The Webinar Blog

Summary Of BrightTALK Webinar Trends

Today I watched BrightTALK's annual webcast presenting highlights from their Webinar Benchmarks Report. You can watch the full presentation and download the report in PDF format at bit.ly/1zFqETn.

In past years I had accused BrightTALK of making their webcast rather dry, simply reeling off the statistics they had collected. This year they spent much more time talking about the interpretation of the data and suggesting tips for improving webinar performance (almost entirely in a lead generation context, as that is their bread and butter).

As I write each year, we have to be careful in extrapolating BrightTALK's data to the more general world of online web events. In addition to the company's focus on lead generation, they put strong emphasis on recorded content (although live webcasts have become much more prominent) and their model of having people sign up as "channel subscribers" creates a more close-knit relationship with certain providers on the BrightTALK platform. The only webinars included in the report data came from those that were officially published into communities on the BrightTALK platform, making them available for search by members. Those account for roughly half of the total number of webinars actually produced by customers, so there are a lot of data points missing for live webinars that were promoted and viewed external to the BrightTALK community model.

As usual, I will cherry-pick a few findings to highlight in this article and invite you to download the report and watch the recorded webcast to get additional insights.

No big surprises in "day of week" statistics this year. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (in ascending order) were the most popular for viewing content. Looking at which days people registered on adds Monday to that list, all roughly equal, with Wednesday getting a slight edge. In other words, don't promote an upcoming webinar on a Friday!

14% of BrightTALK registrants signed up on the day of the event, so you should definitely be making a strong promotional push the day before and the day of your webinar.

The statistic that really caused me to raise an eyebrow was BrightTALK's findings about number of fields on registration forms and completion rate. BrightTALK is somewhat unusual in the webcasting industry, as they offer hosts four standardized options for registration forms. Their "Minimal" form has six input fields. The longest form is "Lead Generation," which has 14 input fields. BrightTALK reported an average registration conversion rate of 44% for the Minimal form and 38% for the Lead Generation version. That agrees with other firms' data on declining completion rates for more fields, but the drop-off is not as significant as I would expect. I wonder if that is because BrightTALK community members can sign up once and then just log in to automatically have their information populated for additional webinars. There is a higher payoff for taking the extra effort once. Or maybe there is a psychological factor at play for people who are willing to sign up on the community site in the first place. Hard to know.

Another statistic that surprised me was the use of interaction features in customer webinars. According to the report, only 45% of webinars used the live Q&A feature in the platform. That seems crazy. Why wouldn't you want to give your attendees the opportunity to give you all that free information about their interests, priorities, areas of confusion, and pain points? In my book, there is no better source for useful sales call preparation than information the prospect has already volunteered.

This is getting rather long, so I will wrap up with a thank you to BrightTALK for continuing to track, collate, and share these key performance metrics with the world.

Technorati Tags: BrightTALK,webinar,webcast,web seminar,webcasting,web event,online seminar

Behind The Scenes At A Video Webcast

I just discovered a promotional video on the INXPO page for their XPOCAST webcasting product. Although it is presented as a standard marketing case study, the video includes "behind the scenes" action you don't normally see in vendor promo pieces. I thought it would be fun to take a closer look at what is going on - ignoring the case study and product for the moment. I will try to offer some commentary and insights for those who are considering offering a live webcast and are not sure what is involved.

Caveats abound… I was not involved in any way with the webcast featured in the video. I haven't talked to anyone at INXPO about it. I am just using the video as a jump-off point to talk about typical considerations for webcast organizers. There are many options available to producers when putting together a webcast. What you see here is by no means the only way to do it, or even necessarily the best way to do it. Each situation introduces its own unique needs and constraints. Available budget, hardware, and personnel play a big part in guiding how an event will be run.

Since INXPO published the video to YouTube, I was able to embed it here. You can follow along and pause at the time codes I mention to concentrate on the action.

 

0:20 - Why is there a bored woman sitting by herself on the presentation stage? Audio and video setup is crucial to a good broadcast of any kind. That woman is probably acting as a tech stand-in to check lighting, sound, and focus. Don't make your presenters be the guinea pigs for this boring process. They have other things to worry about.

0:27 - Should speakers present to a local audience as well as to the remote web audience? You can see that this room was set up that way. This is often easier for presenters, as it gives them faces to look at and feedback from real listeners. It is definitely harder from a tech perspective. You need to watch out for camera sightlines getting blocked by audience members standing up or coming in late. You can easily pick up room noises. You will also have to deal with the potential problem of feedback coming from room audio getting picked up by your microphones. And if your presenters take questions from the room, the questions need to be spoken into a microphone or repeated for the web audience… Your room mike will never pick up audience questions clearly or loudly enough.

0:29 - I like the furniture they used on stage for presenters. Chairs without armrests help to keep posture upright. Speakers often slouch or tilt to one side to rest an arm on a chair with armrests. Tall tables help to keep papers and water bottles handy without the speaker having to bend down awkwardly or out of camera frame. But I think it looks a little classier to have water glasses rather than plastic bottles. No ice, please! Ice makes noise, numbs the tongue and lips, and constricts the throat.

0:37 - "Wow, do you really need that many people on tech?!?" We will be able to isolate some of the roles later, but the INXPO crew is set up so each person can concentrate on their specific responsibility. You want one person clearly and unambiguously in charge (here it's the woman in the blue blouse) so there is no question who is the point of reference for the speakers and who gets to make decisions about crisis management resolution. Yes, it is possible to run a webcast with fewer people (and that is probably more common). But it means that somebody is doubling up on tasks, and they can get distracted or delayed in dealing with one area while coping with another.

0:40 - One tech member has cue cards for the presenters. You can see "LIVE" being shown. There are others on the table. I would have cards for "LOUDER", "TEN MINUTES", "FIVE MINUTES", "WRAP UP", "REPEAT", and "HIT SPOT". Make sure your presenters know what each one means for them and that none is a surprise. They should also be briefed that they do not need to nod or respond to the card-holder.

0:43 - Note the shadows on the white screen behind the speakers. That is hard to prevent in a live-audience setup like this one. In a controlled web-only environment the tech folks could have set up diffused lights with a backlight to help prevent distracting shadows.

0:52 - I can't guarantee it, but there's a good possibility that the four women at the foreground table are working audience support and question response. If you have a large remote audience, it can get overwhelming for one person to try to keep track of everything coming in. Those team members need to be prepared and coordinated so they know how to identify what questions are being answered or have been answered by others, who is responsible for prioritizing questions for the presenters, who answers tech problems, etc.

0:58 - Here we have the question moderator reading a question for the panel. This person needs to know what topics (if any) are taboo. She should be comfortable paraphrasing for conciseness or clarity if necessary. And she should have seed questions ready in case the audience is not forthcoming. By the way, one way to handle local audience questions in this situation is to let people text their questions to the moderator in the back. That avoids the problem of getting them on audio and lets the moderator triage the questions for priority.

1:04 - INXPO is using a multi-camera setup. Cameras are on tripods for stability and one or more camera operators can make sure they have focus, framing, and exposure correct for closeups when panelists move and speak. One camera is no doubt reserved for a wide shot of the entire stage. The operators here are on headsets and the professional knows to cover his mouth and speak very quietly so as not to create a distraction. Inexperienced camera operators are found at far too many events and they can create terrible headaches for a producer!

1:06 - Here we can see the mixer with screens showing closeup and wide shot. He can switch the feed that is going out to the remote audience. He is also monitoring the audio. I would also have somebody logged in as an attendee to make sure the received audio and video is coming through correctly. [Question: As director, what do you do in the event of a technical interruption? Tell the presenters to pause while you reconnect, or continue for the local audience? You'd better have the answer determined ahead of time and let the presenters know what the emergency response case will be. It happens.]

1:18 - One or more people on the tech team are responsible for bringing up the right polling question in the software at the right time. How will results be shown? Can you show them to the local audience in the room? There is also a Twitter stream for this event. One or more of those ladies at the forward table may be making tweets and monitoring the stream for interesting comments from the audience.

1:42 - What are those slackers doing standing against the back corner? I'll bet they are part of the hardware setup crew. They are properly standing by, bored by the content, but waiting and ready in case a wire gets loose or a light burns out or a feedback screech starts. The majority of their job was done earlier, but I like having my guys ready for an emergency.

This is a glimpse into just one of the many, many ways that a webcast can be organized, staffed, staged, and run. Events get more complicated than this and far less complicated. If you have never tried running a live, hybrid local-remote event, this is excellent food for thought and a nice indication of what you should expect to think through with your vendors and support teams.

Technorati Tags: INXPO,XPOCAST,Informatica,webcast,webcasting,webinar,hybrid event,online event,web event

Phone Conferencing And The US Northeast Storm

My readers in other countries may not be aware that the United States weather service is forecasting a blizzard of historic proportions for the US Northeast. From New York to Maine, forecasts for overnight and into tomorrow call for severe and rapid snowfall and accumulation.

I just received a courtesy notice related to the storm from one of my audio conferencing providers, ConferTel. Their warnings and suggestions are good advice for anyone planning to use telephone conferencing as part of a webinar or webcast tomorrow morning. Unfortunately that includes me!  :)

Dear Valued Customer,

Based on past experience with snow storms like the one expected tomorrow in the northeast, we anticipate that there may be intermittent phone network overloads as people try and connect with colleagues that they would normally speak with in person during the morning hours from 9 - 11:30 am ET. If you encounter a trunk busy signal, this means that there is an overload somewhere in the network between your location and the conferencing platform. This type of issue is not due to our conferencing platform, but due to the overloaded telephone network. We suggest you first try using the toll number associated with your conferencing ID instead of the toll free number.  In extreme circumstances, it may be necessary to reschedule your conference call.

Good luck, and stay safe and warm up there!

Technorati Tags: ConferTel,audio conferencing,teleconferencing,phone conferencing,webinar,web conferencing,web conference,webcasting,webcast,web seminar,web meeting,online meeting

Marketing vs Sales Webinars

Is your webinar meant to serve a marketing need or a sales need? If you cannot quickly, easily, and clearly answer that question, you are most likely undermining its effectiveness.

In the broadest brushstrokes, marketing is everything necessary to get targets to the point where they are ready to consider making a purchase. Sales is the process of removing final doubts, overcoming objections, negotiating terms and pricing, and getting signatures.

In the majority of business-to-business sales/marketing cycles (certainly above a given price point), the two tasks are separate and are carried out by different groups - often over a significant period of time. But many people involved in the process (particularly marketers) try to combine them. That's usually a bad idea.

I grant you that there are a limited number of cases where marketing and sales can be combined effectively into a single presentation. The easiest examples to point to in America are the ubiquitous "infomercials" that pepper the airwaves. These set up a pain point the audience didn't realize it had (marketing), introduce a product the audience wasn't aware of (marketing), demonstrate its effectiveness to remove doubts (marketing/sales), list a price (marketing), immediately REDUCE the price to encourage purchase (sales), and give viewers the mechanism to complete the transaction (sales).

Because we have become used to this approach from our consumer viewing perspective, we often think we can apply the same technique when making a business presentation for a $10,000-$1,000,000 enterprise solution. We can't. Or at least we shouldn't.

One of the most common errors made in marketing webinars is an attempt to overcome sales objections or to remove sales barriers too early in the process. This is usually done under the justification of "gaining credibility with our audience" and takes the form of two slides provided by the Corporate Marketing group. Do you know which slides I am talking about? You have seen them countless times…

The Company Backgrounder slide trumpets how big you are, how many years you have been in business, how many employees you have, where your offices are located, and fascinating facts like that.

The Customer Logos slide supposedly builds trust and credibility by letting people see that others have bought your products.

Both of these slides have a use… They overcome potential or real objections and barriers to making a sale. They reassure the person with signature authority that they are making a justifiable investment with a vendor they can trust. That is a good thing. In a sales context, this information is requested, expected, and welcomed.

Except in very unusual exception cases, the slides are unimportant and unpersuasive to a marketing target. It is not the information they need in order to get to the point where they are willing to consider making a purchase. They know they'll have to do their due diligence at some point, but that point has not yet arrived.

Instead, it adds distraction and a redirection of focus from the key message of how you can solve their problems. It is almost never the reason they came to hear your pitch, so the information seems gratuitous and self-serving on your part. The data being shared is not what the target expected or requested at that point of the relationship, so it loses much of its value.

If you want to make your marketing webinars more effective, don't rush the prospect and introduce sales closers before they are ready to process that information. Once in the sales process, don't go back and cover initial setup of marketing needs. By keeping your presented information appropriate to the target's expectations at each point in the process, you make each presentation more effective and persuasive.

[For more on this topic, see "Why Pain Points Are Hurting Your Marketing Webinars"]

 

Technorati Tags: marketing,sales,webinar,web seminar,online seminar,web conference,web conferencing,webcast,webcasting,web meeting,online presentations

Web Conferencing History - The Early Years

Last week I looked up "Web Conferencing" on Wikipedia. I was interested in what the article would list as the first web conferencing technology. I found a page in desperate need of expansion and updating. So I made some edits, starting with a little bit of disambiguation in the introduction and then concentrating on the History section. There is still a lot of work to be done, particularly in the section on Features, which I haven't touched yet.

In researching the early history of web conferencing, I ran up against several challenges. Company names and product names changed, businesses and technologies were acquired by other companies, and products themselves changed focus and capabilities over time. I only listed properly sourced and cited historical records - often taken from the press release announcements made at the time. Of course this leads to additional confusion since the announcement date of a product may be many months before general availability.

Trying to pin down the first web conferencing product is a fuzzy goal. After all, video phones were demonstrated as early as 1927 (surprised, aren't you?) I ignored anything not carried over the public internet and I gave short shrift to the early years of the PLATO collaborative learning system, which I don't think counts as web conferencing - although I'm willing to listen to opposing arguments.

For my money, the honor goes to CU-SeeMe as implemented in the Global Schoolhouse project from Global SchoolNet. GlobalSchoolhouse.org was launched as a true web site in 1993. Participating schools could join two-way audio/video conferences over the internet (using Macintosh only… The Windows version came later). Click here to see a fascinating short news report showing the system in use, circa 1993.

The GlobalSchoolhouse/CU-SeeMe implementation may not satisfy some purists. I haven't found details on whether the conferencing relied on point-to-point networking or private networking, which may not be in the spirit of general use "web" conferencing. And it was certainly restricted to schools in the Global SchoolNet program.

The first general-use collaboration product I found a reference to was LiveShare Plus from PictureTel. It was announced in May 1995 for Windows-based PCs. The press release mentions application sharing, remote control of a participant's PC, shared whiteboard markup, file transfer, and text messaging. PictureTel had a partner agreement with Microsoft and the LiveShare Plus technology found its way into NetMeeting, which was included as part of Internet Explorer 3.0 in May 1996. By this point, we are firmly in the realm of public-access web conferencing, and all subsequent offerings are variations on a theme.

The first documentation of a web-enabled software product intended for "one-to-many" or "few-to-many" presentations (what we would now categorize as webinars) comes from PlaceWare (which later was acquired by Microsoft and relabeled as Live Meeting). In November 1996, a software architect from PlaceWare gave a talk at Stanford University, mentioning PlaceWare Auditorium, "which allows one or more people to give an interactive, online, multimedia presentation via the Web to hundreds or thousands of simultaneous attendees."

You can read about the next wave of web conferencing history on the Wikipedia page. This includes such well-known names as WebEx, Citrix GoToMeeting, and Adobe Connect -- all of which came to their present state through a series of name changes and acquisitions.

Editing Wikipedia is tedious and sometimes non-intuitive in its markup requirements. If you are up to the challenge, the Web Conferencing article still needs help. If you don't want to work on it yourself, send me your suggested edits and citations and I will add them as I have time.

Technorati Tags: Wikipedia,web conferencing,web conference,webinar,web seminar,online conference,online meeting,web meeting,online seminar,webcast,webcasting,CU-SeeMe,Global Schoolhouse,Global SchoolNet,PictureTel,LiveShare Plus,NetMeeting,PlaceWare

Webinar Tip: Handling Overflow Questions

A good, engaging webinar stimulates lots of audience interaction. With any luck, you'll have more questions than you can get to within the allotted time slot. What is the best practice for handling those leftover questions?

Surprisingly, I don't care. Do whatever is most appropriate, practical, and cost effective for you. Respond to individuals by email. Post an FAQ in a public location. Pick a few of the most interesting or most commonly asked questions and respond to those. Ask people to email you their question if it is important to them and they really want an answer. Or just dispose of them and accept that questions were only being used for in-session handling up to the time available.

The important thing is to make your choice BEFORE the webinar starts and to clearly let your audience know at the end of the session how you will be treating the extra questions.

It is very frustrating for attendees to be left hanging, unsure of whether they should expect a response or if they are expected to take an action to find the answers (and when those answers should be available). Part of your duties as an effective webinar host is to set and manage expectations. Speak with your presentation team ahead of time and decide who will deal with unanswered questions, what the response mechanism will be (if any), and what the time commitment is for finishing responses. If you waffle about this at the end of your webinar, you lose the impression of being a well-prepared, professional business operation. Don't make that mistake… End strong and confidently!

Technorati Tags: webinar,web seminar,online seminar,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing,web meeting,online meeting,online conference

More Webinar Hate

Here we go again. The website for Entrepreneur Magazine yesterday featured an article listed under "Marketing" and bylined by "Lev Kaye, Contributor. Founder and CEO of CredSpark, Ed Tech veteran, Harvard MBA." The title of the piece is Why You Should Skip the Webinar and Start Quizzing Your Audience.

Mr. Kaye starts his article with the assertion that "like most people, you secretly never want to attend another webinar if you can possibly avoid it." I missed the statistical studies Mr. Kaye undoubtedly has on hand to buoy his contention, but I'm sure he can supply them upon request, since referencing sources is a standard requirement for MBA work.

Oh hell, I told myself I wasn't going to get snarky and I've already blown it. Look, the piece is nothing more than advertising copy written in the style and length of an article. In the final paragraph, Mr. Kaye urges you to take advantage of the online quiz products his startup company provides. You can just click through on the conveniently supplied hyperlink. I'm a little disappointed that Entrepreneur.com makes no attempt to identify the material as an advertorial or to separate it from other supposedly objective content, but I suppose that is the nature of the Web today.

Mr. Kaye references Justin Bariso, and for the most part summarizes the same arguments from Mr. Bariso's November hate piece against webinars. I wrote a rebuttal that you can read here if you are interested in running down the arguments.

The crazy thing about the article is that it is completely unnecessary. Mr. Kaye uses "Kill the Webinar" as his springboard for urging people to include online quizzes (from his company) in their lead generation activities. I honestly have nothing against using quizzes. I have used them inside webinars, in conjunction with webinars, and instead of webinars. I can also give you a list of arguments about how quizzes can be constructed, delivered, and used poorly - leading to consumer frustration and dissatisfaction. That wouldn't be a knock against the technology, but a recognition of the need for users to learn and employ best practices.

If people are dissatisfied with your webinars, do something about it. Get presentation training, segment your target audiences more effectively to deliver the right information to the right people, don't be a slave to filling an arbitrary time slot. Most importantly, rehearse! But don't just throw away a proven technology as you go chasing after the latest magic bullet solution alternative.

Technorati Tags: Lev Kaye,webinar,web seminar,web conference,web conferencing,online seminar,webcast,webcasting

Learn Tips For Content Marketing Webinars

I hope you'll join me on Tuesday, January 13 for a free webinar. I'll be offering tips and best practices for creating and delivering more effective content marketing webinars. I try very hard to make these purely educational and value-packed, without fluff or self-promotion.

Adobe and Chief Marketer are sponsoring the webinar, which starts at 10am California time (1pm New York). You can click here for your local time zone conversion. We have blocked out a 60-minute duration, including time to answer your questions live on the air.

To register, visit http://j.mp/CMjan13

I will cover a variety of topics of interest to presenters, administrators, and marketers. For instance:

• What types of webinars work best for content marketing?
• How do you write effective promotional materials?
• What types of presenters do audiences respond to?
• How do you balance content dissemination against lead generation?

This topic was a big hit when I presented it last August, so this is an excellent opportunity to catch up if you missed it back then.

See you online!

Technorati Tags: Adobe Connect,Chief Marketer,marketing,content marketing,webinar,web seminar,online seminar,web marketing,webcast,webcasting

ConferTel Enhances Secure Conferencing

Hosting a “secure” webinar means different things to different people. The most common approach used in web conferencing products is to assign a login password to the webinar. Only people with the password can attend. The drawback is that any registrant with the login information can forward the password to others, enabling them to login as well.

A second approach requires the host to create a list of valid attendees. If someone attempts to login who is not on the approved list, they are blocked from entering. (TIP: If your vendor uses this approach, make sure the software allows only a single login per email address. Several well-known webinar products allow multiple logins under the same ID. This frustrates security efforts, since a valid attendee can forward his or her private login information to a third party and both can attend.)

For maximum security, you want the ability to allow one login per attendee, with each login requiring its own unique password that cannot be shared or duplicated. This is still a rare feature in the web conferencing industry.

Then you need to consider the audio side of things. If all attendees and presenters use computer audio, the problem takes care of itself… All security is handled via the web login. But if you offer telephone audio, things can get more complicated. I recently worked with a client who wanted to offer attendees the option of attending via web with streaming computer audio, attending via web with telephone audio, or participating by telephone only. The host wanted to be able to track who logged in and who called in, with assurance that no unwanted guests were able to see or hear any of the proceedings.

That is a rare combination of requirements, and it is rare to find a solution that satisfies them. If you find yourself in a similar situation, you will be interested in a new announcement from ConferTel.

Earlier this month, ConferTel announced Secure Passkeys for telephone conferences. A host can establish a list of participants, each of whom is randomly assigned a unique passkey code for entering the call. The system is able to automatically track and report attendance, since it knows who has called in via their personal PIN.

ConferTel gives the hosting company the option to make the Passkeys permanent, semi-permanent, or single-use. Permanent keys remain constant between meetings, so participants always know their own identifier code. Single-use gets assigned only for a single call and then expires, to be replaced by a new PIN for the next scheduled call. Semi-permanent allows repeated use for a period of time, followed by assignment of a new Passkey.

This week ConferTel extended their secure meeting options to integrate the web conferencing side of things. Their webinar software integrates with the attendee list that has been set up online for issuance of Secure Passkeys. Each person gets a unique login URL that corresponds to their email address. The system allows one login per person, and they can then listen via computer (if the host elects to establish a bridge between telephone and web) or they can call in using their personal Passkey.

ConferTel has actually had this functionality available internally for quite some time. The company used it for managed events they ran for clients. The new announcement exposes the functionality to companies running their own web events.

I spoke to Leo McGill, the president of ConferTel, about the new offering. Leo clarified a few things that customers should know. Secure Passkeys are always randomly assigned by the system… administrators and users cannot choose their own code number. The format is always a 10-digit number. And if users are assigned a permanent Passkey, they cannot elect to update it on their own. They must request a new Passkey from the account administrator.

The option for unique security is good to have. Admittedly, only a small percentage of all web conferences or audio conferences need the capability, but when you do find yourself requiring complete administration of every login - with options for phone and web access – ConferTel’s implementation is one of the more complete solutions on the market.

Technorati Tags: ConferTel,audio conferencing,web conference,web conferencing,webinar,web seminar,webcast,webcasting,teleconferencing