Friday, January 30, 2009

Web Conferencing with PowerPoint Gives Marketers the Edge

By Donald Gates

Successful internet marketers are pummeling the competition with use of brandable web conferencing systems in combination with PowerPoint presentations. Used independently, web conferencing and PowerPoint Presentations each are powerful web marketing tools. But when used in conjunction, they pack a punch that's hard to beat, saving marketers in time and money alike, while vastly improving and enhancing the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.

The internet is a global marketplace, and the modern conveniences of the 20th century don't hold up in our 21st century world. For example, it will take a lot more than toll-free telephone numbers to keep your colleagues and clients (current and prospective) from having to shell out money to do business with you. The money-saving benefits of web conferencing do not stop, however, at simply lowering phone bills (yours or anyone else's). When some measure of face-to-face contact or visual presentations is necessary, marketers in the past had travel all over to make their presentations, and larger conferences required making your target audiences travel to you. But now, with web conferencing, they can do so online-and for a whole lot cheaper.

And while web conferencing precludes travel costs, using PowerPoint presentations in conjunction with web conferencing precludes travel, materials (think of the savings on photocopying alone), and physical labor costs. Instead of lugging around a heavy easel, projector, screen, transparencies, and other supporting materials to all of those in-person meetings, they can instead plug their entire marketing message into a clean, compelling, and classy PowerPoint presentation they can take conference members through remotely, any time of day or night. PowerPoint presentations can help you deliver your message with maximum effectiveness for a minimum of costs no matter what type of "gathering of minds" you are coordinating-whether business meetings or seminars, product unveilings or creative collaborations, PowerPoint presentations can replace many expensive and unwieldy, more "traditional" methods of delivering your marketing message. And web conferencing is the ideal medium for their delivery.

Another cost-savings that both web conferencing and PowerPoint presentations provide is in mailing/shipping expenses. Whether you're sending out direct mailings to masses of people or individual marketing packages to select VIP prospects , you're wasting a lot of money unnecessarily when you can offer the same marketing presentation--only live , with you present to guide your prospects every step of the way--by delivering the presentation or pitch as a PowerPoint presentation over live web conferencing. One huge marketing hurdle this helps overcome (beyond just the costs of creating and mailing all those physical marketing materials) is the possibility that prospect won't even read what you send them, but rather throw it in the trash (or, if they do read it, throw it out after they come across a point that needs more explaining).

Interestingly enough, while the bulk of this article so far has focused on cost-savings, these exact same arguments for the ways web conferencing and PowerPoint presentations used together save companies money also support the argument for them providing a real savings in time. It takes time to put together physical marketing materials (and to wait for them to be printed and picked up), to wait for the mail to deliver audio/visual materials and for the recipient to get around to reviewing them, to schedule follow-up calls to get particular questions answered, and to travel hither and thither in order spread your marketing message in person. Using web conferencing with PowerPoint presentations solves all of those time constraining issues, freeing you up to concentrate on other important things.

The third and final way that web conferencing and PowerPoint presentations used in conjunction with one another are fueling the success of the most successful web marketers is because of the sheer performance that the combined effect of these two amazing tools has on fulfilling your primary objective--making sales. Web conferencing with PowerPoint presentations is a high-conversion marketing strategy. And it's not just useful for straight-forward, direct marketing (so to speak) either. Just look at some of the other ways this synergistic combination can be put to beneficial use: In customer service and support; In pre-sales conversations and preparations; In using chatrooms to network; In recruiting affiliates; In your human resources department--helping with interviewing, hiring, and training alike; In wooing investors and venture capitalist through community outreach; In building brand awareness.

And all of these functions can be integrated with PowerPoint Presentation to improve and enhance their quality, performance, and effectiveness. In fact, HotConference, provides desktop sharing, which makes presenting PowerPoint presentations (not to mention collaborating long-distance on their creation and development) even easier. HotConference offers the most versatile feature set in web conferencing, with tools like a Whiteboard on which you can write, draw, and erase at will in real time, and a variety of ways to incorporate that into your presentation, with 5 different 'levels' of Presentation for you, the moderator, to choose from. Another key feature HotConference provides (one alluded to briefly in this article's intro) is brand-ability-the ability to brand your HotConference web conferencing interface with your own company name, logo, banner, colors, and other branding elements. And as your PowerPoint presentations are no doubt similarly branded (and if they're not, they should be), this seamless integration of private label branding with your web conferencing delivery system only magnifies your overall impact.

Add to this them 1-month free trial period and the immense cost-savings over other, more expensive but less feature-rich or user-friendly, web conferencing services. With HotConference you get all the above-mentioned benefits and--as you can only begin to image, we're sure--a whole lot more.

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