ReadyTalk Blog

ReadyTalk and PR Newswire have long been mutual customers, benefitting from the various marketing opportunities that result from both platforms and business models. PR Newswire recently launched a self-service platform, iReach^TM, which enables users to easily create and distribute a press release for a low cost. ReadyTalk is always looking for new promotional channels that our customers can take advantage of, and the iReach platform is a perfect fit, especially for those that use webinars to generate new leads for their sales funnel.

Besides being easy-to-use and cost-effective, our integration with iReach by PR Newswire offers several benefits:

• Broader (but targeted!) promotion
  • Automatically promote your webinar on PRNewswire.com and make it findable by search & news engines
  • Ability to target the most relevant audiences when PR Newswire tags your releases for the right industries, subjects and geographies
  • Increase your website visibility
    • Drive more visitors  to your site by including back links in your release
  • Extend the ROI of your webinar
    • Your press release is hosted forever with PR Newswire, which includes a search-friendly permalink URL

ReadyTalk customers have access to two iReach packages at special introductory pricing:

• SearchReach: Promote your webinar online and within search engines for $99 per release (a $30 savings!)
• WebReach: Optimize your press release with an image and drive more traffic to your site for $249 per release (a $50 savings)

And, finally, how do you get started?

Log-in to Conference Center to schedule your upcoming webinar.  After filling in your meeting details in step 1, go to the ‘Promotion Tools’ section in step 2.

Click on ‘Send a Press Release’ and a new browser window will open to the ReadyTalk iReach^TM website.

Choose which option you would like to purchase on Step 1 (SearchReach or WebReach).

You will be taken to Step 2 to start creating the content and details of your press release.  For your convenience, the default meeting registration link will automatically be included in the press release body section, along with the following standard language (don’t worry, it’s editable!)

Please click on the following link to register for the upcoming webinar: Meeting Registration Link

Continue through the remaining steps (preview, pay, release!) to complete the process and promote your upcoming webinar to a broader (but targeted) audience.

A few tips:

• Remember to finish setting up your webinar in Conference Center (invitations, registration form, emails, survey, social media promotion, etc)
• Measure the effectiveness of using the iReach platform by creating a unique campaign url and include it in the press release body. **Remember, the default meeting registration link will be automatically populated, so make sure to swap it out!

Please share any feedback, and results, you have on your experience. We love hearing from our customers!

Beth is a Product Marketing Manager and works with our customers to understand their needs as they relate to Event Services and ReadyTalk’s 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.

Google. Whole Foods Market. Zappos. Apple. Facebook. Patagonia.

What do these giants of industry first bring to mind? For me and many other consumers, it’s a positive company culture and a dedication to support that is unparalleled by their competitors.

As a member of ReadyTalk’s Inside Sales team, I work on the front lines of our service, taking inbound calls from prospective customers, hosting live demonstrations of our audio and web conferencing services, and acting as a point person through many of our clients’ first experience with our product. With ReadyTalk being a Best Company to Work For in Colorado for more than five years running, I’ve found that—much like Google and the aforementioned companies—culture has become one of my go-to selling points at every stage of introducing prospects to our conferencing services.

If you’re fortunate to work at a company dedicated to building a culture that is people-centric, you should absolutely be incorporating this aspect into your initial sales conversation. I’ve found the following points to be really helpful in not only engaging clients but creating a company identity that reaches much deeper than simply being a fantastic conferencing software provider with an awesome platform:

1. Incorporate cultural material into demonstrations. Maybe it’s an example of your company’s mission or a slide showing the availability of your support team or a picture that embodies the spirit of your workplace, any of these create an opportunity for a talking point that allows for engagement on the end of the prospect.

2. Frame the conversation from the prospects’ perspective. It’s all well and good that you and I have a great, amazing, awesome, totally sweet workplace, but how does it affect the prospect?? I tend to explain it from the support side:

“What a people-focused culture means for you is that you are going to have a live Customer Care representative who is happy to help you with whatever it is you need,  and we’re available to help seven days a week, 24 hours a day.”

Who wouldn’t want that?? I want that! In every aspect of my life! But of course, this also begets the third piece….

3. Dedicate yourself to the follow-through. Every time you connect with a prospect, you are creating a framework for their experience with your company. Build a strong foundation, and hit it out of the ballpark every time.

If there is anything more fun than actually being in such a great workplace, it’s being able to share the experience with the users’ of your technology. And if you are looking to be able to work more from a referral basis, this is a key way to stand above competition in a way that is atmospheric.

Do you have different ideas about how company culture can factor into the sales process? Do you have experience being sold on a company culturally? We’d love to hear about it!

Nicole Qualtieri is a member of ReadyTalk’s Inside Sales team, where she acts as a first point of contact for future clients. Prior to working at ReadyTalk, she worked in a corporate leadership development program and spent a year volunteering as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Boston, MA. Outside of her professional life, Nicole is an avid writer, horseback rider, and contributor within Denver’s stand-up comedy and story-telling community.

I know this sounds ridiculous – what’s the point of meeting in person if everyone will be staring at their computer screens the whole time? Using web conferencing while we are all in the same room something we do all the time here at ReadyTalk (and not just because we’re a web conferencing company). There are many benefits to meeting this way, here are a few of my favorites:

• Better quality meeting visuals than trying to project: Have you ever held a meeting where you are hoping to project some visuals only to spend the first 15 minutes of the meeting trying to adjust your computers resolution so the visuals will project in a somewhat normal size? How about dealing with the colors that never look right on projectors? ReadyTalk enables you to share your screen with any participant and will automatically scale your screen to their native resolution in full color clarity.

• Multitasking is much easier (and more productive): Lets face it, we’re all going to multitask in a meeting. What better way to multitask than to have the web conferencing content right in front of your face along with anything else you’re working on. There is a much greater chance of you staying in sync with the content if you’re actually participating through the web conference than not watching the projector.

• Content can be shared by anyone in the room with no need to pass around a cable: I think the most annoying part of projecting is that when the presenter changes, and you spend 5 minutes fumbling around trying to switch the projector cable to the new computer. With ReadyTalk, you can easily pass control from one presenter to the other through our Co-Presenter feature. Co-Presenters then have full access to ReadyTalk’s presentation tools.

• Meetings start much faster: This one is fairly obvious, no fumbling with projector cables, warming the projector up, or messing with screen resolution necessary! With ReadyTalk, simply start your online meeting from the web, on your desktop with the ReadyTalk Quick Launcher, or through the ReadyTalk Scheduler for Outlook.  Participants can easily join your meeting through the ReadyTalk Quick Launcher’s “Join a Meeting” feature. In a minute or less, your meeting can be up and running.

• Record your meeting: Often times you will be missing someone who is vital to the meeting or you’ll simply want to take notes on what was discussed. Since you’re already running a ReadyTalk meeting you might as well record it using our recording functionality. ReadyTalk gives you extremely easy one-click recording abilities so you can focus on your meeting and not getting the technology set up.

These are just a few of the many benefits of adding a web conference to your in-person meeting experience. If you’ve got some suggestions of how to improve in person meetings please share below.

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.

What would you do with 70 CIOs and CTOs standing in a room with more than $1 billion budgeted in projects and your company has the solution for those projects? You’d bid on them, that’s what you’d do.

Wait a minute? Did you just say ‘bid’ on them? Is this some sort of auction for executive-levels to snag face-to-face time and propose how your companies might be able to collaborate?  It certainly is.

Welcome to C-Level @ A Mile High. For the past 6 years, the Colorado Technology Association, a ReadyTalk customer, has been hosting an auction of C-Level “celebrities,” as they call them, giving more than  900 technology professionals a chance to buy dedicated time with the executives at a future date. Not to mention, a spiffy package of goods to go along with the celebrity (think golf outings, dinners, a day on the slopes—just to name a few).

In a world where getting quality time, let alone face time, with decision makers can be nearly impossible, CTA has created a marketplace of these individuals that is easy to access and open to the public. Got a cloud computing solution? Or maybe you design mobile apps? Bring your A-game and best sales pitch because these executives are looking for solutions. Oh, and if you’re concerned about the selection, don’t be. We’re talking big players in the technology sphere – AT&T, CH2MHill, New Belgium, Gates, Latisys, Google, Janus Capital Group, Newmont Mining, ViaWest, DaVita, MapQuest, Vail Resorts and the list goes on.

The event has grown greatly from its first few years. This year, there is a record-setting number of registrants, C-level participants (and their budgets), and silent auction items that will make it the single biggest technology deal-making event in the state. All proceeds go toward future events through CTA, which provides amazing networking opportunities and local business collaboration with the ever-expanding tech hub in Colorado.

The environment is fast-paced. The excitement rubs off on you when the first batch of executives is opened up for bidding. It’s a unique event and well worth attending. Even our own ReadyTalk CTO, Dan Cunningham, is up on the auction block. So check out the show – even if just to network with the hundreds of other technology professionals.

Last week, we announced plans to relocate our headquarters. We’re going to share a lot of info on the new location, the build-out and more. You can also check out our Facebook page, where we’ll be posting lots of photos.

Where are We Going?

ReadyTalk won’t be going far from its current location. In fact, we are staying in LoDo (Lower Downtown) and moving just two blocks to 1900 16^th Street. Staying in LoDo is really important to us and helps make the ReadyTalk culture what it is—bikes paths and running trails; access to public transportation; restaurants and bars. Plus, it is a convenient location for employees throughout the front range, which is important as we aim to hire 60 people this year.

“Downtown Denver’s many amenities and culture of innovation and inclusion make the urban core a magnet for the millennial generation, the future workforce, and the perfect place for ReadyTalk and other tech companies ” said Tami Door, President and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership. “We are seeing many new technology start-ups in Downtown Denver, plus significant expansion of existing, thriving businesses. The technology eco system in our city center is evident. We value ReadyTalk’s presence in Downtown and look forward to working together as they grow.”

Still not sure why we want to stay in LoDo? Maybe this video will explain it: Downtown Denver Partnership’s video – Where Do You Want To Be?;

Making a Mark

Lots of progress has already been made in preparation for our April move, but the most noticeable is the addition of the ReadyTalk sign on the exterior of the building. With a crane and a man who clearly wasn’t afraid of heights, the sign was installed last week. Check out the video of the ReadyTalk chat bubble going up: Check out this video of the ReadyTalk Chat Bubble getting installed.

As the marketing communications and PR manager, Bo gets to wear many hats. When she isn’t tackling branding, messaging, social media and customer engagement, she enjoys skiing with her husband, running with her dog and watching Formula 1. You can find her on Twitter @bo_knows_.