Webinar Wire

Limitations Frustrate Webinar Users

A while back, I watched a public webinar given by a well known industry guru. At one point in the presentation he said, "My next slide was corrupted by the web conferencing vendor, so I'll describe it to you." I thought that his choice of words and something about his tone indicated a deeper story there, so I wrote him a note and asked what had happened. He called me back less than an hour after the event ended. I guess he needed somebody as a relief valve who understood what he was talking about, because he launched into a passionate diatribe against web conferencing in general, and vendors he had worked with in particular.

"I hate giving these web seminars. I hate the level of bureaucratic doublespeak and lying by the vendors on a regular basis. I use a Macintosh. I ask these guys if their software works on a Mac and they are trained never to say No. It's never their fault when it doesn't work… It's always something about my configuration. Maybe it's your version of Safari, or your version of the operating system. Hey... I have a standard Mac with the standard operating system and browser that comes from the manufacturer. Nothing fancy here. If your software doesn't work with it, it's your fault, not mine."

I asked him about the slide problem he had and whether it was related to Macintosh problems. "No! I used a PC just so I could do the presentation. Then when I went through the presentation to check everything in our pre-event session I found that this slide came up with an alert related to something about Quicktime or JPG format. I said it worked fine when I viewed it on my machine and was told: Must be something wrong with your PowerPoint. So I said I would swap in a new version of the slide without that image. Oh no, you can't swap in a new slide 15 minutes before the event. In other words, their software had the restrictions, but I was the one who was going to look bad."

Notice that he turned specific problems with specific vendors into a general antipathy towards the entire idea of webinars. Web conferencing for public events is designed to be a public communication and interaction medium. If it doesn't work on the hardware and software that presenters and audiences already have in place, they are unlikely to change their systems. They are more likely to discard your application. And in the process, they will elect to avoid the entire problem the next time they need to find a way to communicate.

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Fix Your Landing Pages

It's not every day I tell my readers to go out and spend $500 immediately. This is one of those days.

The words "insanely great" come to mind when describing the newly released second edition of the Landing Page Handbook from MarketingSherpa. I received a review copy from the company (I have no professional connection with them) and went through the 272 spiral-bound pages in a marathon reading session last night.

The book is targeted at professional marketers and designers who build destination pages for offers, registration, and other calls to action. Thinking of it from a webinar angle, this book will help you get people to register for your events by building better information pages and registration link-through pages, better registration forms, and even better invitation emails (although that is not its purpose, many of the guidelines in the handbook translate directly to invitation design).

MarketingSherpa is single-minded in its focus on measurable studies and results as applied to marketing practices. The Landing Page Handbook demonstrates this approach by detailing statistical studies, surveys, and outcomes from real companies showing measured effects of changes in landing page design and construction. This is not just some compendium of rules of thumb or brainstormed tips that "seem like they should work." It is a collection of specific pointers backed up by quantitative lifts in conversion rates from companies that implemented them. There are many examples spread throughout the book of before and after screenshots of landing pages that were tweaked by companies to achieve better results.

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Citrix Acts Against Hate

This press release from the Council on American-Islam Relations (CAIR) hit the wires today. It thanks Citrix Online (makers of GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, and GoToMyPC) for pulling their radio advertising from Michael Savage's syndicated talk show after he went on an on-air rant denouncing Muslims, Islam, and the Quran.

Citrix worded their announcement very carefully and appropriately. They stated that they are in full support of every American citizen's right to free speech, but that the views expressed do not represent their own and that they had ended their advertising relationship with Savage.

Bravo. Everyone is indeed entitle to free speech. But we don't have to pay them for it.

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Security Fix Announced For Cisco Web Conferencing

Cisco released a security patch today for its Unified Meeting Place web conferencing software. The problem was reported on security site Secunia.com as an opportunity for a "malicious user" (love that phrase!) to embed nasty HTML into the first name and last name parameters that are passed as part of a long login URL. This is known as cross-site scripting (XSS).

Cisco has a nice information page set up as public information and response to the threat. They recommend applying a hotfix (patch) to the software, but the fix is not available on the page. I assume it can be referenced from the internal bug report accessible by registered users of the product.

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It Ain’t Live Until It’s on RSS

We recently hosted an incredibly successful live Webinar on the topic of social media. We’d anticipated great turnout for this Webinar, as we’re seeing every day the enormous interest in Making Sense of Web 2.0 for BtoB Marketing.

During the live Webinar, our speaker, Paul Dunay, asked attendees, “Do you have an RSS feed on your company’s site?” The results of this poll surprised me. Only 33% of attendees said “Yes.” That means two-thirds of them—many of them managers, VPs and C-levels from a huge range of companies you’d surely recognize—don’t have something as basic as an RSS feed for their press releases (or, they have one and don’t know about it). 

RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication. Paul Dunay described it as “Tivo for your computer.” It allows your prospects, customers, employees—whatever you count as your “audience” —to record activity on a feed reader and view it at their convenience.

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¿ Se Habla Webinar ?

Statistics show that 87% of all U.S. based companies currently have some type of business relationship in other countries.  I have the privilege of working with hundreds of organizations needing document translation for their international marketing, investor relations and human resources departments and always ask whether or not they have considered the use of multilingual web conferencing when conducting live events.  With few exceptions I generally get a similar response; “The majority of our international personnel speak English so we really don’t have a need.”  This, in fact, is true.  The majority of our international business partners have learned English starting at an early age.  The question really has less to do with whether or not they speak English but how well they do so.

Earlier this year we surveyed some international participants who had just completed English only web conferences.  We asked their feedback on several issues including comprehension and inclusiveness.  When asked a general question regarding their understanding they scored relatively high but when asked more specific questions such as the meaning of terms like “Driven by pride”, “The buck stops here” and “Hit a brick wall” things got a little more complicated.  They recognized that these are colloquial terms but had no real way to explain the meaning or how they applied to the presentation.  I might also add that all the terms we discussed were used in the closing remarks or “call to action” segment of the presentation.  American corporate lingo is riddled with such terminology and most of us clearly understand but someone in Asia might be a little confused or stunned to hear that one of their co-workers in Los Angeles “hit a brick wall.”  Why?  How?  Is he OK?

In addition, the majority of LEP (Limited English Proficiency) participants also said they were less likely to either ask a question or state an opinion during the presentation for fear that they may either be misunderstood or perceived as inadequate or uncooperative.  Not the best scenario when you’re trying to build a global consensus.

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The Killer Features of Web Conferencing (Not What You Might Expect)

End-user feature innovation in web conferencing has gone stale.  There, I said it.  The last major innovation in web conferencing was screen-sharing, and that happened a long time ago in the world of software solutions.  If you compare the leading vendors feature-sets side-by-side, you’ll see that each of them has been able to button-up the obligatory set of end-user features (screensharing, whiteboard, chat, VoIP, …) you’ll find on the standard set of RFPs.  Given this evolution, one might conclude that all solutions are now created-equal, and therefore, purchase decisions are hinging on price.  Fortunately for customers and vendors alike, this is not the case.  In the past year, I’ve witnessed a dramatic shift in evaluation emphasis towards ease-of-use, reliability, and flexibility, and believe these will be the “killer features” of web conferencing for the next several years.

Ease-of-Use:  With web conferencing adoption extending beyond the early-adopters, today’s average user has a much lower technology-pain threshold than the poor souls who attempted web conferencing of yester-year.  Web conferencing’s various features must be extremely easy-to-use, and avoid putting hosts and participants through a variety of software and client-side installation experiences.  It’s not acceptable in the physical world to take fifteen minutes to get through the door of a conference room, and it shouldn’t be for virtual meetings either.  As a result, vendor “checklists” of features may look the same, but customers need to experience them first-hand to be confident of broad success within their own organizations.

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Stream57 Website - What Do You Think?

Stream57 just went live with a flashy new version of their website. It features lots of animation, video, and movement. What do you think about it? Is it effective at catching your attention, or does it distract from the main message and information you are looking for?

Use the comment feature to add your views and opinions.

Any other vendors out there with a website redesign? Want feedback from your peers and potential customers? Add a post... You can do it yourself by clicking the Submit button at the top right.

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How to engage an audience during a web conference

Have you ever tuned out or multi-tasked during a conference call?  If you have been hosting a virtual meeting, were your attendees actively participating and listening to you…or were they focused on instant messaging, web surfing or a myriad of other distractions?  At the end of the meeting, did you accomplish what you wanted with each of your participants? 

Communicating virtually offers fantastic cost savings as well as offering significant improvements in worker productivity and efficiency.  However, communicating with a remote audience is not always plain sailing.  Below are a number of tips to help ensure better engagement from your audience.   

Make an impact

If you don’t do something to stand out, your audience is unlikely to remember you or what you presented.

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Webinar Response Rates and Black Cats

I subscribe to Marketing Sherpa and have found it a very useful resource for what works and what doesn't in the world of marketing, including webinars. Pictured above is publisher Anne Holland conducting one of her own webinars that her company studies. Search for "webinars" on Marketing Sherpa and you'll find some good research and practical know-how for hosting webinars for lead generation purposes. Some of it is a bit dated, but here's a summary of a recent report on Marketing Sherpa:

Webinars are a dime a dozen, so marketers need to rely on other tactics to get registrants who might actually convert into a client. Anecdotal evidence shows that a way to improve response rates is to use personalized landing pages with prefilled forms. A lead generation software firm tested PURLs along with a seven-part email series that nurtured prospects in the days before the webinar. The effort worked: They brought in 64% more leads than their goal and ended up with 2000% ROI.

Of course, no market research is ever going to provide practical know-how for the littlest of surprising things that can happen during your webinar, like a black cat walking onstage who needs a little escort home.

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