Effective promotion can make or break your webinar. In a world where webinars are becoming an increasingly popular marketing vehicle, audiences are being bombarded with email invitations. These invites may get caught in spam filters, deleted out of habit or simply lost in the shuffle of an already-overflowing inbox. To drive registrants (and leads), you’ve got to think outside the box.

Social media offers a whole new frontier for webinar promotion. Sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn provide an easy and budget-friendly way to get the word out about your upcoming live event or even your on-demand recording.

If you haven’t already started using social media to market your webinars, here are a few places to begin:

1. Blog about the topic of your upcoming event and point to the registration page.
2. Tweet, tweet, and tweet again about your event. Because Twitter posts are fleeting, you need repetition to get the message out.
3. Post webinar details and a registration link on your organization’s Facebook page.
4. Create LinkedIn groups that will attract members who are interested in your topic, then promote appropriate webinars to them.
5. Tap into the social networks of your speakers by asking them to blog, tweet, post, etc. about the event.
6. Create a Twitter hashtag for your event and include it in email invites, reminders, etc. to engage your audience before, during and after the webinar.
7. Expand the life span of your content by embedding the conference recording on your blog and on Facebook and promoting it on Twitter.

ReadyTalk is about to launch some cool new tools that automate social media promotion for webinars. With a few clicks of the mouse, you can post details about a scheduled web conference to Facebook or tweet them to your followers on Twitter. You can also quickly embed the webinar recording on Facebook and promote it on Twitter. Get a sneak peek at these features and lots of other enhancements in Web Meeting 6 Preview.

Interested in hearing more on social media promotion plus tips for webinar planning? Join webinar marketing experts Alli Libb of the American Marketing Association, Jessica Walker from Gallup and Paul Barron from Networld Alliance on Tuesday March 23rd at 2:30pm Eastern. Register today for this can’t-miss event!

Now, it’s your turn. Share how you currently market (or want to market) your webinars through social media so we can figure out which social media features to build next …

Find out what your audience is thinking

Unlike a physical meeting, you can’t read the body language of your participants during a web event. You need to pay attention to the little things, like the breathing (or snoring) on the other end to gauge your audience’s interest. Better yet you can ensure your audience is engaged early by using the interactive features you have available within your web conferencing service – Q&A, chat, and polling. Polling your audience is especially helpful as it can help you tailor your presentation to their needs, provide a way for them to interact during the event, and gather information that will help you with lead qualification. During training sessions you can also check their understanding and re-direct your presentation if your audience isn’t clear on something.

Best practices to follow

ReadyTalk is preparing to launch its new service, Web Meeting 6, which features robust polling functionality (you can try it out in our preview environment, see more below) so I thought I’d share a few tips I’ve learned. I checked in with Ken Molay, President of Webinar Success recently to get some of his recommendations as we’ve been building out our new service:

• When polling your audience, plan to incorporate at least 2-3 polls throughout an hour-long webinar – not closer than 10 minutes apart.
• When developing your questions, start with your overall goal in mind then create your polls; make sure this is done prior to the meeting – if you’re creating your polls during the meeting you are not paying attention to your audience.
• Make each question simple and direct – avoid using jargon and acronyms.
• Be careful of too much “dead air” while gathering results.
• Participants generally like to see results so be sure to follow up with a discussion about what the results mean or why your audience should care.

Types of questions

In Web Meeting 6, we will support six different question/response types:

• Yes/No
• Free text – use this choice when you don’t know all the possible answers
• Multiple choice with single answer and multiple choice with multiple answers– use when there are a finite number of answers
• Ranking poll – to rate things in relation to other things
• Opinion polls – to assess a person’s feelings about something

Creating a poll is simple using ReadyTalk’s polling tool; press a button and you can create a poll, save it and insert it as a slide. Polls are persistent so if you use the same one often it will be there when you need it. And if you need it to show up later during your presentation, simply drag and drop to reorder your slides.

Polls versus surveys

Is there a difference between polls and surveys? Sure is. Polls are quick, flexible questions – often served one at a time; surveys are longer, more complex, and sometimes probing. Use polls during your event (don’t forget to share your results) and surveys at the end.

Check out our polling feature

If you’re an existing ReadyTalk customer, you can try out our polling feature using your current account information at http://www.readytalk.com/preview. If you don’t have an account, sign up for a free trial and you’ll get exclusive access to our Preview environment.

In the next few months the ReadyTalk Webinar Series will offer a three-part series on planning, meeting and sharing your web event. The second in the series will focus exclusively on engaging your audience during a meeting or event using polling and other similar strategies. Registered participants will receive a white paper outlining best practices so watch for more information coming soon.

Meanwhile, try out our new functionality and let me know what you think. I’d also be interested in hearing how you use polls to engage your audience.

That represents 5.3% of their active advertiser base, which is about 570,000 advertisers strong. Despite that loss, their overall revenues were up 13% from Q3 to Q4 of last year, according to a new report released by AdGooroo.

The 4th quarter is typically strong because of the holiday shopping season, as gains from brick and mortar, plus “click and mortar” stores, more than offset the spammers that were banned.  The report noted that overall search volumes between November and December didn’t increase—thus, Google’s increased revenue came from more advertisers competing for those searches. Google now shows an average of 5.48 ads per search.  We don’t know the increase in average CPC, but we can assume it’s significant, given that revenue is up 13% in spite of banning folks. Note that a good chunk of those search results have zero search results, plus have map results showing.

In the last few months, we’ve seen a shift in online advertising, as local businesses are starting to not only get online with websites, but also begin advertising, whether doing it themselves or getting help from a local agency.

It’s no surprise that local advertisers can pay more—they are hyper-targeting customers in their neighborhood, as opposed to trying to compete nationwide.  If you’re Google, would you rather collect 50 cents per click from an advertiser promising miracle weight loss from their products or $5 a click from a local liposuction doctor who can actually deliver results?  Google is now financially rewarded for doing the right thing.  Spammers are driven out of the system by sheer economics, not just because of policy enforcements.

Consider this pest control company, paying $2 to $3 per click instead of a spammy 20 cents—and while they’re ridding homes of termites, ants, and roaches—they are also ridding the Internet of the other kinds of digital pests. Do you find that deliciously ironic?

We believe this local trend will become even stronger, as small businesses are learning how to build killer landing pages and optimize traffic. This increased conversion rate allows them to bid more for each click. The increase in the number of advertisers, whether directly or through agencies, demonstrates the enormous opportunity for you to get your small business online and with advertising from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other engines.

If you’re not already advertising online or perhaps need a bit of help optimizing your campaigns to their potential, bookmark the ReadyTalk blog or check out one of the many free webinars that are available here on the site.

This is a guest post by Dennis Yu , CEO of BlitzLocal, a company specializing in helping local service firms get found on Google

Remember the old days of training?

It seems like a lifetime ago when my role as a training manager was to “get butts in chairs”, as my boss would tell me. It was that simple. Fill the chairs with people and get the training session under way. Filling the chairs used to be easy! People would come from all over the U.S. to attend training programs….it’s not the same anymore. As all businesses and all industries are doing more with less, we find ourselves looking for ways to get the work done at a fraction of the cost. Efficiency is the name of the game now.

If you find yourself needing to train employees who are located across the country or needing to communicate information quickly and consistently, consider using audio and web conferencing technology. You’ll save thousands of dollars! Many people think of this technology to be used just for conference calls or to share slides in a presentation. Yes, it can be used for that, however, audio and web conferencing technology can offer great benefits to your organization. Consider adding webinars to your communication and training mix and watch your return on investment (ROI) grow.

Back to training; modern-day training scenario. Save thousands of dollars by avoiding the costly venue prices, food, beverage, service charges, transportation and airfare. When using conferencing technology to train a group of people, it’s important to apply the same techniques as when training in person. Here are some tips and things to consider to help you get started:

1. The invitation needs to wet the appetite of your audience. Add your logo, a speaker bio and speaker photo to the electronic invitation. Having a customizable invitation is a must when sparking the interest of a participant, regardless if they are employees, colleagues or prospects.
2. Clearly state the WIFFM – What’s In It For Me. The invitation content should focus on the benefit the participant will receive by attending your training program.
3. Make it easy to reply and accept your invitation. With unique registration links built into your invitation, your audience can confirm their seat with simple clicks of the mouse. Having a built-in calendar plug-in (such as Outlook) available, upon a participant registering, will increase your attendance rate. Again, make it easy to say “yes – I’ll be there!” and help them to show up with the option of a calendar plug-in.
4. Customize the registration data you want to collect. Traditionally, asking for name, company and contact information has been the expected information needed when registering for any training program. Consider asking for more strategic information to help you gauge your audience’s interests, such as what they want to get out of the program, future topics of interest, other programs they have attended recently, etc. If you want to know what is of value to your audience – now is the time to ask them. It’s important to keep the registration brief to avoid attrition, so focus on the 2 most important pieces of information you’d like to gather.
5. Registration confirmation. Once someone raises their hand and registers to attend your event, send them a confirmation email and any pre-session materials they might need, by way of attachments. Automated registration confirmations can be set up to trigger at the moment a participant confirms attendance or is approved to attend. What a time saver! Set this up once and this time-saving tool will communicate on your behalf as people sign up for your program.
6. Reminder emails. A simple step, yet, a critical one. With so much going on each day, we all forget about commitments we’ve made. Set up an automated email to remind invitees of your upcoming webinar.
7. Customize the post-meeting survey for feedback on the program and another opportunity to ask your audience what is important to them. Again, keep it short and simple for best results.
8. Create a post-meeting web page with additional resources and/or the recording of the training program. This is a great way to communicate with those who may have missed the original session, yet tried to access the program at a later date. Your messaging can continue long after the event has taken place.
9. Recording your training event is an ideal (and low-cost) way to capture the content and make it available over and over again. Recorded content can be shared via email, social media, web sites, electronic newsletters or CD. Maximize your training efforts by recording and re-purposing the content. It’s a cost-effective and versatile way to get the biggest bang for the buck.
10. How many people will you be training? Do you want to facilitate the event yourself or would you prefer an operator to assist with the event. Would you prefer your audience listen to your presentation by phone or over their computer? Either way, you can achieve profitable results.

If you need help, just call on our ReadyTalk team of experts, who can answer any questions you may have and help you get started. Chat live (on the left-hand navigation) or call 1.800.843.9166. For more helpful “how to” documents and recordings, including a free best practice whitepaper on Training Successfully with Webinars, visit the ReadyTalk Resource Center.

I’m switching it up this month in honor of the impending, or rather already bustling Holiday madness, and sending out a bit of Yuletide humor. Please feel free to sing out loud to the tune of Silent Night. You’ll likely get so caught up in the festiveness of the song, your co-workers may start to sing along. See – the rhyming has already begun.

From the ReadyTalk Crew to You!

Silent night, late work night
All is calm now, I just might
Wrap it up at the office for now
These to-do’s seem fairly mild
I’ll sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

(…two hours later)
What a night, crazy night!
I start to quake at the sight
These papers are slowly piling up,
I need a larger coffee cup!
My Outlook box is cursed
Outlook is certainly cursed!

(…three hours later)
Infinite night, eternal night!
Son of a gun, is that morning light?!
Eyes are bulging out of my face
A shot of RedBull – my redeeming grace
I should have just walked away
Put that dang laptop away!

8 hours, 12 hours, 24…a blur
How in the world did this mayhem occur??
I must not check inbox ‘one last time’,
I must get some rest, I’m starting to rhyme!
Closing and shutting down
Just have to write one last thing down…