Video conferencing software systems have long been used by many marketing experts to run webinars that helps them boost their sales. Yes, webinars are great for marketing. They often bring in a lot of instant sales – directly after the webinars.
The Pain Of Running A Webinar With Old School Video Conferencing Software
Despite the success of many who have used online seminars as part of their marketing strategy, only a few have really been able to utilize it. The reason for this is simply:
- High Monthly Video Conferencing System Subscription Costs.
The costs of subscribing to most web conferencing system is too high. It is really difficult for many businesses to justify the monthly subscription costs. Many are just not certain that they can regularly run a webinar. As such, the high monthly price point deters them from using these live streaming events as part of their marketing strategy. - Limited Number of Webinar Participants
Most of the traditional systems limit the number of participants during the live presentations. You can normally do a presentation to a maximum of 100 (or less) participants. Considering that you are paying a high subscription rate, many don’t feel that they are getting the most out of their investment into these systems. - Lack of Social Media Integration To Boost Marketing
Most of the systems were built in times when social media was not dominant. As such, they lack tight integration with many social media features. This makes it difficult for marketers to tap on the power of social media to promote their events. - Need Technical Conference Software Knowledge
Traditional conferencing systems require a high level of technical know how to set up. There are apps to install for both, the presenter and also participants. Thus, making running a simple presentation a tedious job for many. - Hassle of Making a Live Recording and Playback
One of the most frequently asked question during a webinar is “Is the event recorded and will there be a replay?”. Many of the current systems require that an additional app or module is installed and configured to enable the recording of an event. After which, the recording will have to be uploaded into a different location to be made available to the participants. More technical knowledge is required.
Yes, those are some of the pain of using many of the traditional web conferencing system. However, that was then.
The Webinar System Of Today and Beyond
Today, new web conferencing systems are available that addresses the many pain points mentioned above.
Both these systems utilize the awesome Google Hangouts infrastructure as the backend video conferencing service. If you don’t already know, Google Hangouts is a service that combines Google+ and YouTube together. Combined, the two creates a very powerful video interaction system.
Web Conference Front End Pages
While Google Hangout takes care of the video conferencing aspect of your webinar, both Webinarjam and Hangout plugin takes care of the marketing aspects of your conference events. Both these systems allows you to easily create the registration, promotions, announcements and followups for your events.
Here is what a Webinarjam Registration page can look like.
This is how your registration page look like with Hangout Plugin.
As you can see, both systems allow you to design a professional looking registration and other related pages.
Post Conference Registration Followups
Webinarjam and Hangout Plugin also integrates well with many autoresponder systems such as Aweber, Getresponse, Mailchimp and many more. Thus, you can use your favorite autoresponder to create followup reminders and marketing emails to the registrants.
If you don’t use an autoresponder system, then you can just use the built-in follow up system provided with the system. This allows you to automatically send a welcome and reminder emails to your registrants.
Once you have configured all the necessary pages, reminders and followups, you are then ready to promote your event. You do this by promoting your registration page on the various social media platforms and your mailing list. Basically just do what you would normally do in terms of promoting a landing page.
Initiate Hangout From Within Your WP Dashboard
When it’s time to start the event, you’d just have to login into your WordPress domain, start the Hangout and set it to live.
Why Webinars?
No matter what niche your business is in, webinars can be a fantastic way to drive massive buyers and income. unlike an eBook or an email, with webinars, you are speaking directly to your potential customers. You already have their trust as they are already listening to what you are saying in the webinar. As such, your conversion rate may also see a spike during these events.
Google Hangout is the future of online seminar or web conference. It allows you to run a private online meeting with up to 9 participants. It also allows you to run a full fledged seminar on the Internet to unlimited audience. The hangout is also automatically recorded and it is immediately stored as your own YouTube video which you can share to the public if you want to.
Benefits of Google Hangouts
Earlier we outlined some of the pain points of running the old tradisional web conferencing sofware. Now lets take a look at how Google Hangout address them with these:
1. Google Hangout is Free.
You are not charged a single cent if you want to use Google Hangout. It runs on Google+ and YouTube. It sure is difficult to beat a free service!
2. Unlimited Attendees.
Your webinar can have unlimited number of attendees. As it is, Google’s Google+ and Youtube platform is already handling millions of users. Thus, they have no problem to support any number of Hangout users.
3. Social Media is Built In.
Social Media is not just integrated into the Google System. It is built on top of a social media platform called Google Plus.
4. You Don’t Have to be a Techie.
You don’t need any technical knowledge to start a Hangout. With systems like Webinarjam and Hangout Plugin taking care of the front end side, you are just a few clicks away from running a successful webinar.
5. Recorded and Stored in YouTube.
Recordings and playback is not an issue as everything is stored in YouTube.
Businesses of today should look into running webinars regularly to boost sales. Webinarjam and Hangout Plugin is definitely worth to be looked at.