Web Business Marketing Blog

With the launch of Adobe Connect Professional, webinars have become much easier. A few pointers why we are so enchanted by this solution:

1. Unique web addresses for meeting rooms that are always available: you can set up permanent addresses for a room to have weekly team meetings, weekly webinars, …
2. Easy access for users at a single click from a browser, without the need to install a plug-in (unless you’re a host or presenter). Installing such plug-ins is often a barrier for large organisations.
3. Excellent Voice-over-IP integration, which does not only avoid telephone dial-in, but also allows recording events. It gives speakers the comfort to narrate their presentation with a headphone.
4. A streamlined user interface, which makes all the difference for event organisers for managing professional events. Layouts are available for sharing information at events, discussing information during meetings or developing content through collaboration. If these layout do not suffice, it’s easy to add others.
5. Best of all, for meetings up to a 100 participants, Adobe Connect Professional comes with a relatively low-cost of ownership, compared to other enterprise webmeeting solutions. Beyond 100 participants, cost increases steeply.

While there are many ways to set-up and manage online events, here’s what’s working well for us in our webinar programme:

1. Weekly events at a fixed time slot (identified through a user survey).
2. Limit events to one hour (timeslot identified through user feedback). A few minutes introduction, followed by a main presentation of 30-40 minutes and 15-20 minutes of questions. Strictly time manage the event (punctual start, completion on time). Beware of time zones - we usually have participants across 10 to 15 timezones.
3. Limit sound to host and speakers. Participants can chat only (handling 100 sound cards & microphones online does not provide a good webinar experience).
4. A chat pod allows participants to introduce themselves at the start of the event.
5. A second chat pod allows users to submit questions.
6. Questions are addresses one at a time at the end of the presentation - never during the presentation.
7. Before the event, speakers are briefed on the use of the Adobe system and a protocol for the event is agreed.
8. After the event, we circulate slides, the link to a recording, an answer to a question not address. There are so many ways to keep users engaged, and gradually build a vertical community around the topic of the webinar.

Adobe Connect is almost the perfect webinar platform for us. But it misses an event manager - a system that allows registration, automatic reminder and follow-up messages. I’ll propose a solution for this in a follow-up post.

The attraction of webinars is their long tail. Conferences, symposiums or seminars peak at the event, and very little happens afterwards. But webinars remain available for viewing their recording 24/7, downloading slides or continuing discussion online through a message board. In the case of webinars, it is a small dog wagging a very big tail.

Why could webinars soon be gone (though we don’t think so)? Because of the ease of Adobe Connect and others, (too) many webinar programmes are starting, and we’re seeing fatigue effect. The no-show ratio in the case of webinars is already very high and increasing. The evolution is not unlike e-mail marketing. But just like e-mail marketing, after the peak and the dip, I expect webinars to solidly stand their ground in the new marketing communications mix.