Mark Szelenyi
If you’ve used online meeting tools before, you know they offer a basic level of functionality that gets the job done. But just barely. Here at ON24, we’ve got a new video that builds on our tradition of making entertaining business-related comedy, such as “This Is How You Webinar” starring DJ Dave.
As our new video points out, in rather Goofus and Gallant style, online meeting tools can be pretty dull and face a number of limitations. Meeting and conferencing tools are built for…meetings and conferences. They’re the wrong tool for the job. Webinars created with meeting tools are less reliable and less accessible and provide minimal audience analytics. They also make users download software, have limited scale and reach, and offer little to no branding or marketing capabilities within the registration materials or meeting console.
So we’re challenging marketers to look at webinar tools as a way to address the limitations of traditional web meeting products. If you’re stuck with an old-school web meeting platform, you should consider the benefits you’ll receive when switching to a “real” webinar solution, including:
• Easy access to events for the audience – With no software to download and true any-device (PC, laptop, tablet, mobile) access, using a webinar platform means that your audiences can get to your content quickly and easily. You won’t lose them for reasons of inconvenience.
• Full branding capabilities – The audience console for web meetings is a total snoozer. With webinars, you can brand the entire audience experience, from outbound marketing and registration materials to landing pages, the webinar console and even follow-up emails, with your company’s colors and logo.
• Interactive capabilities, including video and social – With the ability to seamlessly integrate video, as well as chat, polling, social sharing tools and other interactive features, real webinar platforms offer much more in terms of the interactivity that will get attendees engaged and keep them with you for the duration of your event.
• Integration, reporting and analytics – A purpose-built webinar platform can easily send leads directly into integrated marketing automation and CRM platforms, where they can be analyzed, scored and moved quickly into the sales funnel. In addition, webinar platforms provide data that reflects audience behavior and engagement, enabling marketers to know more about their audience and fine-tune strategy and content.
• Performance – Web meeting platforms limit your audience size and often have problems with audio and video quality. With a true webinar platform, audiences ranging from just a few viewers to thousands can be easily accommodated via scalable, cloud-based technology.
The above are the “whys” to switching from a web conferencing tool to a webinar platform – and the “how” is incredibly easy.
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