Webinars, or web seminars, have a great many uses that organizations and individuals alike can use. There are a lot of choices when it comes to choosing the right webinar provider, but many organizations decide based on the following factors – ease of use, cost and intended use.

Cost
Cost is a major factor when choosing what type of webinar appliance or software to use. Because several businesses still consider webinars as a luxury purchase, having an economical price and value will help convince business owners and supervisors to actually purchase the technology. Many companies that provide webinar technology often do so at a monthly or annual subscription plan. However, there are web conferencing appliances that may be the most economical approach– these products only have an initial cost, with no monthly fees or subscription costs for the entire life of the appliance.

Ease of Use
Facilitating webinars has become so easy- with the right computer and software, almost anyone can do it. Making webinars easy to conduct has helped individuals and businesses communicate better with each other, their customers, and other industry professionals. Many organizations are now beginning to use webinars instead of planning large conferences at hotels or convention centers. This saves a substantial amount of money and, in many cases, is just as effective.

Intended Use
There are several great uses for webinars, in almost any industry. Many organizations offer free webinars to interested parties as a learning tool. This not only drives traffic to the hosted website, but it also establishes credibility in the industry.

Besides using webinars as an effective marketing tool, many organizations use webinar technology for internal and client training. Employee orientation or teaching new skills can now be done in any office location. In addition, teaching clients or customers how to use an organization’s products can be as easy as having them join a webinar with an educated instructor.

Kelsey Childress is a Freelance Internet Marketing Specialist residing in Kansas City. She uses the 4-in-1 RHUB Remote Appliance for web conferencing and remote access. To learn more about RHUB, please visit http://rhubcom.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelsey_Childress
http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-Webinars-Are-a-Crucial-Marketing-and-Learning-Tool&id=3991369

In promoting a company to the next preferred point at present, a webinar plays an awfully significant role. A webinar is simply a web tutorial. Webinar is known in this way for the reason it’s been done by means of internet. With its potential customers this web meeting is highly accountable for strengthening the relationship of the business we can articulate this.

This particular technique or way of building strong relationship is more efficient as well as valuable than the usual advertisements. In an intended way if this facility is utilized in that case it can remarkably boost your customer satisfaction rate. The advantages of organizing for an online meeting in this piece of writing, I will emphasize on it.

Day-by-day the web seminar tools are improving, making it simply inexpensive for all divisions of industry as well. It was more or less a nightmare formerly when asked to arrange an online conference, for an in-person meeting online or like anchoring a meeting over the internet. For the reasons of recurrent connection issues, bandwidth troubles, compatibility issues along with a lot more, it was very complicated.

However, at this time everything has gone through a remarkable technological improvement. In this day and age nearly all of the peripheral devices are plug-and-play, which signifies that neither you have to install a separate driver nor additional related software to make it function appropriately. All you need to do is plug it into the proper socket and your purpose will be served. You are able to take advantage of web conferencing service effortlessly. Either via a local company or online or we can get it.

Various advantages by means of the webinar facility can be availed. In order to weigh against each facility provided by the webinar let us discuss a scenario. Suppose you’re arranging a meeting in a conference room, what are the things that are typically at hand to make your meeting a success? Let us list them here:

1) Depending on the number of people required to attend the meeting, all persons accountable or associated with the issue to be discussed can come together at conference place.
2) View the presentation collectively or shared the documents
3) By means of a projector, the project or issue to be focused is showcased on a screen
4) To note down the essential points or minutes of the meeting notepad and other related accessories are provided
5) For people reference time and over meeting is recorded

Now let us compose a list of accessible features while hosting a web seminar so that a proper comparison can be done. The features are:

1) Before opening a meeting, invitations to all associated persons is sent as multiple people can access it and join it after.
2) Via screen, including sharing personal desktop and files all the presentations demonstrated will be visible to every participant of the conference.
3) In real time, one can not only see other participants but also the presentation on the screen and for this no projector is needed.
4) To write down important issues on hand are notepad, word, which you deem is worth remembering.
5) By plugging in the telephone line, you can make use of your speakers from the PC for audio conferencing. a virtual hand is accessible signifying a question raised.
7) A questionnaire(s) can be used.
Media streaming can be viewed as well.
9) One can view the online meeting (Webinar) held as and when required, as it’s been recorded for record purpose.

As a consequence, one gets prepared adequately after going through this piece of writing, to choose the best for his business.

Visit our website to know more of the advantages of webinars for your business. http://knowledgecircle.com.au

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Webinars are very effective ways to market your products and services as well as train your team. Webinar marketing really helps get your point across much easier than using just a teleconference since you can show the attendees exactly what you are talking about.

Here are ten webinar marketing tips so you can have an effective webinar:

1. Plan ahead. Create a schedule of when you will hold the webinars, contact and schedule the speakers, create a way to register for the webinar, get clear on your budget, create your webinar marketing plan, and create any slideshows and visuals you will need.

2. The best time. Choose a time that you will be able to reach the most potential viewers. Mid-afternoon times are best for national audiences. Webinars held on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays have better attendance ratios.

3. Market it. Know your target market and how to reach them. Have multiple marketing strategies to promote your webinars. Social media is a great place to build an audience fast.

4. Practice and be prepared. Make sure your speakers have a plan walking through the flow of the webinar and any technical info they should know. Also be prepared in case something happens and your speaker is a no-show, have a plan b. Have a run through practice to learn how to use your webinar client properly to help avoid technical mishaps and have a plan for if a technical challenge presents itself during a live webinar.

5. Do not rely on just webinars. Webinars should be one part of your marketing plan. While webinars are extremely effective you will need to have other methods of marketing as well to diversify.

6. Keep your audience captivated. In the world of multi-tasking it is extremely important that you are able to keep your audience’s attention focused on your webinar as much as possible. Make sure your content is interesting and have speakers that are exciting. When you go over your material ask yourself the question, “So what?” at the end of every paragraph. If you are unable to answer it then the information is dull or irrelevant.

7. Conduct polls or surveys. This is a great way to keep your audience engaged as well as to get some great feedback on your webinar i.e. how to improve it, what the audience liked, how likely are they to take action, etc.

8. Soft sell. Respect your audience and the fact that they took time out of their day to come see you. It’s okay to sell, it’s okay to have a call to action… It is not okay to hard sell, it’s obnoxious and will make you look like a jerk especially on a webinar. Provide value with a call to action so good the audience will not be able to resist taking action.

9. Utilize registration to the max. When someone registers for your webinar you have an opportunity to get to know them. Most webinar vendors allow you to customize the registration page with what information you want to capture and can even ask a question relevant to your webinar to better be able to help your audience.

10. Pick a reliable vendor. There are a lot of options for webinar vendors. Make sure to not only pick one that is in your budget, fits your audience size and that has the features you require. Also, check reviews and talk to current users to find out what you can expect from partnering with that vendor.

Forest Marie is a dynamic Internet Marketer, a Wealth Masters Master Consultant and a top income earner in CarbonCopyPRO. To join Forest’s team, visit CarbonCopyPRO and submit an application. Originally published: Webinar Marketing Tips

Article Source: ArticleSnatch Free Article Directory

How crucial is it to know about Online Marketing? Consider the following:

• 50% of all offline purchases are now preceded by an online search based on a Pew Study.
• Online Marketing is the fastest growing form of advertising, period.
• If your business is not marketing online, you’re already loosing thousands to your competition.
• 9 out of 10 businesses have little or no idea how to market online.
• The learning curve in online marketing is huge and can cost you a fortune if you don’t know

Companies that are providing Online Marketing Training Solutions are now filling this tremendous need.

“The business world desperately needs to catch up to consumers in terms of the use of the internet”, Craig Garcia, one of the founders of Promo Black Box and President of EDC Gold) stated recently during one of the Promo Black Box live webinars he hosts with Bob Cerfail, President of In Touch Media Group four times a week.

Even companies like Microsoft was blindsided by the internet and realized that their own long term survival depends on butting heads with the likes of MSN, Yahoo, Google, and Ask.com in the online marketing arena.

“And it’s not just about Search either, just think about all the social networks. Who would have thought that You Tube and Myspace and other social network sites were a place for corporations to advertise on? Even I had to join the party says Peter Grundner and I’m amazed at the results”

The Question becomes. Can a company that does not take online marketing serious survive? The answer is a clear NO. Take the Pew Study that suggests that 50% of even offline purchases are preceded by an online search, so even companies that serve a local market will be affected greatly.

The use of the internet will only grow and consumers will lead the way to take advantage of all of the unique advantages that the World Wide Web has to offer. For any business to survive it must follow their lead now.

But where can a business turn for help in catching up? There are a plethora of e-books, all promising to be your ultimate solution, but frankly, most of rather watch a video.

The great thing about online publishers and teaching sites is that, like the Internet itself, they are nimble and can tweak content continually to ensure delivery of the latest secrets such as Promo Black Box webinars,” says Peter Grundner, founder of How2SucceedOnline.net and agent for Promo Black Box. “Whether you’re a ‘visual’ or ‘auditory’ learner, live webinars with a good teacher are the best way to absorb the information – and absorb it rapidly.”

Webinars are unique in that you hear a person explaining various points, but at the same time you see their computer screen and can watch as he navigates around to different websites, circles various problems or placements, and highlights current advertisers’ mistakes and victories.

The article is brought to you by P&T Enterprises.
For more information please visit how2succeedonline.net and mypromoblackbox.net

January: Set Up Google Analytics. The reason why this is first on your month-by-month plan is because you should have a benchmark to compare to your year-end results. The reason I suggest Google Analytics over any other traffic report program is the price–free–and the quality, comprehension, and usability of the program.

February: Do a Keyword Analysis. If you use the language of your prospects they’ll find you at the search engines. You can uncover the words they use through an in-depth keyword analysis.

We used to recommend keyword analysis to businesses in competitive industries. Now every industry is competitive on the Web, and chances are your competition has already had a keyword analysis done.

Use a tool like Keyword Discovery or WordTracker to help you discover what your prospects are Googling, or have a professional do an in-depth analysis.

March: Review Your Web Site. Take what you learned from your keyword analysis and rewrite the copy on your Web site. Focus on page titles, headers, and your body copy. It’s also a good idea to read through your site and excise any out-of-date copy.

April: Gather Information. There are so many amazing resources out there for keeping up with what’s going on in your industry…or–better yet–your customers’ industries. One of the best ways to manage all of this incoming information is through RSS: Real Simple Syndication.

Blogs, podcasts, search engines and many Web sites can generate newsfeeds that you can subscribe to and manage in one place. Set up a free account at Bloglines or a personalized Google page and start subscribing. Then watch targeted news and information flow your way.

May: Get Social with Social Media. Social media Web sites are places where your customers and prospects congregate. You should be there. Don’t look at this as a place to push your products and services, but rather to listen and learn. B2C companies should check out MySpace, while any business can benefit from a presence on Facebook or LinkedIn.

June: Focus on Your Blog. With your keyword analysis under your belt and a fresh delivery of news and information on your chosen areas of expertise, posting regularly to your blog should be a snap.

I can’t think of anything that can jumpstart your organic search engine visibility and establish your expertise and credibility quicker than a focused, content-rich blog.

Beginners: If you don’t have a blog and aren’t ready to take the leap, consider finding the influential bloggers in your niche, then read and comment intelligently on their blog. It will be a good first step into the blogosphere.

Experts: Set a goal of doubling the number of subscribers to both your RSS and email feeds. Put your feed signup “above the fold,” if it’s not there already.

July: Get Ready for Your Close Up. Most Web marketers agree: video is the killer app. Videos engage people in ways that words often fail to do. Search engines such as Google and Ask are returning video with traditional Web pages.

If you already have videos on your site consider setting up a free account at YouTube, starting your own channel, and uploading your videos there. A single video might bring you thousands of visitors.

August: Spread the Word with Article Marketing. Article marketing is an underutilized method of reaching thousands of prospects that would have never heard of you otherwise.

By sending out short, targeted articles through an article distribution service such as iSnare or The Phantom Writers, you can drive links and traffic back to your Web site or blog.

Use your completed keyword research to help you write compelling, click-worthy articles that can’t be ignored.

September: Dust Off Your Email Newsletter. Email may be getting a bad rap these days due to low delivery rates, but it’s still a cost-effective way of reaching a wide swath of Internet users. Remember: no one’s ever coming back to your Web site. Ever. Not even your Mom. So get over it.

Instead, provide a compelling reason for them to subscribe to your email newsletter so that you can stay in contact with them and retain front-of-mind real estate for when they’re ready to make a buying decision.

October: Publish Your eBook. Remember when I told you to set up Google Analytics? Well, now it’s time to review your stats and find out which keyword phrases are driving the most traffic to your site.

Maybe it’s “deep fry a turkey.” Or “spanking alternatives.” Or “buying carbon emission credits.”

Whatever’s driving traffic to your site is an opportunity for an eBook topic. It’s an itch that needs scratching. Now, start writing.

November: Give an Ear (or a Voice) to Podcasts. You don’t have to host your own podcast to realize and leverage the power of podcasting.

You can find podcasts in your niche or industry by browsing the podcast directory in the Apple iTunes store. (Don’t worry: they’re almost invariably free, and no, you don’t need an iPod to listen to a podcast, just a computer.)

Listening may give you the impetus to start your own or to at least contact some podcasters in your industry and see if they want to interview you.

December: Put on a Webinar. The cost of putting on Webinars has come down in recent years. Yugma.com offers free and inexpensive methods to create your own Webinars, then you can record them and sell them as digital downloads.

Whatever you method for delivery, Webinars allow you to communicate with many people at once anywhere in the world.

In Conclusion: 2010 is going to be your best year ever…if you start planning now. Don’t try and do everything at once, but budget time every month to accomplish your goals for that month.

Webinar is one of the easiest ways to communicate with people online. One can use it to promote business, conduct official seminars, gather information, vote and many more. Unlike webcast or other conferencing services, web conferencing allows the audience to interact with the speaker.

This service is generally hosted by a vendor on a web server. Some vendors allow their clients to host the web seminars at their own servers. However, most vendors offer assistance to their customers and also to people who join the conference. Thus any form of technical problem, occurring at the time of the conference, can be handled by the vendors with ease. Thus, the client doesn’t need to be worried about technical glitches at the time of conference.

Here are some features that make webinar a unique online conferencing tool:

1. Slide show presentation can be done through this conferencing service, and the specialty is that the pointer can be used at the Power point or keynote presentation. This ensures that the audience remains engaged while the presentation is being made.

2. Usage of Whiteboards enable the audience as well as the presenter to carry out any kind of annotation and highlights of the meeting. It can also be used for making notes and even marking the slides.

3. Videos can be used (both live and streamed video). Video files can be from full motion web cams, multi- media files or digital camera files.

4. Usage of VoIP helps in communication between the audience and the speaker.

Webinar allows sharing of screen, desktop and other application among the attendees and the presenter. Therefore, anyone can view anything, irrespective of the position of the person. Though not yet widely used, there is an application of screen sharing that allows participant to remote desktop control. It lets the participant to manipulate the presenter’s desktop.

Website demonstration is being made easy by the use of this kind of conferencing online service. URLs, data, cookies, online forms and scripts can be transferred among the participants by any attendee. This can be done through web based clicks and logon features.

Live question and answering session can be conducted through these web based seminars. Text chats are also possible during this sessions. It is also possible to make it visible either among all the participants or keep it private among couple of people / few of the attendees.

This kind of conferencing online service helps in carrying out multiple choice questions, polls and surveys. Thus, the answers can be obtained immediately. Since the audience is live, the result can be deduced without wasting of time.

The web seminars are also possible to be recorded. This helps the organizers to view and distribute the video among the attendees. It can be recorded by both the vendor, client or both of them.

There are numerous software and vendors that are available online to conduct webinar. Some software are free and can be downloaded. However, in order to conduct better web based seminars, it is always advisable to buy appropriate software. Various types of customized features has made this tool user-friendly.

Vendors, offering the service, charge their customers either on per minute service or on the total number of participants. There is another type of payment method is also there, namely “flat rate”. It is always advisable to conduct a research on the services provided by the vendor before selecting.

Hope Dever is a feature writer on conferencing services. He is of the opinion that webinar is the most cost effective way to promote one’s business or conduct meetings.
Article Source: Webinar: communication made easier

Webinars are excellent methods of communication, especially when the participants are worlds apart.

The ability to look a person in the eye while they are in another country, or speak with ten people in ten different states at the same time has changed the way we do business forever.

But webinars are not strictly just for communication.They can be used as auditorium replacements, management tools, or even marketing devices.

Marketing is all about getting your message out to as many people in your target market as possible. Here are five reasons webinars are ideal as unique, cost-effective, cost-reducing marketing tools.

1. Out of the Ordinary

Even though webinars are extensively used in the business world, chances are your prospects either haven’t been in one, or have never attended a marketing one. Not only will you stand out from your competitors, the unique experience for your participants will encourage them to pay more attention and help to cement your message in their minds.

2. More Focused

When you blast out your message using emails, commercials, or even flyers, you’re covering a much larger cross-section of people than you need or want. A lot of money is on people that are not potential customers. A webinar can be held anytime, but it takes a modicum of prospect participation to make it complete. If you use cheap, but general advertising announcing a webinar, then only the people who are interested will participate. You’ve just saved countless hours and resources by not having to sift through cold prospects.

3. Can Work 24/7

You can’t be selling all day, every day, and hiring staff to do so is expensive. Unlike a phone call or sales visit, a webinar can be recorded and enjoyed by anyone, anytime. The next time you do a webinar, make it a production you’d want to share with any prospects. After you record it, put it up on your website, or email the link to your potential customers. They can go to it online, whenever they please, and you are now selling at four in the morning.

4. Make a Connection

Like blogs, webinars are a great way to connect with your target market. Your words, your voice, even your face can be seen each week or month with a webinar; driving home the message of your company and your availability. If you host regular calls for your current and potential customers, you can answer their questions, talk about new products, and make them feel good about buying from you.

5. Create an Experience

People have become savvier when it comes to spotting someone trying to sell them something. Creative marketing forms impressions and ideas that lead — not drag – a customer to the cash register. Hosting a webinar can be seen as a sales event, but it doesn’t have to be. Make the webinar about events in the industry, or have an end-user idea session. Another idea is to sponsor a guest speaker that may have nothing to do with your business, but that your participants will enjoy.

Sales can be boiled down to creating relationships and marketing is the first step in that direction. Used properly, webinars help to make connections in new ways that go beyond sales and into partnerships.

For other conference call questions, visit David Byrd at Accuconference.com.

You can also learn more about our HD Video Conferencing services as well!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Byrd
http://EzineArticles.com/?5-Reasons-For-Webinar-Marketing&id=1705139

Geoff Zimpfer, “The Webinar Marketing Pro” discusses Gary Vaynerchuk’s “Crush It”

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Finding participants for your webinars is sometimes easy. They could be employees for the quarterly meeting, or your core customers for the big annual product update. Sometimes it’s hard to get an audience, like a webinar for potential customers.

It’s when you have a list of leads and a superb webinar to show them that you need to be a bit creative, or at least unique enough to get people to become participants. Here are some suggestions to use emails, registration pages, and eBooks to increase your webinar attendance.

1. In your email invitations, realize that Bold, ALL CAPS, and other visual devices have rendered most invitees jaded, and will encourage them to send your email to the junk folder. Try a more simplistic approach. Tell them they have been invited to a webinar, what it’s about, and how they can join. Ironically, a short, plain email will grab more attention because it’s the opposite of what people normally receive.

2. Strive to encourage participant participation, even in the first email invitation. Announce that there are a few choices for the scope of the webinar and that it will be decided by the participants. Allow them to reply and cast their vote by bolding one of the choices in your list. You can also let them know about a poll on the registration page.

3. Whether you let them decide what the purpose of the webinar is or not, let your potential participants give their input. What are they interested in? What thoughts do your products, company, or guest speaker conjure in their minds? Ask for their suggestions to be delivered by replying to the email, or let them know there will be a place to comment on the registration page.

4. Nothing interests a person more than an answer to their own question. Tell people that you want their questions. Direct them to a place on the registration page to put questions, and that their questions will be answered in the webinar. Make sure to include a specific time for these questions in your public and private agendas and schedules.

5. Give them something to grab their attention. For example, do you have an eBook – or can write one in time for the webinar? Put in your email that after registration for the conference, they can download your eBook “for free.” Or why not give it to them outright? Attach your eBook with the email invitation. The eBook can be about the same things you’ll be discussing in your webinar, or simply about the industry.

People are bombarded by advertising everywhere they go. Even in their homes, if it’s not on the products they buy or the TV, it jumps at them through the internet and email. A nice, austere, genuine invitation email might be a soothing sight for their very sore eyes, separating you from everyone else.

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1. Clearly Define Your Goals
It sounds obvious, but you really need to think about the goal of your Webinar(s), so that you can measure your results. What is your goal?

To acquire leads and bring in new sales?

To educate existing customers on a new product/service?

To obtain research or feedback on an existing offer?

If you are looking to acquire leads, there are lots of potential ways to grow your leads. If you’re reaching out beyond just your internal list, the name of the game is promotion. You can promote your Webinar using Press Releases, Banner Ads, Joint Ventures, eMail Marketing to rented lists, Article Submissions, eZine Advertising, Pay-per-Click and more. If you are launching a new product or seeking feedback from your existing customers, then conducting an informational Webinar and Survey could be the an efficient method to fine tune your new project and get real-world feedback from those who matter most – your customers.

2. Choose Your Provider
Do a Google search on Webinars or Web Conferencing and you’ll get back around 1,600,000 websites returned. Truth is; there are literally hundreds of companies that offer some kind of product or service for hosting Webinars. Choosing the right vendor for your specific requirements is a critical part of your success. It can often mean the difference between a winning Webinar vs. a Webinar that burns your brand, your customers and a hole in your wallet.

For small businesses you want a vendor who has a solid track record who offers the following:

1) Reliability and Scalability – Ability to handle large groups

2) Ease of Use for you and your attendees – You don’€™t need to be a “€˜techie”™ to make it work

3) Affordability – Reasonable price for the services offered

The Big Three you want to consider are: WebEx, GoTo Meeting and Adobe Connect. There are of course other companies but these three make my short list because they score high on the three criteria listed above. Do your research and select the vendor best suited for your specific needs.

What About Free?
Yes, there are some Webinar providers out there that are free and they may be quite appropriate for your smaller, more collaborative web meetings with an audience who already knows you quite well. We’re talking Webinars here and that means reaching a larger audience, creating a professional image and delivering your message with minimal concerns regarding performance and reliability. Your Webinars are too critical to risk on a bare-bones service with little track record or limited history of results. Don’t step over dollars to pick up pennies.

3. Having a Compelling Title and Offer
To increase your response and maximize your attendance, you must have compelling, targeted, benefit driven topic that will capture the attention of your target audience. Find out any current hot-button issues in your industry and use those in your headline or content description. What problem or issue does your product or services help your audience over come and how will attending your Webinar help them discover a solution to their problem? Â

Just like testing headlines when running ads, testing email subject lines is critical to gauging response for Webinars when using email marketing. If you have a known speaker or subject matter expert, whose name is recognized among your target audience, you MUST include their name in the subject line or you are missing out on leveraging their brand or celebrity power. Test different copy and offers within your email invitation. When possible, personalize your email copy (Dear John) and write your copy as if you’re talking directly to that person one-on-one vs. a large group.

4. Make it Easy to Register
Your landing or registration page should require no more than one click to get to it. You don’t want make your audience go from the e-mail to a landing page that describes the Webinar and then have to go to another page to get to the registration form. Even worse, putting your registration page on your home page and hoping they find your link to register.

Best practice is to have a single landing. On the left, put the benefit focused copy and bullet points about the Webinar. On the right, display a short registration form asking for only the information that is absolutely required. Also, if you want to create some buzz and excitement around the event, you may want to consider offering a short teaser video clip once they register, preliminary handouts or limiting the number of ‘seats’ available and displaying how many seats are gone in real time.

Research shows that business prospects prefer more detailed copy on Webinar landing pages allowing you to go into a little more depth about the Webinar on your landing page. Adding a speaker’s bio, photo or short video –clip creates credibility and a personal connection — just make sure your registration form is up top in the right column with a big “Register Now” button above it.

5. Maximize Your Attendance
Average attendance rates to registrations is about 40% to 60% for Webinars. Being planning your webinar about six weeks out to ensure you have enough time to build out your marketing funnel and process for inviting attendees. About two to three weeks prior to your Webinar, send out your invites. One week prior, send a reminder and send out a final reminder the day before and possibly the day of if your event occurs later in the day.

You may want to offer an incentive the first 50 with a free giveaway to accelerate the early sign-ups. After your Webinar, send out a thank you to those who attended with any pertinent information. For those who registered and didn’t attend, send a “sorry we missed you” email with links to the recording, and related offer.

6. WOW! Factor Presentations
Too many starting out with Webinars repeat the same mistakes often made during in-person presentations; death by Power Point, boring presenter, little or no audience interaction and lack of compelling offer or call to action at the conclusion.

Webinars offer you the ability to integrate multiple forms of visual media beyond Power Point such as video, (when appropriate) polling, Q&A, instant feedback tools and more. You can share your desktop, take your audience by the hand and browse your website for live demos, case studies and more. Anyone can put up a slide deck and read bullet points. If that’s all you do, you’ll lose them in New York minute because they can read the bullet points themselves.

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Have you ever tuned out a boring presenter? It’s amplified even more during a Webinar because people are sitting at their desks and staring at a slide show, listening either via their computer or conference line. At least in person you can make eye contact, and get up-close to keep their attention. In a Webinar you have just two tools to keep your audiences attention. Your voice and your presentation. Don’t let them fall asleep! You keep your audience engaged by making your presentation relevant, interactive and lively.  How do you capture and keep the attention of your audience in a virtual environment like a Webinar?

7. Follow-Up, Follow-Up, Follow-Up

After your Webinar, your prospects are in the perfect frame of mind to learn more and be receptive to another offer from you. Be sure to add links to either the main offer or other related offers and up-sells in your e-mail. I’ve seen studies that show nearly 40 percent of thank-you recipients who visited a special post-Webinar  thank-you page took advantage of another offer. Of course, integrating phone follow-up for higher conversion is smart if appropriate for your situation.

Most companies fail to recycle or leverage their Webinar content for ongoing marketing and PR benefits. You put a lot of time and money into developing and delivering your Webinars, so be sure to get the most out of them.

Here are some tips: Archive all your recorded Webinars and post them on your website. Consider a single URL that lists all your Webinars and provides a short summary of each event. To encourage site visits and repeat traffic, consider branding the page as an educational library and also include your white papers, eNewsletter archives, and other content that is of interest to your target audience.

Submit your Webinar library URL to major search engines to boost your search engine rankings. Promote your URL in all your marketing and sales collateral including any advertisements both online an offline. Promote the URL at the bottom of your email signature to continue building your opt-in list. At the conclusion of your Webinars, consider a post-event press release summarizing the event and providing some of the most interesting Q&A topics.

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