So there you are, delivering the concluding remarks to end your very first webinar. You’re feeling quite good about your prep work, your marketing efforts, and the fact that a good number of participants actually showed up! Then, you read the very small number of surveys that were tuned in and your seemingly incredible presentation turns about to be “meh.” – meaning ho-hum or booooring.  What happened!!?? Why are so many webinars painfully boring for the audience?  Here’s why:  It’s the speaker.

Remote presenting is tricky. After all, you have zero control over your audience; you can’t see them at their  home office. This is not a scare tactic, but you truly have a big responsibility to keep your group engaged in your presentation. There are three main tools at your disposal:

1. Your voice
2. The visual presentation and content
3. The web presentation software

In the upcoming series, we’ll concentrate on what I believe is the most important piece of conducting a great webinar:  The Speaker’s Delivery.  Good speakers can take boring subjects and make them palatable, if not enjoyable.  Practicing and perfecting your inflection, tone, and your ability to connect with the audience are paramount in conducting a great webinar. You don’t have to be a professional public speaker to get high marks on your presentations and keep people engaged; in my next few posts, I’ll cover a variety of ways to turn your anemic webinars into the compelling presentations you strive for.

In the meantime, what tips would you share for being a good and engaging presenter?

Shawn Cardinal is ReadyTalk’s training guru. He’s hosted hundreds of webinars and train customers (and employees) on best practices for hosting polished webinars and engaging audiences. When he’s

As government agencies continue to document and refine teleworking processes to comply with the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, managers are trying to identify and implement tools and services that remote workers need in order to maintain workflow and collaboration with colleagues.

In a recent white paper, industry analysts at Frost and Sullivan outlined key technology components that should be available to employees who telecommute including, laptops, instant messaging, VoIP, smart phones and more. The paper also looked closely at the importance of web conferencing in teleworking:

In a recent survey of 200 C-level executives, 53 percent said their companies use Web conferencing—more than any other advanced communications technology (including instant messaging, video conferencing and even Voice over IP). Better still, organizations usually find that while they start using Web conferencing as a replacement for in-person events and large group meetings, they very often continue to use it on a daily basis to improve the quality of meetings that would otherwise be held only on the phone or not at all.

ReadyTalk’s audio and web conferencing can help government agencies and department managers realize a variety of benefits:

• Employee engagement: Telework programs can boost employee engagement because workers get a more flexible schedule and the elimination of daily commutes, which saves them time and money.
• Reduced facilities and related costs: Because employees are working at home, they don’t need permanent offices or cubicles, which also reduces related costs including power and water bills, security, parking, maintenance services, etc.
• Reduced environmental impact: Eliminating or reducing employees’ commutes has a substantial environmental impact.

Technology can also go a long way toward helping managers as they roll out telework programs and manage remote workers. Download the free white paper from Frost and Sullivan, Supporting Teleworkers with the Right Technology for Success for additional insight on how web conferencing can compliment other technologies in your telework strategy.

As the director of government sales, John is leading efforts to grow ReadyTalk’s government and public sector business.  Away from work, John enjoys skiing and hiking in the mountains.

ReadyTalk’s secure audio and web conferencing services, including webinars, enable federal, state and local agencies to meet with confidence. ReadyTalk’s tools are designed so that it is easy to collaborate with colleagues, share information, telework and train employees. Currently used by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and numerous other agencies, ReadyTalk is experienced in meeting the specific needs of government organizations and provides flexible, custom solutions to meet their needs. ReadyTalk services are available through our GSA contract number GS-35F-0084X on GSA Advantage! For more information, visit the GSA Advantage! site or contact our Government Sales team.

As you see, we’ve changed quite a bit of the site—giving it a new look a feel but also making it much easier to navigate and find what you are looking for. If you are interested in how we got here, check our past blog posts on the topic ( #1, #2, #3).

There few features that you’ll want to take note of:

ReadyTalk Homepage

On the Homepage

• Start a conference with the Chairperson Login or join a conference as a Participant.
• Test Your Computer now includes the test for both participants and chairperson/co-presenter.
• Chat with a representative or contact customer support 24/7 for help.

Support & Training

• Sign up for one of four types of free, live training.
• Account Information with resources for account administrators, including Pay Your Invoice.
• Look up missing passcodes, international numbers and other ReadyTalk User Information.

New support tools to manage your account

Web Events & Services

• Learn more about our webinar offerings or order a web event.

Audio Conferencing

• Check out all of the tools available for managing an effective audio conference
• Order an operator-assisted conference or order a Broadcast Audio call.

Ever wonder what it’s like to work at ReadyTalk and what we’re all about? Check out the About section.

So, what do you think about the new ReadyTalk.com? We would love your feedback and suggestions.

By Melanie Turek, Industry Director, Frost & Sullivan

Recently I was speaking with Karen Gwynne, Director of Sponsorship at the American Marketing Association, about how the AMA is using web casts to increase membership in the organization. Gwynne says that if a prospect attends three or more web casts, he or she is far more likely to join the organization as a dues-paying member, and stay loyal to the AMA in the months and years to come. Not surprisingly, the AMA is taking advantage of web conferencing to boost its brand, increase member loyalty and, ultimately, improve the bottom line.

In February, I wrote about how good web conferencing is for internal corporate and customer training. This month, I want to emphasize its value as a marketing tool. Today’s marketing professionals are faced with multiple challenges as they try to generate leads in an increasingly global and dispersed business environment. They must also develop a strong brand identity among a multitude of messages and imaging, much of which crosses the Internet; qualify leads and deliver contextual information about them to the sales team; and justify any expense with a clear ROI calculation. Web conferencing—which let’s marketers deliver interactive presentations via the Internet, easily and cost-effectively—can help with all these mandates.

Online events deliver global reach
Reaching a variety of customers and prospects can be difficult, time consuming and costly, especially as businesses extend their global footprint. With web conferencing, organizations can deliver marketing information and online training to small and large groups located anywhere in the world, with specific content designed just for them. This will help improve product and brand awareness, drive usage rates and satisfaction levels, and generate more new sales as well as cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

Pre-registering attendees and gathering feedback delivers more qualified leads
Using web conferencing, marketers can increase the number, frequency, reach and quality of their marketing events, and they can expand those events to cover niche areas and target special interest groups. By using the software’s interactive features, speakers can create marketing sessions that offer valuable educational information, which in turn will increase brand awareness and loyalty, and deliver warm leads. Using conferencing’s Q&A and polling capabilities, presenters can better qualify those leads and help sales teams boost their conversion rates. Finally, sales people can use web conferencing to follow up with interested customers and prospects in a more targeted, intimate and interactive way.

Collaboration capabilities let marketing, sales and line-of-business work together to drive revenues.
Web conferencing cost-effectively enables internal communications among dispersed teams, so that sales and marketing staff can work together at every level—from research and planning to content development and account management. They can also tap the resources and expertise of line-of-business employees, to ensure marketing efforts map to broader business goals and product capabilities.

For more on how web conferencing can positively impact your marketing efforts, and your company’s bottom line, please join me for the webinar “Generate More Qualified Leads with Webinars” on the topic on April 27 at 2pm ET.

Melanie is a renowned expert in unified communications, collaboration, social networking and content-management technologies in the enterprise. For 15 years, Ms. Turek has worked closely with hundreds of vendors and senior IT executives across a range of industries to track and capture the changes and growth in the fast-moving unified communications market. Melanie writes often on the business value and cultural challenges surrounding real-time communications, collaboration and Voice over IP, and she speaks frequently at leading customer and industry events.

Manage your ReadyTalk Account with Confidence

Today marks the arrival of the ReadyTalk Administration Center, which will enable you to manage your ReadyTalk audio and web conferencing account with greater control. No longer will you have to send new user and access code requests through our support and account management team (unless you want to). The ReadyTalk Administration Center will give you the ability to:

• Add new users and access codes to your ReadyTalk account
• Create additional access codes for existing users
• Download detailed user information in .csv format
• Chat live with a ReadyTalk Representative

The ReadyTalk Administration Center saves you time and hassle and gives you the tools you need to control your account with confidence. To access to the ReadyTalk Administration Center for your Account call your ReadyTalk Account Manager 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.