Webinar Wire

Stage V: Contingency & Post Event Plans

In the final installment of the series, I am going to discuss the contingency plans you should have in place as well as the actions that should be taken post event.

I. Contingency Plans

In any web seminar, there a many moving parts that must all come together for the event to be successful. With that in mind, it is important to have some back up plans in case some of these parts fail to come together at the right time. Remember, it is better to over-communicate with your event speakers and staff than to under-communicate. Below are several things that you should be doing in case something does not go as planned.

• Recruit Help: Try to get as much help as possible for the day of the event. Make sure technical staff is on hand and easily reached; use a Q&A manager to help manage questions; runners are never a bad idea; and audience plants to get Q&A rolling are nice to have as well.
• Reserve Now: Make sure all the proper hardware and office space is reserved well in advance. This includes phone lines and web technology; the rooms that you will need; and any equipment needs you will have.
• Emergencies: Make sure you have back up equipment including headphones, modems, computer etc. Also, always keep a direct line open with the operator at all times.
• Detail, Details, Details: Validate log-in numbers one final time, place water near the speakers, make notepads and pens available, have hard copies of the presentation available and test back-up equipment.

II. Post Event

By following a few simple steps at the end of your event, you will be able to maximize your return on the event.

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Stage IV: Speakers

The fourth installment of conducting successful web conferences is about working with your speaker. Finding a great speaker and working with them to organize the presentation can be the most challenging aspect of planning a web seminar. After you have confirmed that the speaker will be available for your web seminar, the checklist below will help ensure that you stay on target.

• Kick off Call: All speakers must attend this initial call which you will use to review the event and determine who will be presenting what if there is more than one speaker. In the kick-off call, make sure you cover:

   

  • Schedules and Deadlines: This includes presentations, rehearsals, technology training and pre-event call.
  • Promotional items: Pictures, bios, titles and logos.
  • Technology: What technology you will be using and the features that the speakers can use.
  • Presentation guidelines: Tips on keeping the presentation concise and exciting.

   

• Technology Training: Your vendor should thoroughly train speakers who are unfamiliar with the technology you plan to use.
• Presentations: Drafts should be turned in one week before the event, with final slides and supporting materials completed no later than two days before the event. Also, make sure to submit the presentation to technology vendor as well.
• Rehearsal: Conduct a dry run one week before the live event so you will have time to make the necessary changes.
• Touch-base Call: This is held two hours before the actual event. This is an important call to get everyone on the same page and make sure everyone is ready and calm.
• Live Event: Dial in 30 minutes before the event to touch base with the operator. Your speakers and support staff should dial in 15 minutes before the event.
• Debrief: Ask the operator to put you and the speakers into a sub-conference after the event is over so you can debrief while the event is still fresh in your mind.

Finally, here are some general tips for working with speakers:

• Get all of their contact information because you never know when you will need to contact them.
• Get to know the speaker’s assistants.
• Find out if anyone is techno-phobic so you can pay them special attention.
• Get to know the group dynamic such as who is in charge and any areas of sensitivity.

Stay tuned for the final installment of Conducting Successful Web Seminars when I talk about your contingency plans.

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Stage III: Web Conference Registration

Today, as part of the third installment of successful web conferences, I wanted to talk about the registration process for your participants. A registration page must be made as soon as your event strategy is in place. There are three purposes to a registration page:

• Secure contact information
• Discover source of lead
• Obtain qualifying information

Keep these three purposes in mind when you are designing your registration page. Also, realize that the average conversion rate for a visitor who views the registration page is 50%. Therefore, it is important to lower the barriers to registration - don’t try to gather too much information or you risk losing them.

Now that you understand the purpose of a registration page, the table below lists some of the elements you will have to consider when creating one.

Once people register for your web conference, only 67% of them will show up! In order to combat this trend, it is important keep registrants interested in attending by keeping them informed as your event draws closer. To maximize attendance, consider doing the following four things:

• Confirmation E-mail: Send an immediate “thank you for registering email” with a request to mark it on their calendar.
• One week reminder: Email a reminder and instructions for testing their system one week before the event.
• One day reminder: Email conference access information; also, if possible, a phone call is appropriate here as well.
• Day of reminder:Send the access information again and place a phone call if you had not done so before.

*Send a minimum of three reminder emails to help ensure strong attendance*

Remember to include contact phone number and email for technical questions in your email. Also, do not use any capital letters or words such as “free” that might be caught in a spam filter.

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Stage II: Promoting your Web Conference

    Last week, I started a series on conducting successful web conferences and I discussed all of the preparation that goes into planning a webinar - from choosing a speaker to selecting a web conferencing vendor. Today, I want to talk about the next step of the process: Promotion.    
    Once you have decided upon all of the elements in the planning stage you will need to promote your web conference to the public so you get your desired attendance.
    Promoting your event - reaching your audience, convincing them to register and getting them to attend - is the hardest part about web conferences. Consider some or all of these potential avenues for exposure:

• Paid advertising:This can be in the form of print or online ads.
• Media Releases:Target publications or other media outlets that reach your desired audience
• Articles: Write and submit articles about the event to key print and online media.
• Home Page Promotion: Your homepage is the best place to announce your upcoming event.
• Word of Mouth: Use Web 2.0 techniques to take your event viral.
• Third Party Sponsors: Secure a third party sponsor that will help you promote your event through their own avenues.
• Email: Don't forget email to your opt-in lists or your current customers.
• Salesforce: Ask your sales team to place personal invitation calls to their current customers or do a call campaign to promote the event.

    Use a combination of the above or all of them depending on your resources. The most important thing to remember is that promotional efforts are best done about 30 days before the event. If done earlier than 30 days, your registrants may forget about the event; done to late and people will not be able to block that time out for the web conference.
    Finally, how much promotion is enough promotion? Here is a simple example using an expected attendance of 300.

Promotion: Reach x Frequency: 100,000 impressions
Average response rate of 2%: 2,000 clicks
Registration among visitors at 50%: 1000 registrants
Actual Attendance of 33%: 333 attendees    

    As you can see from the table above, if your desired attendance is around 300 people, you will need to reach about 100,000 with your promotional efforts.
    A promotions plan is important if you wish to reach your desired attendance. The list above is just a general outline of the activities you might wish to undertake and is by no means meant to be comprehensive.    Tomorrow, I will go over the importance of the registration process in securing your attendees.

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Stage I: Planning Your Web Conference

The other day, I gave an outline of the steps necessary for conducting a successful web conference. The first stage is planning the web conference. This is perhaps the most important step because without a purpose and goal for your web conference, you will most likely not achieve your desired outcome.

Within the planning stage, there are several things to consider. Below is a list of eight things that need to be addressed before any web conference is undertaken:

•     Objectives
•     Audience
•     Content
•     Budget
•     Technology
•     Speakers
•     Timeframe
•     Incentives

Let's look at each one of these steps briefly

Objective: Outlining your objectives will help you achieve a big-picture perspective of your event. It will also help you with the event details and allow you to measure the success of the conference. Some objectives of web conferences might be:

•     Increase sales leads
•     Train employees
•      Knowledge dissemination or thought leadership

Audience: Specify not only who you want to attend your web conference, but also who could benefit the most from the information you are going to be presenting.

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Citrix Posts Impressive Numbers

Citrix released their financial information for Q4 and fiscal 2007. I was interested in what the numbers and the earnings call said about their collaboration products, which are grouped under the product/operating division of Citrix Online. This includes GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar for real time web conferencing, as well as GoToMyPC and GoToAssist, which are outside the scope of this particular blog. Citrix doesn't provide a breakdown for the individual products within the division, so we have to look at the combined totals for all four products.

Citrix Online pulled in $59 million in revenue for the quarter, and $213.7 million for the year. Pretty impressive, given the low licensing and usage costs for the products. Those figures represent roughly 15 percent of the company's total revenues, making it the second most significant contributor to revenues (a long way behind their bread and butter -- Application Virtualization Products).

On the earnings call, CFO David Henshall pointed out that Citrix Online revenues grew 37% for Q4 year to year and 44% from 2006 to 2007 total.

I was trying to decode his terminology, and it sounded like the bulk of the growth was driven by the GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar products. He mentioned a 79% year-over-year revenue growth for real time collaboration solutions.

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Successful Webinars

A successful web seminar is a thing of beauty. The speaker is exciting, the audience is engaged and the technology melds seamlessly into the background never noticed by the audience and never impeding the message of the speaker. In essence, it is feels like you are at a live event.

Unfortunately, perfectly executed seminars take a great deal of practice and planning. In this five part series, I wanted to share with you the process of conducting web seminars from inception to conclusion. The five parts will be broken up as follows:

•     Planning
•     Promotion
•     Registration
•     Speaker
•     Contingencies

Tomorrow, I will being by talking about the planning stage of web seminars.

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9 Lessons I Learned from Running My First Webinar

On Tuesday, I ran my first webinar--an hour-long session on time management. Not my topic of choice, but this was a long-time client so sometimes you do what you have to do.

After the webinar experience I liveblogged a few months ago, the one thing I KNEW couldn't happen with this thing was death by Powerpoint. You might be able to get away with a bad PPT presentation if you're an engaging speaker in a face-to-face situation, but not when the PowerPoint is all they see. There's a level of pressure here to make the visuals engaging that really forces you to step up your game.

Compounding my problem is that the audience I was presenting to is not, shall we say, the most technologically savvy crew, so I was also worried about the challenges of getting people online and participating.

Since this was my first time, I wanted to capture what I learned from the experience. I figured I should share, especially since others were so generous with their advice back when I asked for it in October.

Preparing

1. The time you usually take to prepare for a training session? Take that and quadruple it--at least. Part of my issue here may have been that I was doing a webinar on a topic that isn't second nature to me, so a larger than usual amount of prep time was devoted to figuring out content issues. But beyond that, the killer was thinking through how to make the presentation engaging when all people are doing is listening to my voice on the phone and watching me advance through slides. I cannot begin to communicate the agonizing over photos and slide transitions, etc. that I went through. Unbelievably time-consuming. Anyone who tells you that preparing for a webinar takes less time is either lying or isn't doing a very good job.

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Features: Screen Sharing

Screen sharing sometimes goes by the name of desktop sharing or application sharing. The terms are usually applied interchangeably, even though they literally describe different aspects of a similar feature.

I'll use screen sharing as the generic umbrella term. The idea is that you want your audience to see something as it appears on your computer desktop. Not just a still image, but the live full motion view so that they can see changes in real time just as you see them. One of the most frequent uses is giving demonstrations of software, although the feature has many other uses as well.

There are three common ways to let presenters choose what the audience sees. You can share your entire computer desktop, you can let your audience see a single application and nothing else, or you can let your audience see everything that falls within a defined rectangle on your screen. Some vendors give you a choice of which type of screen sharing you want to use, while other web conferencing products work in one mode only.

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Web Conferencing Usage Survey Online

Web conferencing technology/service vendors, this is for you. Nobody really knows the true size of the market and how widespread the use of our medium is. Asking the clients about their usage won't ever get us a large enough response rate to get valid totals. So let's do a little group estimation amongst ourselves. I have put together a short (but difficult!) online survey. I'm asking each of the web conferencing technology vendors to go through and give best guesses and estimates of usage averages and totals that they see with their clients.

Click here to participate.

I will consolidate the results and make them available to everybody. The last page of the survey lets you enter your email address for a private response and I'll also post key figures online. Of course, results will be cumulative only, and your responses won't be identified by your name or company.

It is fine for multiple people in the same company to fill out the survey. I ask you to identify what company you work for and what client geography you are making estimates for. That way, we can get some local expertise from the giants like Microsoft and WebEx by people who might know one geography but not their worldwide total. And I can do some averaging and internal validation by comparing responses from different people in the same company.

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