In tough times, businesses venture into new ways of doing business trying to create additional revenue streams. It becomes clear that on the internet, reaching out to audiences worldwide with video and meaningful live communication is a fast growing trend. Bankersonline.com is a clear example of how a business, working with a conservative industry sector, can deliver benefits, customer satisfaction and growing revenue by changing the rules of the game.
This is a case study interview with Dr. Michele Petry, president of the Glia Group and editor of www.BankersOnline.com.
- Learn how current events have created the opportunity to charge more for a pay-per-view webcast attendee than an onsite attendee
- Discover how BankersOnline transitioned from doing traditional training to live online training and all day webcast
- Hear why the value proposition of remote presentations allows to charge more for remote registration than for in-house registration
- Understand the thought processes that were behind this revenue model
- Find out how bankersonline achieved amazing results delivering an 8-to-1 remote-to-inhouse registration ratio with simple video messaging.
Click here to watch the webcast archive with Dr. Michele Petry!
Webinars and web events are becoming very popular with small and medium businesses across all industries. They are the most cost efficient and time efficient route to get your message, live, to your prospects, customers, staff, partners and suppliers. Time is precious and in today’s business communities, people are becoming “time poor”.
Whilst, in some cases, business people may enjoy travelling to meet customers or prospects, it is expensive, time consuming and inefficient. Instead of having to drive to a meeting, your attendees meet you from any location, across the corners of Ireland or indeed anywhere across the world via the Internet. Web events are also a green, environmentally friendly way to meet so it will you as a business to meet your commitments to be green and lower your carbon footprint which is a significant advantage.
Web Events can vary hugely in size of participants. They can be extremely effective with small groups for meetings, discussions, training or a business review. They can be equally effective for large worldwide groups with hundreds of attendees for product or service launches, promotions, broadcasts, Quarterly updates, announcements or new developments..
A webinar (web seminar) or webcast (web broadcast) is simple. The meeting is delivered live from your computer direct to the audience who are also joining form their own or a shared computer. The meeting or event is accessed directly through a link in the Internet. You set up an account, load your slides or whatever you want to use for your meeting and all you need in addition is a telephone, web camera, a microphone and a bit of practice! As with most things practice makes perfect and the more comfortable you feel with delivering the web event, the more natural and successful your delivery and your results will be.
You can also record your web event and re-use it on websites, in newsletters, in emails or blogs.
In the web event you can see who is attending; you can text chat with people, run surveys and share a large variety of content including live video, Power Point, Word and Excel files, your desktop or software sitting on your computer. People can also ask questions, either privately to the presenter or to the open forum.
Here are our top ten tips for choosing the right webinar, webcast or web event solution for you:
- Simplicity is key! Talk to an independent vendor that will help you to choose webinar software that matches your needs. Many solutions are over loaded with features and functions that can make them complicated to use and you will never need them. An expert will ensure you get the right start and succeed with your first webinar.
- Cross platform is important! The more platforms (Windows, Mac OS) and browsers (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari) the software can deal with the higher the chance is that all your participants can connect across the country or the world.
- Try it! Join a demo with the solution you are looking at and see how your experience is as a participant. Watch out in particular how easy it is for you to join that demo. If you like it and it looks and feels good, your participants are going to like it too.
- Make sure you can be heard! Try the audio options available (conference call and VoIP or telephone conference only). Check the quality of the audio and how easy it is to use.
- Recording makes your event go a long way! Make sure the solution provider has a hosted recording solution or provides a playback hosting for your recording. This means you simply get a link which takes you back to your recording. It is then simple to re-use your recording in Emails, websites or newsletters.
- Video is good! Don’t be shy, look for good video capabilities for your webinar. Having a live video feed of the presenter makes your web event personal, people will remember it better, it feels closer to them and overall your web event will have more depth. Don’t shy away from video, your audience will thank you for it.
- Think clearly and brainstorm with your team what you want to achieve in the webinar and how will you get there. Your webinar provider can help with good input and ideas. Make sure you talk to them about your objectives.
- Don’t let the price of the solution dictate your choice. The cheapest solution is not necessarily the worst but likewise, the most expensive is not necessarily the best! Make your decision based on what fits your needs, where you feel you will get the support you need and what was good when you tried it.
- Flat Fee solutions are they way to go as they are efficient as you flex your meetings. Pay-as-you-go models work with small once off events but as soon as you get a larger group in one event or run more than three events a month, a flat fee is a more appropriate solution for you. Pricing for the solution only, can start from as low as €40/month and go to €4000 and more. For a typical self run SME webinar, with a basic webcast solution, you should be covered within the €100 per month. Conference calls, hosted recording or other features may be charged separately based on usage.
- Practice makes perfect. Run sessions with colleagues and people that you know before you go live with the real event. Look for honest feedback and take it on board. Webinars are a lot easier to deliver than live in-house events in front of a large group. With the right solution and a bit of practice you will be delivering your first live web event in no time.
Feel free to give us a call at anytime to have a chat about webinars, webcasting, web events, video conferencing or any other means of live, remote communication.
Find out more about easy to use webinar and web events solutions on our website
http://meeting.ie/2009/08/services-web-events/ and try our very popular solution here
http://meeting.ie/free-trial/?serve=Services:%20Web%20Events
Just as individuals must reduce their carbon footprint, groups must work together to achieve the same goal. As a group, your company has excellent potential to reduce its environmental impact. You may wonder what steps your company can take to reduce its carbon footprint and the size and cost of those steps. You’ll be pleased to know that the collective steps your company can take on the way to going green are simple ones that can be implemented right away.
- Reduce Corporate Travel: According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, business travel contributes 20% of the global total of carbon emissions to our planet each year. Online meeting and collaboration solutions can bring people together with a significant reduction in carbon overhead.
- Reduce Excess Packaging: By using washable cups at business meetings, choosing reused or recycled packaging, and buying items in bulk; you can greatly reduce the waste your company produces.
- Conserve Energy: Turning off excess lights, appliances and computers when not in use is recommended. Make sure that electrical items are energy efficient.
- Purchase Less: Avoid buying things that your company doesn’t need, and consider using the items you purchase as long as possible. Renting or leasing equipment provides savings and maximizes usage. Another suggestion is to purchase items second hand.
- Go Digital: Do you really need to print every little document that you receive? If you don’t need something in print, save it on your computer or flash drive to review on your monitor. Email is an excellent tool for sending office messages instead of printing numerous memos that could wind up in a landfill.
Efforts that your company makes in reducing its carbon footprint also conserve money because waste is eliminated. While following these tips can greatly reduce your company’s ecological impact, don’t be limited by their number. Discussing green strategies with company staff is an excellent way to produce company specific ideas. You will be amazed at the additional suggestions that can be generated by the combined intelligence of many.
Imagine a business meeting that disrupts work to discover why work is being disrupted – it’s an insane concept. That’s not to say that business meetings don’t play a vital role in a company, but the impact of business travel needs to be considered.
Often business owners and employees fail to consider the environmental impact of business travel. Every so often a corporation will make a push for carpooling or some other minor measure for a business meeting, but this is more a cost control issue than an environmental one for the company. It seems as if the environment is usually the last thing on most corporate minds, and who can blame them? The environment doesn’t have a ready impact on the bottom line, which is where most businesses focus all of their attention. This is as it should be, since the business likely wasn’t created for the environment, but rather has to exist in it.
So how can a business use business meetings and conferences that can have an impact on the bottom line and the environment? First, the business must recognize the cost of sending attendees to an offsite meeting. Travel by plane, train or automobile has a definite impact on the environment and the bottom line. Five workers attending a meeting in five separate automobiles means five expense sheets with tolls, gas, and mileage that the company must reimburse, not to mention the pollution, the time wasted in commuting that the company isn’t being compensated for and eating out, creating additional waste, and much more. Traveling for business was necessary as the economy evolved and companies wanted to grow.
However there is a ready solution in today’s technology that not only can have a positive impact on the environment; it can have a direct effect on the company’s bottom line. You can host online business meetings using technology that keeps employees on site, minimizes travel time and reimbursement and essentially saves the world. Online meeting solutions involve teleconferencing and video conferencing which can be set up quickly and can add real savings to the corporation’s bottom line – not to mention the PR coup a company can trot out with their pledge to help improve the environment by switching over to online meetings.
Online meetings save time, save effort and helps save the environment while improving your bottom line. The new year is a great opportunity to pledge to reduce your company’s business travel in 2010!
