Why Business Video Conferencing Is the Next Big Thing

May 3rd, 2010
Charles Cheow asked:




Today, many businesses are adopting the use of video conferencing because it brings many benefits to the organization. With video conferencing, businesses can save time and money. Also, it increases the efficiency of the employees too.

One aspect of video conferencing that appeals to many businesses is the ease of installation. Anyone who has a computer and a webcam can enjoy this technology. You just need to install a software into your computer and plug in your webcam to start conferencing. You do not need to buy an advanced webcam. Just buy a simple one and you are ready to go.

Today, LCD monitors also become very popular. With a few hundred dollars, you can get a huge and good LCD monitor for your home or office. This makes it very affordable for you to get a good LCD and enjoy conferencing with your colleagues or friends.

With the popularity of video conferencing, the digital world is guaranteed success. As more and more aspects of a business are handled through the computer, the ability to have a meeting within minutes of the thought, will definitely win out. With trains, planes, and automobiles being the competition, video is sure to win. Who would not rather have an important meeting online, instead of a wild goose chase for the same meeting?

Although it may seems like a hefty investment for now, but in the long run, you will definitely reap the rewards. So if you have not try video conferencing, the time to try is now.

Sandra

Make Your Webinar A Success

April 30th, 2010
Tom Cruz asked:




If you are intending to have a webinar any time soon, you want to make sure that it is a great success. When your webinar is a success, you have a great chance of generating interested sales leads, which then leads to an increase in your sales. This is what you ultimately want right? An increase in sales? Of course it is, therefore, in this article we will show you some tips to ensure that you have a successful webinar.

Make Your Plan

You want to be sure that you have every aspect of your webinar planned out precisely. From start to finish you want to focus on the large details as well as the little ones. Be sure that you plan out what type of success you hope to have, how you will promote your webinar, what your budget is for the event, how people will register, any speakers you might want to set up, and schedules of the event.

By planning everything and writing it down on paper, you are more apt to follow through and have a seamless webinar process.

Opt-In

You want to make sure that you get the contact information of any person who will or might attend your event. This means you need to grab their email addresses in some creative way, either through an informational source about the webinar or the actual sign up process.

Promotion Is Key

Without promotion who will possibly know about your webinar? If you do not tell anyone, they will not know. Therefore, you need to branch out and do some advertisement. However, you first need to understand your targeted audience. Who are you reaching out to? How will this help them? Will your webinar solve a problem and fill a need? When advertising, use various messages, get creative, and find out what brings the most attention.

Schedules Matter

If you are having your webinar at 2:00 in the morning, who do you expect to come? If you are seeking an international audience, this may be a good time, but for your local or national audience it likely will not be. It is best to schedule your webinar at a time when you can get the largest audience. Generally, mid afternoons are best, as well as Tuesday or Wednesday.

Make It Interesting

An interesting webinar will grab and keep your audience’s attention. Remember, you have a lot of things to compete against, when it comes to their attention. These things include work, telephone, the internet, email, pets, children, and family. You have to make sure that you are providing real, solid, and interesting information to keep their attention.

By understanding what makes a successful webinar you are better equipped in ensuring that your webinar is a success.

Nicholas

Seven Biggest Webinar Marketing Mistakes And How You Can Avoid Them

April 22nd, 2010
Geoff Zimpfer asked:




Mistake #1: SEX! Now that I have your attention…That was a dirty trick. Not to mention hokey. But since you’re reading this, I guess that old chestnut still works.

Remember the old sales adage – A.I.D. A. – Attention – Interest – Decision – Action

On the web or in person, to reach your intended outcome, you must first capture your target audiences Attention. Ideally, you capture Attention because you have a compelling offer that appeals to your target audience, arousing enough Interest and allowing them to make a Decision to accept your offer which leads them to take Action and attend your webinar.

Today, because of information overload, most of us have what I call “short attention span theatre.” We’re scanning only for the information on our personal radar that were interested in and the rest gets filtered out. Even if yours is the most compelling offer ever given for your target audience, you have to be sure you capture your prospects’ Attention, get them Interested enough make a Decision to sign up for your event, and take Action by actually following through and showing up.

Mistake #2: Not Using a Marketing Sequence to Build Your Attendance

Many people assume that just because they are putting on a webinar, and perhaps even offer it for free, that your target audience will drop everything their doing just to hear and see what you have to offer. You’re too smart for that and you know people are very busy. Today, people need constant reminders, repeated exposure and you must provide valid reasons why they should continually subject themselves to ongoing communication from you.

A well designed marketing sequence builds momentum and critical mass along each step, creating greater interest and anticipation for those who have already registered and those who haven’t yet but are likely too with enough emotional and logical triggers that resonate with them, where they are right now.

Mistake #3: Having Boring Presenters or Death By PowerPoint

In a virtual setting, having an engaging, energetic, well-spoken presenter is critical because your attendees can easily lose interest, get distracted or simply “click” a button and leave your session. In a live setting, that requires a few extra steps and is not quite as anonymous as in a webinar. Another good idea is to rehearse and review the content and do a few dry runs with someone to get your flow down and test out the mechanics of delivering a webinar -especially if you’re new to webinars.

Equally important is your presentation. Too many people use slides as a crutch, simply reading them verbatim on the screen, overloading people with data points, too much text and too many slides. Remember the KISS principle? Keep It Short and Sweet. You can liven up your presentations and keep attendees attention and interest at a high level by adding small doses of things like video, polling, guest speakers, Q&A and more when appropriate.

Mistake #4: Use the Wrong Provider for Your Webinar

Webinars, web conferencing, web collaboration and web meetings have been around for about ten years now. There are many providers all having some similarities and a few with some significant and important differences and features you should consider.

First of all, if all you’re concerned with is price, you’re approaching it backwards. Price is always a component of value but when you’re talking about using webinars as a strategic tool to grow your revenues, expand markets and better serve your customers, the real question is what’s it worth to you? Meaning, if successful, how much would using webinars, web meetings etc. save and or make your company? How much would you save on travel? How many more sales or new clients could you get because your sales cycle is now shorter using webinars? How important is it to make a good first impression with your webinar? How important is support and reliability?
Are features like multi-point video, recording, application sharing, VoIP, integrated audio etc,. a must or are they just nice to have? How else do you plan on leveraging your webinar for future sales, marketing, PR, etc?

Seems like a lot but there are many ways to make money from webinars beyond the event itself. You can record events for future playback, create a passive eCommerce income stream, license your sessions, use as Press Releases, redistribute on CD to your lists, etc. Are you getting the picture that webinars can go way beyond simply desktop sharing and PowerPoint? Choosing the right provider can mean the difference between a smashing success or crash and burn failure. By using the appropriate tools for your goals, you can promote interaction, participation, and ultimately, gain more sales.

Mistake #5: Not Using Direct Response Marketing

Most attempts at building attendees for your webinar make all of the mistakes pointed out in #1 above. Using proven direct response methods includes having benefit driven headlines within emails, websites and other media. Well-written copy that speaks your audiences language, compelling offers and a clear call to action with incentives, multiple ways to register, testimonials etc.

Mistake #6: Not Using Off-line Media To Build Attendance

What? You mean use things like letters, postcards, “lumpy-mail,” premiums, creative packaging, telephone, and the fax machine? Yup. Goes back to #1 and #2 above and for the plain fact that today, relying on email to successfully reach your audience is harder than ever. SPAM is pervasive, people mass delete in-boxes, junk folders steal correspondence even with your own customers…all the more reason to multiply your touch points for maximum exposure and boost your chances of scoring high on the A.I.D.A quotient.

Mistake #7: Failing to Design the Post-Webinar Marketing Plan

Too often people view a webinar as a one-time event. You’ll see a lot of work and money wasted on what I call the “front-end” and little time planning for the “back-end” where you can leverage off your event for additional sales, up-sells and other income opportunities.
Make sure the follow-up plan gets as much attention as the webinar itself. Each step in the process should be well mapped out from salespeople’s roles to post-event websites, materials, touch campaigns and more. There is a short window of opportunity for you to take advantage of all your hard work . . . if you recognize and can avoid these costly errors and if you have a proven system to help you get the results you want.

Michele

Web Conferencing – Communicating With Family Far Away

April 18th, 2010
Alice Lane asked:




If you are like most people nowadays, odds are you have a loved one who is living quite a distance away. Of course getting to those far away people is now easier than it was in the old days, but that doesn’t quite mean that it is any less expensive. Depending on how large your immediate family is, it could cost a pretty penny simply to fly to your loved ones destination, let alone the cost of a hotel if that is where you will have to spend your nights. If you have children whose grandparents are too far away to drive to, your children will most likely not get to see their grandparents often enough. Technology has come up with a way to get those grandparents right into your own living room in a split second. This is done through a web conferencing solution.

If you are living in Washington State and want your children to be able to see their grandparents living in Illinois, all you have to do is buy each of you a web camera. The video is transmitted over the internet and before you know it you are looking directly into the faces of your parents who are half way across the country! A web camera is an especially wonderful gift if you do have relatives that you would like to see more often. With a web camera, grandparents are able to watch their grandchildren grow up even though they are thousands of miles away. Grandparents can be there to see their first wobbly steps or even to watch them open the Christmas gifts that they have sent. With cheap web conferencing the set of grandparents who live farther away will be able to partake in the children’s daily lives easier than ever.

Not only will a web camera make the grandparents happy, it will also prove to benefit the grandchildren. The more the grandchildren get to physically see as well as communicate with their grandparents, the better their relationship will be. Odds are good that when you do go to visit there won’t be any of those awkward moments because your kids are unsure of whom those people are. They will be more likely to be free with their conversations just where they left off from the web camera. So even if all you can afford is the cheapest web conferencing, the benefits for everyone all around will be worth it in the end.

Mary

Web Video Conferencing in the New Millennium

March 18th, 2010
Magdi Mikhail asked:




Are you in need of something that can boost your business by more than half and still be able to save on the cost of production? Do you want to be able to monitor your factories and met with your staff on a regular basis though you are miles away from corporate? Web videoconferencing allows you to work on these things without having to worry about cost and impact on the business.

All that you need to do is just a website away. The need for expensive equipment has also been taken away since all the equipment you would need is inside the Internet and all of it is waiting for you. So let’s start web videoconferencing.

So how exactly does web videoconferencing works? Well, like the name suggests its videoconferencing through the web or the Internet. A participant needs a computer to start off and Internet access. Basically that’s all you need. Other things that may or may not be necessary are web cams, web conferencing software and a website to conduct the virtual meeting. Usually websites may refer to URL’s that act as the conference room for the meeting.

There are different kinds of web videoconferencing and different kinds of purposes. First one is the web meeting (web videoconferencing), this usual kind of web conference that let’s participants interact in a controlled Internet environment. Usually CEO’s and business executives have web meetings when they are out of town and on business. Not only can they visit their site often they can keep close tabs on people. Usually Web conferencing allow people on the go to keep up with the requirements of the office.

Live video is another kind of conferencing over the Internet or what young people call video chat. live video or video chat is just like text chatting only it’s done through the web cam. Just like web video conferencing live video is more or less like it in purpose and setup. While web videoconferencing uses software to support the video format of the live video this is because of the limited number of formats that can be streamed over the web.

Another kind of web conferencing tool is VoIP or Voice over the Internet Phone. The concept of VoIP is no longer new to us. Some people have started using VoIP software and sites as their primary phone for business, personal and technology use. Because of it’s virtual endless capacity to call inside and outside countries and not to mention computer call functionality.

That means even without a regular or mobile phone people can communicate anytime anywhere. Now if you apply that to whatever your web videoconferencing needs that you have, you are sure to get your money’s worth.

And lastly a dedicated Internet website that would cater to all the web conferencing needs that you have. As the name mentions it is a dedicated server that acts as the conference room of your company and a gateway for all other video conferencing you will have even outside the company.

Since this is a new tool for your company to use in it’s quest to become one of the best in the world, it would be wise to master all the requirements and the processes of web videoconferencing to reap the best results from it.

Edith

Information About Video Conferencing – What You Need To Know

March 18th, 2010
Shakir A. asked:




Video conferencing is the technique of meeting in a group over a network employing video and audio transmission technology and equipment. Armed with information about video conferencing businessmen, technologists, scientists and government heads started to explore ways to bring the world closer together and enable meetings of many people located in different parts of the globe. Video conferencing is the process of being able to see and interact with a group of people located at any point of the world at the same time.

Increased information about video conferencing has enabled even small businesses and organizations to communicate virtually face to face and not being in the same room at the same time. Businesses find this the most convenient way to interact with partners across the globe. Medical service providers such as surgeons have been known to use their information about video conferencing to provide invaluable advise to doctors treating patients half way across the globe. Doctors can view the patients and advise their colleagues about the treatment that must be administered to the patient. Surgeons have been known to conduct operations in distant countries through video conferencing; they observe the operation being conducted by a surgeon and advise him through the conferencing. This would not have been possible in the early 1990’s as the video quality was very low and the connectivity of the video conferencing was not too good either.

Today the general man-in-the-street can use video conferencing software like any professional. Desktop video conferencing has brought the world closer and bridged the divide of the oceans for many a family. Information about video conferencing has given expansion opportunities for education and communication like no one ever expected. Someone somewhere has availed of the benefits that information about video conferencing has provided to the world. This is a technology that has achieved a lot in a few years and still has a very long way to go. Video conferencing enables scientists on the earth to communicate with astronauts in space, Generals to observe the activities on the frontlines, Doctors to monitor the progress of patients from distant lands, scientists to take part in crucial experiments from different countries at the same time and the old grand parents to have a look at the newborn grandchild just a few minutes after birth.

The information about video conferencing that you need is available all over the Internet. You need to know what video conferencing is, what you can use it for, what is the technology available to you and what is the equipment you need to set up video conferencing. In the past there was just the ISDN line linking the Internet across the world. Then there was the limited video compressing technology that could enable video transmission across the Internet. Businesses and organizations were unable to put video conferencing to its greatest use as they were bound to the limited technology at the time. The more their information about video conferencing technology advanced the better equipped they became to put it to wider use.

Anita

Introduction to Webinar Software

March 17th, 2010
Rangoo Srinivas asked:




Webinar is the short form for Web Seminar. Businesses are becoming more dynamic with the kind of latest technologies and software applications helping them to spread their wings across the globe. Webinars and web conferencing are today’s most effective multimedia business tools for global businesses for conducting business presentations, demonstrations or offering training to a worldwide audience.

Webinar software plays a vital role in the success of business meetings with the power of global reach. These systems work efficiently with unmodified the web browsers and servers as they are easily accessible to the millions of web and the intranet users. Created as a groupware in the initial stages the forum software focused mainly on group discussion, scheduling and for sharing documents.

Till recently online meetings and collaborations used to be expensive due to the expensive webinar tools and the bandwidth limitations and its complexities. Now the webinar software system has become versatile being able to integrate all the communication technologies and software that combine audio, video, text and other forms of live interaction.

What to look for in webinar software

1. The software must be able to support operating systems like Windows or Unix. Macintosh servers offer limited choices. The software should be compatible with other environments.

2. Browser support is also an essential aspect of webinar software as they rely on Java script and HTML frames and sometimes some more special browser add-ons enabling all the users to access the web conferencing system.

3. Integration of applications is essential for web conferencing and the webinar software should be able to integrate seamlessly with the related applications for communication.

4. The administration capability is also of much importance when designated users are to be given limited administrative capabilities.

5. The system should allow the host of the webinar to have control over who can access the webinar and the level of access that each participant is allowed.

6. The important factor in selecting the webinar software that suits the requirements of the business. They are available for free to thousands of dollars. You can decide according to your specific needs as freeware product is sometimes more powerful than the paid product and the one that costs the most may not fulfill the specific needs of the host.

7. The webinar software products should be customizable and flexible. This is for enhancing the functionality of the system.

The webinar software field is vast and the wide range of products has their own strengths and weaknesses. A careful analysis of the business needs and the features of the webinar software are necessary for making the right choice.

Karl

Web Phone Conferencing

March 4th, 2010
Nathalie Fiset asked:




These past few years, we have seen the emergence of a new technology called Voice Over Internet Protocol or VOIP. This marvelous development allows people to transmit their voices through the internet, transforming their headsets and computers into telephones. You might think that this is redundant, considering that most internet connections today use something akin to a phone line. However, you haven’t heard about the benefits of web phone conferencing yet.

People today make use of different web phone meeting services in order to make sure that they are able to communicate properly and effectively without having to pay the costs of a long-distance telephone call. As you may probably know, the biggest problem that people have with using a phone to hold a teleconference is that the costs tend to vary with distance. With the development of VOIP, however, you only need to pay a fraction of the price for the connectivity.

There is one problem with this technology, however, and it lies on the fact that we are talking about a relatively new development here. People who are expecting to find the same type of quality and clarity in using online phone conferencing may end up disappointed. This is because there are still some bugs that need to be worked out in order to allow people to have the same experience as using a phone.

There are, however, some factors that make people favor internet phone meetings using VOIP over conventional teleconferences. These factors, added to the savings, make web phone conferences quite irresistible to customers. Let’s take for example that this technology allows people to use the connection for other types of communications while they are on the phone.

On a normal teleconference, people can hardly multi-task. The limited technology only allows them so much leg room in order to do their jobs. With the internet teleconference, people are able to do various things such as document editing, slide show presentations and even sending video messages. This is because the entirety of the resources of the internet is not used to project voice alone. This means that you can save a lot of time and effort using internet phone meeting technology.

There is, however, another limitation to be considered. You have to remember that there are a lot of people who depend on eye contact in order to transmit their message and give it emphasis. When you go with internet phone conferencing, it can only give you an illusion of having eye contact. Why is this? Well, with online phone conferences, people are given the idea that they will be able to communicate using web cams.

Although the usage of cameras can be a very significant improvement over merely depending on speech for communication, a lot of people are turned off because the experience is not quite what they expected. When they make use of video and web phone conferencing, they might expect an experience that’s very much like talking in person and therefore, lack the necessary preparations to help them emphasize messages without use of their eyes.

When you make use of internet phone meeting services, you might end up not being able to prepare properly for a meeting simply because you have been convinced by different science fiction movies to expect too much from such. If you, however, wish to make your conversations more meaningful, then it would be better if you looked into the screen when listening and look into the camera when you are talking. This may seem inconvenient but it’s also very effective.

VOIP is seen as quite advantageous by people in the sense that this piece of technology allows them to coordinate meetings better. With your conventional teleconference session, people have to identify themselves by voice and had to take turns talking in order to be clearly understood. However, with the emergence of phone web conferencing, people can now talk quickly and have their opinions noted without identifying themselves by name. This saves a lot of time. Of course, it still helps if people took turns speaking.

Phone web conferencing is quickly becoming a staple part of business today. It follows in the footsteps of other accessories which proved their worth to be necessities. This makes one wonder what people will think of next.

Jacqueline

Web Conferencing Services

February 14th, 2010
Tom Cruz asked:




If you want to get started with online meetings, there are many different types of web
conferencing services you can purchase to help meet your needs. These include such
services as Webinar, Gotomeeting, Webex, the GlobalTalk and more. What you need to
look at when choosing the service you want is not only the price, but the type of
equipment that is required and how many people you can have at one meeting. You really
do need to look for a service you can use with any browser.

If you are in a business where you need to be in constant communication with people and
partners in other locations, services for web conferencing can save you thousands of
dollars. You can be in touch with people all over the world in real time. Such services
allow you to conduct meetings and conferences with groups of people online. The
participants can view presentations, give feedback and interact with one another through
chat rooms, video conferencing and interactive boards. Sharing desktops is another
feature you can employ with such a service and you can still give power point
presentations, just as you would in a face-to-face meeting.

When you engage this type of service for your business, you have a conference room in
cyberspace from which you can communicate with employees and customers. This is the
perfect way to provide training or to make presentations to groups of people you
otherwise would have to travel to connect with. In order to compete in the modern world
of business, services that give you web conferencing capabilities are essential. You can
book a web conference on a minutes notice and you can record it for follow up or to
review the feedback of the participants. When problems develop, now you have the tool
at your fingertips to allow you to handle the problem from your office.

Ben

Getting It All Together With Webinar Hosting

February 12th, 2010
Tom Cruz asked:




Webinar hosting gives you the power to reach every corner of the world, without ever having to step outside of your home. You have two basic choices when it comes to these services. You can choose between a software program or a hosting provider. Both types have their advantages and disadvantages. It is important to educate yourself on both types and make the right decision for your webinar based upon your research.

With a provider, you are relying upon someone else for the success or failure of your web conference. However, this is the perfect choice for many businesses that do not want to deal with their own server or any software of that type. Here are some advantages to webinar providers:

• Interactive Features – Features such as Polling, moderation, question and answer sessions

• Simple Set Up – You get step by step instructions from the provider on how to set up your web conference.

• Easy Use – More step by step instructions on how to use their specific software and take advantage of its many features.

• Backup Servers – If one server happens to falter, another will take its place immediately with proper notification.

• Presentation Archives – Have a backup of all your webinars available at your fingertips. This allows you to not only keep record, but also allow guests something of a transcript from the event.

• Moderators or Consultants – Some providers offer moderators or consultants to assist you with your webinar. They will check the function of the software, moderate it for you, and control tools you need.

Some disadvantages of hosting providers include:

• Reliability on Someone Else – You have to rely on the provider and their server. If something were to happen and you experience downtime, you will have to contact their support team for troubleshooting.

• Costs – hosting services sometimes cost more than a software program that you host on your own servers.

Overall, webinar hosting is a solid and viable solution for any business looking to hold a web conferencer, but is not looking to use a software program or host it on their own server. Choosing the right provider means comparing costs, features and other aspects. It also means checking on their reliability, uptime, and testimonials from other clients who have used their services before.

Grace
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