Today we are excited to announce the beta of our pre-recorded video playback feature. Pre-recorded video playback gives your trainings, sales demos, and webinars a more engaging, personal feel by incorporating short video clips into the live presentation. Your meetings will never be the same and your participants will thank you for incorporating rich video content in your presentation. With pre-recorded video playback, you can:

• Upload pre-recorded video clips to your access code
• Playback video clips during your meeting for participants to see and hear your content
• Record your meeting with the pre-recorded video content included

To sign up for beta access to pre-recorded video playback please fill out this form. You will receive an email within 1 business day providing you with instructions on how to get started.

Currently the process for uploading and playing back your pre-recorded video clip is a 4 step process (see diagram below). For more information please be sure to view the recorded demo, the Quick Start Guide, and the Best Practices and Known Issues documentation to gain valuable tips and tricks on how to use pre-recorded video playback in your meetings. When this feature becomes generally available (first half of 2012), the process for uploading and playing back your videos in the live presentation will be very similar to uploading and inserting slides into the ReadyTalk Conference Controls.

We’d love to hear about your experience with pre-recorded video in the feedback form or in the comments below. Tell us how the feature is working, if you’re experiencing any issues, or if you have any specific feature requests. If you have any questions about this feature please contact ReadyTalk Customer Care at 800.843.9166.

Paul was formerly an Account Executive at ReadyTalk gaining valuable experience with competitors and the state of the web and audio conferencing industry. Currently in his role as Product Marketing Manager, he is in charge of the competitive landscape, on-demand audio products, and the web meeting interface. Paul loves the outdoors, his pup Huck, his wife Jess, and getting to the ski slopes as much as possible.

The world of conferencing continues to change. First, it was bringing small groups of employees across various office locations together on the phone, followed by the need for web conferencing to show others what you were working on.  Now, those groups are no longer small, or limited to your own organization.  The use of audio and web conferencing has grown to much more than a way to cut down on costs, but as a successful way to generate leads through webinars, or train users on your product.  The use cases seem endless, and maybe even complex.  But something that should not be a brainteaser? Pricing.

ReadyTalk understands that our customers want to concentrate on the subject of their meetings, or content of their webinars, instead of the possibility of the unpredictable costs of their audio and web conferencing use.  We want to provide the highest quality, service and reliability, as part of our pricing.  With that expectation in mind, we introduce our five new web and audio subscriptions:

• Web Meeting Pro (25, 150)
• Webinar (500, 1000, 3000)

What’s unique about these? High-quality audio, included with every package.

The Web Meeting Pro subscriptions include unlimited web conferencing and a bundle of included toll and toll-free domestic audio minutes, at a flat monthly fee.

The Webinar subscriptions include unlimited web conferencing AND unlimited Broadcast Audio, enabling participants to stream high-quality audio through their computer speakers. Again, for a flat monthly fee.

So how do you know which subscription is right for you, or your company?

Do you conduct a fair amount of smaller, internal meetings or  present projects to external clients and vendors where high-quality audio is critical?  Then the Web Meeting Pro options are right up your alley.

Are you managing larger webinars for lead generation, online training, etc, more than once a month?  The Webinar subscription options can give you the cost-effective solution you are looking for.

Interested in learning more?  Contact us today to find out more about our new subscription plans!

Beth is a Product Marketing Manager and works with our customers to understand their needs as they relate to event services and our conference center, which is used to setup the details of our clients’ upcoming meetings. Outside of the office, Beth loves to spend time with family and friends, cook, and hit the slopes.

Over the years, I have seen many companies chose to build a channel program but immediately fight themselves on their decision. It is common for there to be a misunderstanding about the role of channel partners and that can lead to arguments as to whether an indirect channel program is beneficial. Some will argue that it costs too much while others see the value right away. Before proceeding to build a channel program seek buy-in internally from key stakeholders.

As a channel marketing manager, my role is to help the company decide which channel is relevant to the sales organization (reseller, VAR, developer, retail, etc.), how to grow and manage that channel, and what to expect out of the growth of the channel over the years.

One of the first things to tackle is cooperation with channel partners, especially with the direct sales team. There are endless ways to avoid competition and encourage cooperation – just make that a goal and measure your program against it.

Of course a channel program should be designed for generating sales and supporting customers. Some examples include:

• Setup alliances between direct and indirect teams so that partnering becomes second nature and you will foster cooperation.
  • Team sales reps with channel partners when there is a value add to the customer.
• If sales management deals with both channels, distribute sales quotas to promote cooperation. If not, the first signs of competition will show up.
• A main part of managing both direct and indirect channels is managing the leads of all parties and creating fair and reasonable guidelines for lead tracking.
  • Typically conflict arises when both direct and indirect sales are competing for the same business. Lead tracking can minimize the competition and help management make decisions.

Create a program that fosters cooperation between both teams and you have a win-win.

Tracy focuses on channel and partner marketing at ReadyTalk, building out marketing programs to recruit partners and reinforce engagement with them. When she’s not coming up with marketing plans she likes to compete in canine freestyle Frisbee and ride her Ninja motorcycle.

Have you been looking for a quick and streamlined way to send a ReadyTalk On-Demand meeting email invite? With the ReadyTalk Scheduler for Outlook you can quickly and easily send a customized email invite through Outlook. Your ReadyTalk account credentials are stored in the scheduler giving you a one click experience to email and invite your participants. With the ReadyTalk Scheduler for Outlook you can:

• Send a custom email invite for a ReadyTalk Audio, Web, or Audio/Web meeting
• Start an On-Demand meeting with 1 click
• Store your ReadyTalk Account credentials

To download the ReadyTalk Scheduler for Outlook please visit: http://www.readytalk.com/support-training/downloads. As always, if you have a question or support issue, please call ReadyTalk Customer Care at 800.843.9166.

Paul was formerly an Account Executive at ReadyTalk gaining valuable experience with competitors and the state of the web and audio conferencing industry. Currently in his role as Product Marketing Manager, he is in charge of the competitive landscape, on-demand audio products, and the web meeting interface. Paul loves the outdoors, his pup Huck, his wife Jess, and getting to the ski slopes as much as possible.

A couple of weeks ago Ken Molay wrote a great blog post, Conversion Features For Webinar Technologies. He expanded on a post by Brian Massey, which explores what features and experiences customers should expect from webinar vendors (among others).

Ken outlines the elements that he believes should be available to every webinar organizer and I agree. I also think the timing of this week’s launch of the Eloqua Cloud Connectors for ReadyTalk couldn’t be better, since it addresses and expands on many of Ken’s requirements.

Here are a few of his requirements that the cloud connectors address:

Allow Customizable Registration Pages. ReadyTalk’s registration pages are pretty flexible and allow event organizers to create as many 100 custom registration questions (warning: you should be careful about the number of questions you include since as the number registration questions increases the number of participants typically decreases).  Customers, who use Eloqua, can now fully customize the registration pages to maintain a consistent look and feel with existing marketing materials.

Follow Lead Source Tracking From Start To End. ReadyTalk already had a built-in campaign tool for tracking where registrations were coming from; but this data lives outside of a customers’ marketing automation program. This is one of the reasons that the Eloqua Cloud Connectors for ReadyTalk  are so powerful. I would also mention your registrants are cookied as well so you can track their digital body language – something a conferencing service does not offer.

Allow Total Control Of All Email. Not only does the Eloqua Cloud Connectors for ReadyTalk give you control of the look and feel of your emails, using Eloqua lets you automate the email processes so that after the event you can send emails based on actions customers took. For example, registrants that didn’t attend can receive one email and those that did can receive another….and this process can be fully automated.

One thing that neither Brian nor Ken touched on is the need for these vendors to integrate with each other. Whether it’s out-of-the-box integration or the ability connect via an open API, the ability to move data seamlessly from one platform to another is essential. Eliminating manual spreadsheet works saves significant time and ensures the accuracy of data. It also makes actionable data available faster.

What other features would you like to see incorporated into your webinar program? Are there platforms you would like to see integrated?