Intro to Blogging (WordPress)

Well, after using WordPress for over six months, I just ran across this cool reference tool (see link below).  Thought I would share the location of this resource.  It’s like a “Quick Guide to Blogging”.  Learn more about blogging terminology at: http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging

10 Ways to Ensure Effective Webinars

Webinars are a great way to generate qualified sales leads. In turn, they take a lot of planning, promotion, practice and consistent follow through.  Below are 10 tips to ensure that webinars work for you.  

1. PLAN: Come up with a clear plan of action from beginning to end.  Your plan should include; recruiting effective presenters, scheduling, seamless registration process, clear promotional tactics, tracking for success metrics and follow through.                     
2. CONTENT:  Offer valuable information that people care about.  Understand your audience and develop topics that provide true value for their mindshare. Content should be informative.  Get input from your sales team and marketing staff.
3. RESPECT: Respect Your Audience.  People take time out of their busy day because they’re interested in solving a problem. Don’t provide an obvious sales pitch.  Do provide relevant content. 
4. SCHEDULE: Timing is everything.  Schedule mostly during mid-day / mid-week (depending on time zone).  Target between 30-45 minutes for most webinars with 10-15 minutes of Q&A at the end.
5. PROMOTE:  Be clear on promotional plan.  Study your target audience and develop a focused marketing strategy.  Be creative.  Try new things, test and review metrics.  See what works.  Word-of mouth is key.  Make sure you include an “invite a friend” link in all communications. 
6. ENGAGE:  Find interesting topics, dynamic presenters and methods of communication that “engage your audience”.  Ongoing distractions are always working against you.  Conduct polls to gain interaction –while also learning more about your audience.
7. PRACTICE:  Practice makes perfect.  This is no time to wing it.  Presenting online is very different then presenting offline.  Coach your speakers. Schedule at least one run thru covering web conferencing technology, presentation, timing and Q&A; also, how to handle loss of audio/web access.
8. PREPARE:  Prepare for the worst.  Don’t use wireless for phones or Internet connections.  All speakers should use land lines (with quality headsets) and have a hard copy of their presentation in hand.
9. TECHNOLOGY IS KEY:  Select a good web conferencing vendor.  It should be easy to use for both you and your audience.  Should just be point, click and start.  EZ interface always preferred.  2-way communication via phone or chat and recording option is key.  Make sure your provider can handle the volume of attendees, provide necessary support, record for future use and is affordable for solid ROI.
10. PROCESS:  Make sure as you develop and manage the process you automate most everything and optimize each step.  With that, find ways to learn more about your audience with every communication.  Continue to provide valuable offers from demos and white papers to additional webinars.  Consider doing a survey at the end of your webinar.

We hope you find above information useful.  If you have any additional tips, please share below.

Generate Sales Leads with Webinars

Web events are great for building brand awareness, positioning your company as an expert in the industry and generating sales leads. From Webcasts, Web Conferences and Webinars, these content driven techniques work very well in B2B environments, where you can adapt them for product demos, market research presentations and/or educational sessions in exchange for contact information. 

With that said, don’t poison the effort with overt sales pitches and marketing messaging.  In the beginning, it’s all about the audience; if they respond with interest, you can then start communicating your specific value proposition. 

Depending on the audience and purpose, you can promote a Web event like any other online offering.  Your goal is to capture a targeted and captive audience and to deliver quality content, allowing 15-45 minutes of uninterrupted user contact.  Make sure you segment leads via the signup form about registrants’ levels of interest, so you can easily follow-up on the most profitable leads first.  

Webcasts: Generally refers to a live, video-only, Internet broadcast.  Inherently passive, it’s delivered from one speaker to many listeners, often 50 or more.  Mostly, works best in B2C environments for performance events, entertainment and/or educational content.   

Web Conferences:  Primarily used for small group presentations that are data or document driven.  Web conferences support two-way interaction and are generally used near the close of the sales cycle.  Conferences mostly involve some combination of teleconferencing, PowerPoint presentations, live desktop-based whiteboards, and chat software. 

Webinars: Webinars are the most complex format, mixing multimedia components such as one-way audio conference, PowerPoint presentations, (sometimes video), whiteboarding, live polls or surveys and one way instant messaging for participants to submit questions. 

Making Webinars Work

Designed to reach a large number of participants over a widespread geographic region, Webinars generally require a sequence of activities to be successful: promotion, registration, confirmation and reminder emails, thank you messages, access to presentation materials, usually recorded Webinars for those who couldn’t attend, and feedback via surveys.   

Expect fall-off from registration to attendance; perhaps only 30-40% of pre-registrants actually show up.  Of those, you’ll probably find only 5-10% of your registrants are close to sales ready.  Move carefully in these environments.  Use these opportunities to build credibility and trust.  Establish a relationship and answer questions objectively.  Timing is everything. 

Here are some tips for planning Webinars: 

1. Focus on high quality, relevant content to attract a strong attendance.
2. Your promotion should clearly answer, “What’s in if for me (WIIFM)?” 
3. Consider paid ADV or newsletter sponsorships to promote your Web event.
4. Record and post your Web event on your web site to provide ongoing value.
5. Obtain feedback via online surveys – maybe even share the feedback as part of your follow-up “thank you” email.
6. Always include contact information for future contact.

Consider Web events as premium branding and lead generation opportunities.  Various web-based solutions are available from Gotowebinar, Microsoft Live Meeting, or WebEx, just to name a few.  Have ideas to share, please do in comments below.

                    

The Value of Direct Marketing

Marketing is critical to business growth.  Unless a business focuses on and aligns their offerings with specific needs targeted towards a specific market segment, a business will not succeed. 

With that, marketing is the process of “maneuvering” an organization towards the success of selling a product or service that people need or want and are willing to pay for.  From anticipating customers’ future needs and wants (market research), to providing a product roadmap (product marketing) to then communicating, promoting, distributing and selling – marketing spans many areas of business.

In an attempt to guide customers towards a specific offering, effective marketing must be entirely clear on defining and communicating its’ value proposition (or set of benefits) to a set of targeted end users – then actually delivering on that value through the offerings presented.  In creating awareness, it’s essential those top value points are communicated through the various marketing channels of communication.

          

What is Direct Marketing? 

Direct marketing is a channel of marketing primarily focused on “lead generation” and emphasizes trackable and measurable results per campaign.  There are two main characteristics that distinguish it from other types of marketing.  

              

1. Direct marketing attempts to send its messages directly to a highly targeted group of consumers, without the use of intervening “mass media” such as radio or TV.  This always involves direct communication with consumers or businesses (many times unsolicited) including; email marketing, direct mail, telemarketing, fax campaigns, door hangers, and more.  

           

2. Direct marketing is focused on driving sales directly attributed to a specific “call-to-action.”  Whatever medium is used, “direct response advertising” asks the prospect to take a specific action usually within a specified timeframe (i.e. call by end of week and receive 25% discount). 

           

In turn, direct marketing usually offers a clearer picture on ROI then other marketing channels thus providing marketers a much needed tactical approach which can provide results both sales and management teams can easily relate to and understand – so that in your next meeting when they ask “what have you done for me lately” your reports will justify all activities and expenses. And what a thrill that is.