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A Strategy for Attracting Higher Paying Client
By Catherine Franz Some people have little difficulty attracting and maintaining higher paying clients. Others can't get to first base. Higher paying clients consume less time, exchange energy instead of zapping yours, have higher regards for your...
Building A Sales Force That Pays For Itself
The elements involved in building a sales force, especially one that pays for itself and also adds value to any business, are many and varied. The whole purpose and direction of a sales manager needs to be directed to creating a sales force that...
Making Your Item Get The Best Bid On E-bay
Having a worthy item does not immediately guarantee that you
would receive the highest bid. Sometimes, it takes more than a
great product to get the top bids in E-Bay.
One of the things that you should consider is the presentation
of the...
So, You Think You Want to Be a Telecommuter?
Do you yearn for a more balanced life and a more flexible approach to work? Do you dream about productive workdays that don’t include the drain of time and energy devoted to commuting? Do you spend time in traffic (on the highway or sitting in an...
Tips to Energize Your Presentations
“There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.”
– Arnold Bennett (1867-1931)
Ask...
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Redefining Distance to Market your Company
"Redefining Distance to Market your Company The recent terrorist
attacks here in the US have caused many companies and
individuals to rethink how they want to market to and work with
others. As a result, web-enabled presentations and or
collaborations are finally coming of age - the technology works
with a minimum of hassle, it's an efficient way to give
marketing presentations, hold meetings, provide training and do
product demonstrations. The cost savings can be significant,
especially when contrasted with all of the burdened costs of
holding conventional meetings; i.e. travel, hotel,
transportation, facilities and "time out of the office issues."
Here is a quick primer on some baseline issues to consider when
weighing the effectiveness of virtual marketing presentations
and meetings.
1. There are a broad number of vendors, although the "virtual
presentation and meeting" market segment has undergone
consolidation in the last few years. I'd recommend assessing
these four market leaders: www.webex.com (well established with
diversified terms of services), www.placeware.com (corporate
focused), www.centra.com (provides a good client plug in that
enables Voice over IP ("VOIP") communications, www.raindance.com
(emphasizes teleconferencing).
2. PC configuration, Internet access and firewall issues all
need to be considered when your assessing the effectiveness of
this process and technology. Port settings need to be "tuned" or
optimized, the PC must have multimedia capabilities if your
using VOIP, just about any speed of internet connection will
work, but the experience for the attendee can vary depending on
the connection speeds and how "heavy" your presentation is with
graphics.
3. Web presentations offer a lower cost model versus
traditional presentations or meetings, but there are burdened
costs for web-enabled marketing - phone conferencing can be
anywhere from $.15-35 per minute per user, presentation uploads
for a standard power point presentation (which is the defacto
app for virtual presentations), can cost $10-30. per
presentation, costs per attendee can vary tremendously but
average $50-500. per session, depending upon the number of
users.
4. One of the most expensive parts of virtual meetings is
always the teleconferencing component. All of the market leaders
have some VOIP component (voice over IP) but most are not
publicizing this technology or service, as they don't want to
cannibalize a significant contribution to their revenue streams.
One exception is Centra -
they are offering VOIP integrated
services with their standard web presentations or meetings. The
audio quality is good, analogous to voice quality of a standard
cell phone call - but there is a client download (small under
250K) to deal with and you must have a multi-media enabled PC.
5. Some web-enabled presentation challenges include the need to
keep people involved - you can do this easily by leveraging the
chat capabilities, dynamic polling, and standard Q&A components
built into the application. The higher their interest level (as
in real world meetings) the better your meeting or presentation
will be.
6. Marketing presentations can be easily archived and made
available to others on a 24/7 basis - this archiving can include
the standard presentation, enhanced with video or audio
components, depending on the sophistication of your
presentation. Be prepared to pay an extra charge for this - but
the marketing ROI can be significant, especially when you factor
in how little most companies charge for an archiving service
versus your front end costs.
7. Virtual marketing enables a whole set of web-enabled
processes - you will have the ability to easily capture your
prospect/customer's e-mail address and standard contact points
via a registration process, involve them and capture preferences
via polling in your presentations and "push" follow up
communications during your presentation/meeting or later. But,
it's very important to include standard "privacy" statements in
your materials and adhere to them as you move forward through
your business processes.
8. How does video conferencing impact your assessments of
web-enabled presentations or collaborations? This depends on
your budget, number of people attending the presentation,
presenter and attendee locations and other intangible that are
specific to your business. In general, video conferencing works
better for very small (under five people) presentations or
meetings, due to some of the inherent challenges of this medium.
"
About the author:
"Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of marketing experience. He is
the co-founder of a Northern California and Brussels Belgium
based, privately held, Marketing Services and Software Company,
Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com.
Intelective focuses exclusively on providing services to
small-to-medium-sized companies that need strategic and tactical
marketing services. He can be reached at Lee@intelective.com.
"
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