Our new event and video webcast service can be used with the iPhone or Android device to take questions from your audience. For live events we provide a Twitter stream and the ability to submit private questions to your panelists. View this demonstration to see how it works!

Tags: event video, Events, LinkedIn, Marketing, Social Media, video webcasts.

Econsultancy has a very good article about how marketers can make it easier for consumers to make purchasing decision. You can see the parallel with your webinar invitations. After all, they are a mini-purchasing decision in themselves – your attendees are paying with their time. So if you keep these points in mind when crafting your invitation you will be headed in the right direction.

• Reduce options; The more choices available, the less likely any choice is made. If the purpose is to get viewers to your webinar, don’t muddy the water with other promotions or product information.
• Create urgency; Live webinars are a natural vehicle for building that sense of urgency – make sure to do so in your copy.
• Reduce risk; If your charging for your webinar, provide a money-back guarantee. If it’s free, address the risk that the content will not be worth the potential abuse of contact information – this is a bigger issue for smaller companies that may not have a reputable brand or market presence. They need to engender trust with their copy and remind people that you are not going to abuse the relationship. Remind your reader’s in plain language that you are trustworthy (and make sure you keep your promise):

We do not sell your personal information. We do not spam. We will not call you at dinner time. Privacy Policy

• Focus your message; Simplify your message and stay focused on one or two key points or audience takeaways. Write your copy from the reader’s perspective; ‘What’s In It For Me?’.
• Know your customer;  You cannot convert every site visitor and webinar attendee to a customer, so don’t try. Determine what your key strengths are and go after the best prospects for your product or service. This becomes even more important as social media channels drive greater webinar attendance. Your copy and promotion should actually self-qualify prospects so that you stay focused on the best prospects.

Read the original article at ‘How to turn consumer inaction into action: five tips‘.

Tags: event management, Marketing, Social Media, Web Seminars.

If you spend a lot of time and effort creating videos for the web, you want to have them found. Here are five tips from the Online Marketing Blog  to help you get started with video optimization:

1. Organize with Keywords
2. Distribute videos on video-sharing sites.
3. Implement a linking strategy.
4. Encourage viewers to share your videos.
5. Re-purpose your videos.

Read the complete post 5 Basic Tips for Video Optimization.

Tags: Marketing, search, Video.

When you are considering a purchase, who do you ask for your advice?

If your like me, you start with your friends. And you will probably seek out the ones who have some experience or passion related to your purchase. If I want to buy a guitar, I’d seek out a cousin who is a musician. If I want a new telephone system, I’d ask a half dozen of my friends that are consultants, managers and business owners  – the ones that make their living on the telephone..  Depending on the purchase, I would do more research online, on industry sites and forums, and visit your web site.  At this point, I’m ready to buy – for big-ticket items I’ve got a short list and will now call a company rep.

By now your starting to realize that in the early stages I may not spend much time on your site – in some cases I may not even visit it.  So as a marketer, you need to find a way to reach me through the mediums I am using.

Webcasts – audio and slides or video -  not only are good at educating the prospects you know about, but can be a compelling way to help your customers (my friends) and your evangelists (the ones commenting in user groups, message boards, and industry forums) share your story.

You can continue to deliver your webcasts live, but make sure you create an archive in bit-sized chunks and share it with the world – in your newsletter, on your site,  with user groups, on message boards.  Make it easy for your fans to share it too.  Its a great way to keep your name in the conversation and help your friends spread the word.

Tags: archives, conversations, live event recordings, Marketing, On-Demand, Promotion, Video, video webcasts, Webcasts.

In June BtoB Online asked their webcast audience the question “How does your organization evaluate unstructured comments from customers?”

The results:

72%      We review each one manually
21%      We collect but don’t analyze it
6%        We use text mining tools
1%        We have an individual code the responses

Now you must interpret the results from any webinar poll understanding that the audience was not randomly selected and may not be statistically significant, but if this makes you think for a moment about how your using your viewer feedback than this is a good exercise!

The intelligent use of polls and surveys is an effective method for gathering feedback, but also for discovering your target audience needs and concerns. We have used polls effectively to uncover new or related applications for products and services.  So give those polls and surveys some thought, use them during during your webinar, and then listen to what your audience is really telling you.

Tags: customer feedback, Marketing, polls, surveys, Webcasts, webinars.

Video’s pervasiveness online is impacting everyone with a web presence, even B2B companies.   First, remember that even business purchasers are consumers too and we bring our purchasing habits to the office. Then consider these recent surveys reported by eMarketer.

Online Activites of Internet Users Worldwide - 2008

Over 60% of adults using the web to research a product of service, then visit the company or product web-site for more information.  Over half of these folks have watched a video clip.  Now consider this: Over 40% of retailers are expected to add video to their web sites during this next year.  (This would be in addition to those that are already using video today to sell product.)

Planned Advanced Site Features and Functions

This will continue to increase the expectation that prospects expect to access product and service information in a multimedia format. We already see this trend.  Consider your own habits – when looking at products don’t you look for a video that really shows the product in use so you know what to expect? Now extend that expectation to a B2B purchasing decision;  Don’t you really want to hear how an existing customer implemented the solution and make your own conclusions as to their veracity? Wouldn’t it help if you could see the product/service demonstrated?

For B2B companies, this means not only providing a library of  web seminars, but delivering product tours, demonstrations,  case studies and testimonials in a video format, and promoting it on your own web site.

So the net-net here is that we as both consumers and business buyers are doing our research online and visiting your web site. We want to access video as part of the education and qualification process, and those companies that provide it first are going to be have a competitive advantage.

Tags: Marketing, screencasts, selling, Video.

As reported by Yahoo,  MySpace Mobile is launching a streaming video service to deliver video in multiple formats to multiple devices.  The focus today is on reaching iPhones, but the service is designed to be carrier and device agnostic.

This announcement in itself is not such a big deal for B2B-focused enterprises, but I think it continues the trend where employees, partners and customers expect to be able to access video-based training, tutorials, demonstrations and product communications.  I know from my personal experience that one of the first things I look for when evaluating a vendor is an online product demo. Then I know if its worth exploring further with a sales rep.

Rich media communications will increasingly be integrated into every type of text document – quick start guides, help screens, product briefs, case studies, testimonials, etc. – so that users can choose how they want to receive the information.

I think the biggest question mark is not if this will happen, but if it is company-driven or user-driven. Marketing communication professionals may not be prepared – time, skills and budget – to support this effort quickly enough. If a vacuum exists, users may step-up and fill the void.

Thoughts?

Tags: demo, Education, Marketing, rich media, streaming video, tutorials, video training.

The quote ‘Make it easy for people to talk about you’ says it all.

I had the opportunity last year to meet Andy Sernovitz when he spoke at the Silicon Valley AMA. (Coreography recorded this event for the SVAMA and you can view it online – jump to slide 78 in the index. Guy Kawasaki gives his typically entertaining presentation right after.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: event recordings, Marketing, Promotion, replays, word of mouth marketing.

eMarketer just reported that experienced Internet users give more weight to the information they find on the web than that shared by personal contacts.

What are the implications?

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Marketing, On-Demand, screencast, trends, Video, web demonstration.