will not grow as a dentist if you are not documenting your work and our mission at CPD Junkie is to make it as easy as possible for you to improve.
We have partnered with the incredible Szabi Hant to bring you his photography cheat sheet.
Want to learn more? Szabi is running monthly online courses with ticket available exclusively at CPD Junkie
We do our very best to keep this up to date, accurate and comprehensive. However it is possible that this website contains errors. Please confirm details with organisers.
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