A TelSpan Worldwide Conferencing White Paper
In today’s world, training is more critical than ever. Associations provide training to their members to provide added value, often with continuing education credits, and to retain and grow membership. Corporations and other organizations find training to be more and more critical as the pace of change in the world, particularly with technology, continues to advance. Training encompasses education, Human Resources training, sales training, new product and service rollouts, software and other technology training, and so much more. How can your organization keep up with your training needs, bringing information to those who need it in a timely, yet cost efficient manner? Perhaps the answer is online training. Online training is easily accomplished through today’s web conferencing and streaming services. Your attendees can attend your training sessions from their home or office; anywhere they have a computer and an Internet connection.
One of the great benefits of online systems is the ability to record and archive your event for future use. Create training or educational libraries by recording your events. Those who wish to review the materials again, those who were unable to attend the original session, or those who join your organization at a later time can view these archived sessions on demand. You can even charge and collect a fee for archived event viewing, creating another revenue stream for your organization.
Today’s organizations find they can do so much more, with less time, money and effort, by utilizing online training and education. They are able to use the latest technology to streamline programs, and make experiences more effective, even while saving money.
Call 1‑800‑800‑1729 or contact us to learn more about conducting online training utilizing TelSpan’s web conferencing platform, TelSpanVenue, as well as TelSpan’s online registration tool RegistrationPlus. Let TelSpan show you how to utilize these services for your online training needs today.
A TelSpan Worldwide Conferencing White Paper
A web conference is an excellent visual and collaborative tool that enhances audio conference presentations. When introducing this technology into your organization, it is important to remember that the use of web conferencing is only effective when the proper planning has been performed.
A TelSpan Worldwide Conferencing White Paper
Have you ever considered utilizing webinars as a prospecting tool? Sales and marketing professionals have proven that webinars are an effective way to identify and qualify prospects, and shorten the sales cycle.
To conduct a lead generation webinar, you need to create an informational webinar on a topic of interest to your prospects. It is important to remember that “content is king”. In other words, your content must be compelling enough to entice people to attend the webinar. In today’s world, your prospects are constantly bombarded with an overwhelming amount of information. Think carefully about the type of content that might entice people to spend an hour with you. Without a strong beneficial message, prospects either won’t register to attend your event, or will log off your event before its completion if it doesn’t hold their interest.
When preparing your webinar, use these guidelines:
Prepare a PowerPoint® slide show to accompany your presentation. Remember that participants will be looking at your slides for 30-45 minutes so keep them varied and interesting. Place your organization’s logo in the corner of each slide but don’t make it overly prominent. You can hype your organization and its products or services again at the end of the webinar. Don’t make your slides too text heavy, and use a variety of graphs, clip art, and photographs to vary the look of your slides and to make them colorful and interesting.
Speak to your web conferencing provider to learn ways in which you can make your presentation more interactive. Such features as polling, chatting, surveys, and question & answer sessions can help to keep participants engaged and focused on your program. Studies show that if a program is not engaging and interactive, participants are very likely to begin other activities such as checking email or surfing the Internet while attending. Unfortunately by the time they click away from your webinar, you have most likely lost their attention for good.
So, you have prepared your program. Now how do you go about generating those leads? Successful webinars are planned with at least eight weeks of lead-time, more if the event is complex or you are new to the process. The best days of the week to hold your webinar are generally Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, and the best time for a national audience is between 12:00 and 2:00 EST. Select the date and time for your webinar at least four to six weeks in advance.
Next you will need a list of prospects to invite. Plan to acquire a large email list of prospects if you do not already have one. Studies prove that by far the best way to get webinar registrants is through email invitations. Newsletters, web banners, links on websites, and press releases have all been proven very ineffective at generating webinar registration. How many emails will you need to send? Studies show that you can expect between .5% and 1% of invitees to register, and you can expect only 30-50% of those registrants to actually attend. So, if you would like to have 100 attendees at your event, you should plan to invite approximately 25,000 to the webinar.
To effectively use emails to invite prospects to your webinar you will need an online registration tool. Look for a service that facilitates invitations, registration, confirmation emails, and survey capabilities. It is recommended that the invitation emails go out three weeks prior to the date of the actual webinar. Never send out your invitations more than four weeks prior to the event date. Use the pre-survey capability in your registration tool to ask your registrants questions that will help you better plan the content of your event, and gauge their possible interest in your product or service. Utilize the email reminders in the registration tool to help keep the event on your registrants’ radar. Remember to include a link to any compatibility or system checks required by your web conferencing platform in an email to your registrants prior to the actual event. You don’t want your attendees to encounter difficulties logging into your event. It is also very helpful to have someone in your organization personally call the registrants the day of the event to remind them to attend. Use the post-survey capability to conduct follow-up to your event.
Your invitations have gone out and hopefully you are receiving registrations. Your presentation is prepared. Are you done? No. Rehearse your presentation numerous times and schedule a full dry run of your event with your web conferencing provider to be sure you are completely comfortable with the web conferencing platform. Prepare for the question & answer portion of your event and “plant” several questions with people that will be attending the webinar. Participants generally feel more comfortable participating in the question & answer session once questions have begun. There is nothing more awkward and uncomfortable than a webinar session with no questions!
After your webinar, immediate follow-up is critical. Lack of follow-up can doom an otherwise effective webinar. Acknowledge all registrants by email immediately following the event. For those who attended, send a “thank you for attending” email, and instructions on how to access the archive of the event. For those who registered but didn’t attend, send them a “sorry we missed you” email and if possible, include a link to the archived event in the email so they can participate on their own time. Utilize the post-survey feature of your online registration product to gain valuable feedback from participants.
Carefully study the reports and survey information provided by your registration tool in order to help you determine your “hottest” leads. These leads should be contacted directly by phone within 24 hours of the webinar. The rest of the leads should be called as soon as possible after that. Post your archived webinars on your website so they can continue to work for you, long after the live event has ended.
Lead generation webinars can help you provide information to an almost unlimited number of prospects at one time, without you or the prospects leaving your offices. Your message is consistent and visually compelling. Prospects find webinars to be a less threatening way to learn about products and services. Oftentimes the cost of putting on the webinar can be recouped by obtaining just one new client through the webinar process.
Call 1‑800‑800‑1729 or contact us to learn more about TelSpan’s web conferencing platform, TelSpanVenue, as well as TelSpan’s online registration tool RegistrationPlus. Let TelSpan show you how to utilize these services to facilitate your lead generation webinars, helping you to better qualify your leads and shorten your sales cycle.
A TelSpan Worldwide Conferencing White Paper
Conferencing solutions, whether audio, video or web-based, continue to prove their value as cost effective, productivity enhancing, and easy-to-use tools that achieve diverse goals within any organization. With the emergence of webinars, organizations are now able to directly profit from the use of conferencing technologies. Combining the proven effectiveness of conferencing with the revenue-generating capability of a webinar makes a powerful case for the decision to produce such an event.
As the conferencing industry has continued its drive for innovation, web conferencing is emerging as the fastest growing conferencing technology. Wainhouse Research estimates that web conferencing will grow at a 21 percent rate per year through the year 2007.
The graphic element of adding web conferencing to a regular audio conference has proven to greatly increase the opportunity to capture audience attention, while also providing an interactive platform that encourages feedback and audience participation.
Most organizations deploy web conferencing throughout their businesses as a means of improving productivity, cutting costs, and achieving a rapid return on investment. Realizing the true ROI of web conferencing is often a complex task that can be difficult to measure. Specific measurements, such as travel expenses, can be tracked to develop a picture of an organization’s ROI, but do not show the complete value web conferencing brings. Most users see the inherent benefits to web conferencing but have difficulty equating those benefits to tangible numbers.
Looking at web conferencing as more than a cost reduction tool provides the opportunity to use it as a revenue generator. Viewing web conferencing from this standpoint opens up a myriad of opportunities to reach a broad spectrum of vendors, prospects, or members, who are willing to pay a premium for the message you present.
In this white paper, the business case for using webinars will be presented, along with an easy-to-follow implementation and planning guide.
As mentioned above, web conferencing is an Internet-based application that allows you to present PowerPoint® slides, share any application on your PC, annotate a white board or slide, or chat with the conference audience along with many more collaborative features. The lack of complexity in using web conferencing tools has allowed the technology use to grow at a staggering pace. Easy-to-use features allow for a short adoption cycle for any organization.
Web conferencing requires only a PC and an Internet connection, while a separate phone line is used to dial into the audio conference. The conference audience simply logs on to a website through their browser to view what the host wishes to present. The host can display a slideshow to the audience; show an application, or even poll the audience on a particular topic. Web conferencing is a truly interactive platform that maximizes the delivery and reception of your message.
A webinar is viewed as being slightly different from what most typically consider to be a web conference. Most web conferences are based on several parties sharing and participating in a focused, and more private, collaborative session. Webinars seek to capture a broad audience that shares a common interest in a particular topic. For this type of presentation a registration fee may be charged. Depending on the audience size you seek, most webinars will have varying degrees of interaction and collaboration.
Webinars also often involve the use of a professional speaker presenting a topic of interest to your audience. A great deal of effort must also be put into the external marketing of the event and the management of audience participation. An online registration product is the easiest, and most cost efficient way to manage your webinar from beginning to end. A good online registration product will incorporate data management, email invitations, confirmations and reminders, and process webinar payments.
From a profit standpoint, your event ROI can be easily calculated in terms of event production costs and the registration revenue you generate.
Here is a brief example of how you obtain a profit calculation for a 60-minute event:
| 80 People Virtually Attend your Webinar for a $150 Registration Fee | $12,000 |
| Speaker Fee | $1000 |
| Audio Conference Service Fee ($0.10 ppm) (80 Participants X 60 minutes X $0.10) |
$480 |
| Web Conference Service Fee ($0.15 ppm) (80 Participants X 60 minutes X $0.17) |
$720 |
| Online Registration Support Costs | $75 per event |
| Total Cost | $2275 |
| ($12,000 - $2371) | $9725 |
Your web conferencing provider must offer technical solutions, along with excellent client management and relationship skills, to ensure a fit for your organization.
If you were to compare most web conferencing products that are available today, you would see that many features are common to all. So, it is critical that you request a demonstration of a particular web conferencing platform to determine just how easy it is to use. Make sure you learn about the product’s functionality not only from a host’s perspective, but also from a participant’s perspective.
Obtain pricing information and compare it to what you wish to spend. Be sure to find out if the vendor requires contracts, set-up fees, or any other “hidden” fees. Do they charge for training? Inquire about any free trials the vendor might offer.
Ask questions that help you determine the level of client support you will get from a vendor and compare it to what you anticipate you will need when introducing this new technology into your organization. Client support varies greatly from vendor to vendor, so be sure to investigate just how supportive they are willing to be before, during and after your event. Does the vendor simply offer pre-conference support and training? Or, do they offer “real-time” support during the hours you would need it most? And always, always ask questions.
Many organizations have a clear picture of what they want to present but lack the technical and conferencing subject matter expertise to determine how best to deliver that message to their virtual audience. This is where selecting a vendor who can cater to your specific event is essential. By simply providing your vendor with such details as estimated audience size, level of desired interactivity, types of applications to be presented, and other general presentation information, your vendor should be able to recommend the best solution for your webinar.
Before you decide to present a webinar, there are several questions you should consider.
Once you feel comfortable that you are able to answer these questions, you can then begin your first planning phase.
You should have a general idea of what you want to accomplish by producing this event. The opportunity to create profit from an event may be one of the primary drivers, but there are many other considerations:
Having your event goals in place at this stage will help you determine the speaker you need, the approach you need to take to advertise the event, and even what types of data you should collect for future use.
In this phase, you must determine a valuable topic of interest for your intended audience, create an appropriate agenda, arrange for a speaker, and possibly develop collateral. Webinars eliminate many of the scheduling issues that you might have confronted in the past. It no longer matters where the speaker you wish to use is physically located. In this phase, you are tasked with the following:
In this phase, you are marketing to your audience to attend your event. For this to be successful, it is critical to know your audience. How do they wish to be reached? Are there multiple forms of communication that would work better than just a single type? Will you have a response deadline? How do you prefer they pay for the event? All of these details should be planned out well in advance to present a clear and concise picture of your event to your targeted audience. Using an online registration product is usually the best way to solve your event marketing, data management, and payment processing needs.
Registration confirmations must be sent to clearly state the event start time and date, the topic, the conference codes to be used, and the computer system requirements that are necessary. You will also need to include your conferencing provider’s instructions on how to perform a simple web browser check prior to the webinar start. A good online registration product will work with your conferencing platform to smoothly integrate all of this.
It is critical that at least a week prior to your event, all who are directly involved with the presentation are on the same page in terms of product knowledge and systems requirements. Checking web browsers, practicing using the tools of the product, and getting familiar with the flow of events will all contribute to the ultimate success of your event.
Full-service web conferencing providers will always recommend this, and some will even schedule this rehearsal event for you. A client-focused provider will also have a support person attend this session with your team.
Your participants may come from varying backgrounds in terms of their technological proficiency, the type of computer system they have, and the level of connectivity they have to the Internet. Your registration confirmation should contain directions on how the participants can check their web browser for compatibility. This compatibility test is a simple test that takes only a few minutes to perform and will identify any issue prior to the start of the actual event. Your conferencing service provider should offer to provide support for any attendee who is performing this test so that any issues can be resolved immediately.
It is absolutely necessary to send an event reminder to your audience one to two days prior to your event. As easy as it is to participate in a virtual event, it is also easy to forget to attend. Eliminate forgetfulness with an easy email reminder through your online registration tool.
At this point, if you have followed each phase, you should feel comfortable that your event is ready to take place. Check in with the host and speaker and make sure they have everything they need at least two hours before your scheduled event start time. Your conferencing provider’s staff should be available during the event, should you or any of your attendees require assistance.
Now that the event is over, what should you do next? First and foremost, follow-up correspondence should be sent to all the attendees, thanking them for their participation. Also, offer them the chance to ask questions and to receive any collateral that pertained to the presentation. Consider offering a fee-based playback of the conference for those who missed it the first time.
Communicate all follow-up actions you intend to take at the conclusion of the webinar. If you included reports, charts, or any other type of important information, you may consider offering those as well. If you intend to post an archive of the webinar to your website, be sure to communicate the location to the participants.
Call 1‑800‑800‑1729 or contact us to learn more about TelSpan’s web conferencing platform, TelSpanVenue, as well as TelSpan’s online registration tool RegistrationPlus. Let TelSpan show you how to utilize these services to produce a profitable webinar for your organization today!
A TelSpan Worldwide Conferencing White Paper
The decision to create a webinar for your organization is often a difficult one, but even after that first decision to move forth is made, there is much more to think about. In this white paper we look at two theoretical examples, first of an ineffective, then an effective webinar.
You have created an informative webinar with great content. You have a great list of invitees. You have selected a great conferencing provider for your webinar, so what could go wrong? It should be easy to use the great technology available to provide your invitees with a great experience, right? Not so fast.
Invitations Sent
Using a web-based form created by your IT department, you email out invitations to your invitee list. Invitees are instructed to fill out the form, including their credit card information if you are charging for your event, and they email or print and fax it back to you.
Confirmations and Codes Not Received by Participants
Several days prior to your event, you start receiving emails and phone calls from your registrants. They have not heard from your organization since they registered for your event and they want to confirm they are registered, need a receipt for reimbursement, and want to know how to access the actual event. You check with your administrative staff and discover that they have had to print the emails and faxes and are now manually processing the credit cards, then mailing registrants their receipts via snail mail. Your conferencing provider provided you with web and audio dial-in instructions as well as codes for your participants well ahead of the event, and you realize those have not been sent out to your registrants. You instruct your administrative staff to email the instructions to all registrants right away. Your staff has to manually enter the emails of those who have actually registered in order to email out the instruction document after they have typed it out.
Participants are Unable to Access the Event
The day of your event arrives and, as instructed, your attendees begin to log onto the web and audio conference five minutes before the start time. Unfortunately, your speaker, who is the event host, has not followed instructions to open the event on the web and audio side fifteen minutes prior to the start time. As a result, your attendees are unable to get into the event, once again resulting in a flurry of emails and phone calls as they try to determine what the problem is with the instructions they received.
Lack of Control over the Event
Finally everyone is logged on successfully; of course by this time it is past time for the event to start. However now you realize that since the host didn’t log on fifteen minutes prior, the slides have not been uploaded into the web conferencing platform. You begin to help your speaker upload the slides into the program, while all your attendees watch. Worse yet, you have not requested your audio be muted until the start of the event, so while you are assisting with the preparation of the web presentation, your participants can hear you and your speaker as you discuss what you are doing. Realizing no one is muted, the participants also join into the conversation, talking to one another as well as to you. When you are ready to begin your event, you have lost control of the audio portion and must work to regain control of the conversation in order to begin your event.
Did you Rehearse your Event?
If you have not conducted several dry runs of your event, your participants may experience an unprofessional webinar. Although the features of your web conferencing platform are doubtless easy to use, without proper rehearsal, your webinar can truly appear unpolished and poorly planned to your participants.
No Post-Event Follow-Up
After the event concludes, your organization does not have any follow-up interaction with the participants, or with those who signed up to attend but did not actually show up for the event.
A Success?
Do you think the participants of this webinar will be anxious to sign up for your next program, even if you have learned from your mistakes? It is highly unlikely. As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Be sure your webinar doesn’t ruin that chance for your organization.
You have created an informative webinar with great content. You have a great list of invitees. You have selected a great conferencing provider for your webinar, so what could go wrong? It should be easy to use the great technology available to provide your invitees with a great experience, right? It can be with a little bit of preparation and planning.
Your conferencing provider gives you a demonstration of their online registration product. You realize that by utilizing an online registration product to plan and manage your event, your administrative costs will plummet, and the communication and resulting satisfaction of your registrants will increase. A good online registration tool will allow you to create an invitation, registration form, email confirmations and reminders, all branded with your organization’s logo. Pre- and post-event survey functionality may be used to obtain important information about your registrants for future marketing endeavors. After several hours, your entire event is set up, and invitations are automatically emailed out to your invitee list. Your invitees begin to register. They immediately receive a printable receipt, confirmation of their registration, and all the instructions and code sets necessary to attend your event. They should also receive up to two reminders before the event, again providing all the necessary instructions to attend. If you are charging for your event, a good online registration tool should automatically process the credit cards for you, leaving your administrative staff free to tend to more important tasks. Ask your online registration provider if they have a phone reminder service where someone calls your registrants the day before the event to remind them to attend.
Next you should be able to work closely with your web conferencing provider to obtain all the training you need to run your virtual event efficiently. A good provider will make it easy, providing training and assisting you with a dry run with your speaker if you’d like. Be sure to assign someone other than your speaker to push the slides, and practice, practice, practice so that everything runs smoothly.
Now it is the day of your event. You log on as the host of the event fifteen minutes prior to your start time. You upload your slides into your web conferencing platform. Your speaker is prepared and ready to go. Your conferencing provider may have suggested that you have a dedicated operator assigned to help facilitate your event and add an additional layer of professionalism. The operator puts all participants on hold as they join and explains to them that they will be on hold until the event begins. While your participants wait, you can speak freely with an operator to clarify any questions you may have. When your event start time is reached, the operator will take your participants off hold, and explain that their lines will be muted during the event, and then the operator starts your event off with a professional introduction of your speaker, written by you. Utilize interactive features such as polling, chatting, and annotations to keep your audience engaged. At the conclusion of the webinar, your operator can open up the lines for a Question & Answer session if you so desire. This allows your participants to interact directly with your speaker.
After your event concludes, your online registration product should automatically email all your attendees the post-event survey you created. You should then have access to your registration account and be able to download all the reports from your event into Excel® for follow-up and future marketing endeavors. After receiving the reports, your sales and marketing team should follow up immediately with the attendees. It is advisable to also send thank you emails after your event. Thank those who attended for attending and advise them where to access additional information such as copies of slides or other event literature, or where they might access an archive of the event. Send another email to anyone who registered for the event but was unable to attend, and include a link to an archive of the event, if you wish.
Your webinar was a huge success, and your attendees eagerly anticipate your next event.
Call 1‑800‑800‑1729 or contact us to learn more about conducting online training utilizing TelSpan’s web conferencing platform, TelSpanVenue, and TelSpan’s online registration tool RegistrationPlus. Let TelSpan show you how you can begin producing professional webinars today!
A TelSpan Worldwide Conferencing White Paper
Clients and prospects in the marketplace today are more informed, more technically proficient, and more demanding in the ways they want to conduct business. How your sales organization adapts to meet these new environmental dynamics will ultimately determine your sales success.
There is no dispute that the need for face-to-face meetings will never be completely replaced by web conferencing. However, this technology does enable you to better manage your sales team, improve your sales cycle, and contribute cost savings to your organization. The National Statistics Council reports that, “37% of an employee’s time is spent in meetings,” many of which require costly travel and hotel expenses. The danger lies in thinking that the processes, tools and methods you are using today are still acceptable to your clients and prospects.
Below are eight simple ways web conferencing can help you improve how you currently manage everyday tasks so that you and your team are working more efficiently.
1. Sales Training – With web conferencing, you can easily guide your sales team through in-depth product or sales training on their PC’s. The application-sharing feature of web conferencing allows you to launch any application from your desktop. This tool also allows you to test your team members’ knowledge of your product, service, or their overall presentation skills. You can review market data, share product updates, or roll out a new sales contest to every team member, regardless of where they are located. You can also archive any of your online sales training events to give your sales team access to training and information 24/7.
2. Monthly Reviews – Make your sales review meetings more effective by keeping everyone in sync with the presentation or information you wish to review. Instead of sending documents out beforehand by email and trying to keep everyone on the same page, use web conferencing to display your information and seamlessly guide them through the meeting.
3. Sales Support – In many organizations, certain sales support members or subject matter experts stand out as the “must have” people you want on your particular account or prospect call. Use web conferencing as a means of utilizing their time, regardless of their location. They could be in another city, supporting another sales rep, but taking time out of their day to give a demo or presentation to your client from anywhere in the world.
4. Increase Sales Manager Support – Web conferencing also allows you to be more intimately involved with the accounts that you need to follow more closely and with the sales reps who need your help more often. You are limited to how many places you can be at one time. But with just your PC and an Internet connection, you can be available in a highly interactive way to support clients and your team.
Call 1‑800‑800‑1729 or contact us to learn more about TelSpan’s web conferencing platform, TelSpanVenue. Let TelSpan show you how to utilizing web conferencing can help your organization increase sales.
