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By using the right webinar solutions and deploying best practices one can reach much higher conversion rates and unleash the true power of interactive marketing. In this paper, we analyze the theory behind Attendee Action Threshold (A2T) and discuss practical methodologies to increase attendee responsiveness and, hence, the conversion rate in marketing webinars.

A2T

Any sound marketing project requires predefined goals. In a physical marketing seminar as an example, your goals may be to have 40% of attendants register for your newsletter and say 10% purchase your product or service at the event. Whether it is filling out a form or purchasing an item, it requires an action from the attendee. The higher the number of actions, the higher the probability of ending up with more sales at the end of the day. We define similar actions during webinars. The question is “what will it take to have an attendee take an action?” A number of factors, which we will analyze below, positively affect the attendee’s decision to act in front of his/her computer monitor without meeting you in person. A certain comport level must be reached for a person to willingly take a step. If you manage to reach or exceed that comport level or Attendee Action Threshold (A2T), there will be an action. Naturally the A2T is different for each individual and you will reach better results the more people you manage to persuade.

Although this approach seems evident, it is easy to overlook the steps necessary to reach the desired results. We often witness eloquent and experienced speakers, who attain great results during physical seminars, produce mediocre webinar conversions. They sometimes get disappointed and quit giving webinars instead of enhancing their web conferencing methodologies. If you build your online presentation with the A2T in mind and consistently take into account the factors discussed below, you will be able to create and replicate successful webinars with unexpectedly high conversion rates. I am often asked “What is a good conversion rate?” and the answer depends on the content, the price point, and many other factors. In thoughtfully built webinars with $400 to $1,000 range price points we have seen conversion rates as high as 45% and much higher for attendees registering for a free service.

A2T Components

In a physical seminar as well as in a web-based presentation similar factors impact the A2T. Below is the list of these factors with names adapted to a web-based environment:

• Content
  The presentation content evidently affects the credibility of the presentation. The core content although adapted for the web does not need to be any different in a webinar from the physical seminar.
• Look and Feel
  Just as you do not want to host your live seminar in an unattractive hotel or you do not wish to own a mediocre web-site, the environment in which you present your webinar reflects your company image and is influential on your attendees.
• Interactivity
  It is critical to make an engaging presentation in which attendees participate instead of simply watching and listening. Grabbing attendees’ attention and holding it during the entire presentation is a significant challenge especially in a virtual environment.
• Social Proof
  Social Proof is simply the theory that people’s behavioral patterns are highly influenced by the actions of the people or community around them. Robert Cialdini has written about Social Proof extensively in his influential book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. In the chapter on Social Proof, Cialdini suggests that “One means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct…We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.” In a webinar it is powerful to show attendees how many others are not only attending but also taking actions.
• Urgency
  It has been empirically proven that consumers are more likely to purchase at the time when they are exposed to time-sensitive offers. Therefore, the sense of urgency in marketing is to get your attendees to act as fast as possible during the webinar. You want them to feel that what they have seen is an offer they cannot pass up.

Webinar Tools for A2T

Although web conferencing platforms have evolved tremendously in the last few years, few provide the quality, ease of use and interactivity necessary to make high impact marketing presentations. I suggest you do your homework and choose the platform that will enable you to meet the A2T requirements. No matter how good the platform, you should learn how to use it well and how to leverage its tools. Some companies provide webinar services to assist you throughout the process of preparing a webinar, in addition to the technology. It may be worth using those services at least a few times until you master the practice. You should not choose the platform based on its cost but on your ROE (Return On Event), especially if you are delivering webinars for sales purposes.
We are going to review the six components of the A2T as presented above and discuss what type of tools in a web conferencing environment would allow you to achieve those goals. It goes without saying that adjustments to your practice, industry and habits are required.

Content

The content of your presentation does not vary a great deal whether it is for a seminar or a webinar. If we included the content delivery and the format into the definition of content, you would need to use a web conferencing system that enables:

• Animations in Microsoft PowerPoint presentations
• Playing movies
• White board
• Live video

It is often very effective to break the monotony of a presentation by switching to different formats instead of a long slide show presentation. You might want to:

• Start with a powerful movie about the product or about yourself to add more credibility from the very beginning
• Play other movies or video testimonials in the middle of your slide show
• Make a point by drawing on a white board
• Use a pointer on your slides
• Show your live video to connect more with your online attendees. There are now High Definition live video options that allow charismatic speakers and presenters to establish a more effective relationship with the viewers.

Incorporating rich media and visual aids into your presentations makes them more interesting and more fun.

Although sometimes necessary, I would advise you avoid the telephone whenever possible. The higher audio quality and its synchronization with other features (and video) in the virtual room justify using the integrated audio instead of teleconference bridges. This should also significantly reduce costs.

Look and Feel

Choose a platform that enables you to quickly customize your webinar rooms. You should see your webinar environment as an extension of your web site and bring as much cosmetic attention to it as you do for your web site. Have your graphic designer work with the webinar provider and create a space that reflects the values of your company. Customization does not stop at placing a company logo. You should:

• Create a color theme or skin for the entire platform that conforms to your web site
• Ensure the registration and/or login page(s) are consistent with your visual identity
• Make sure the platform preserves the quality of your slide shows, movies and delivers high quality live video that does not distort the face of your presenters
• Focus on attendee experience. You want to give a “wow” effect before even starting the presentation. How easy is it to access the webinar? How pleasant is their experience? Have you eliminated any frustrating elements that could affect the attendee’s mood and hence negatively impact the outcome of the presentation?

In the early days of the Internet, companies rushed to build web sites and only later started to analyze visitors’ behavior and experience, which led to the web 2.0 wave. Get ahead of your competition by producing professional and pleasant webinars instead of just doing a web-based slide show plus audio.

Interactivity

Although the webinar medium is the perfect interactive tool, many do not take advantage of the interactivity and deliver one-way monotonous and often boring presentations. Your event instantly becomes more effective if you manage to have your attendees become participants instead. It is possible (and easy) to offer an interactive session while still controlling the flow and not losing control over your event. It is recognized that you need to have attendees in a live seminar take an action every seven minutes if you wish to grab and hold their attention. Action may include raising hands, answering questions, taking notes, repeating a phrase after you etc. In a web based environment you are competing with so many distractions you do not have in a live seminar room. From checking emails and online chatting, to YouTube movies and kids playing in the background, you face major obstacles. It is a huge mistake to deliver a 60-minute slide show with voice over as your presentation.

Here are some of the tools you can use to make your event more engaging:

• At registration time, add a relevant custom question to the list. By doing so, you show them you care about their input and gather useful information you can use during the live presentation.
• Before the start of the actual presentation, let people chat with each-other or ask casual questions as you want to create a friendly environment.
• During the session ask people to comment or ask questions via chat and make sure you answer most questions. Bringing them the answers allow them to make an educated decision and brings them closer to taking an action.
• Take frequent polls (not just one or two) and depending on the question, share the results with the attendees.
• Ask attendees to download a brochure or other collaterals right into their computers.
• In certain cases you might want to ask them to play a game within the platform. Certain web conferencing systems allow you to start quiz games, for instance.
• Have more than one presenter or speaker intervene. The reason why they involve multiple presenters or commentators on TV is that viewers like witnessing dialogs instead of monologs.
• If your systems allows, take attendees to a web page (probably towards the end of your pitch) where they can take an action such as registering for a service or purchasing a product. Some web conference platforms also incorporate shopping-carts or Home-Shopping-Network-like modules.
• When you end the webinar, take attendees to a survey page.

I do not encourage allowing people to ask questions verbally on the phone or via their computers since it is very difficult to manage a large crowd and can add unexpected echoes or background noises.

Interactivity is probably the most critical component in your quest for A2T.

Social Proof

There are a few different ways to communicate to your viewers the fact that they are not the only ones participating in your webinar and have them take an action since others are doing it. You can:

• Show them the list of attendees or at least past attendees.
• Show them a map with locations of participants as enabled in some web conferencing systems
• Show them intense participation by means of interactive chat
• Display a shopping cart with number of products sold
• Play testimonial movies or for even more effectiveness have a past customer chat or talk live and relate his/her experience

Mastering the art of social proof can help you start a snow-ball effect. Remember we are referring here to real-time social proof, which is inherently more powerful than some testimonials posted on your web site.

Urgency

Leveraging one more time the real-time factor, urgency as demonstrated by numerous studies can be extremely effective. You can present time-sensitive offers during the webinar. You may show a count-down timer and set a discount or special offer for a limited time only.

Urgency and Social Proof are particularly effective in a real-time environment.

Mastering the art of producing effective marketing webinars will give you a definite edge over competition. By employing advanced recasting solutions you can also repurpose your webinars and monetize them without having to recreate them every time. The right balance of technology, people and processes will enable you to create successful webinars in a consistent fashion. Try to choose the right technology and apply some of the suggestions above for your next webinar.

It might also be a good idea to hire webinar consultants or request it from your webinar service provider at least for a few webinar sessions.

About Shawn Shadfar, founder and Chief Executive Officer of omNovia Technologies

Shawn Shadfar is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of omNovia Technologies, a software company providing state-of-the-art webinar and live event webcasting technology and services with worldwide clients. He is an industry expert and has authored numerous papers on the business application of web conferencing solutions. Prior to omNovia, Mr. Shadfar co-founded the Information Security group at Schlumberger. He holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from Supelec – Paris and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech – Atlanta.

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In this document we will overview various security risks, particularly in the web conferencing space, as well as omNovia responses to potential threats.

General Overview

omNovia Technologies offers a complex web conferencing service that is much more than a simple software application running on a computer. Providing omNovia Web Conference as a SaaS (Software as a Service) entails a large number of modules and processes that form the system. Securing every link of the chain is the challenge to overcome since the entire system is only as secure as its weakest link. As a general rule, security encompasses three critical components:

• Technology
• Processes
• People

Creating the most locked-down software with 1024-bit encryption would not make it any more secure if the providers’ employees were not trained to protect customers’ passwords. Defining adequate processes is also critical. Imagine customers’ documents such as Microsoft PowerPoint files were to be copied from one server to another. Implementing a procedure that ensures these files follow a path that will never expose them to prying eyes during the transfer is as important as requiring strong password authentication to access conference rooms.

omNovia Technologies enforces a variety of strict rules when it comes to processes and has implemented a comprehensive testing and monitoring methodology to ensure their effectiveness.

A number of features have been built into the omNovia Web Conference platform since its inception to provide full protection for omNovia customers and their end-users.

Authentication and Authorization

One of the most important factors is securing access to web conference rooms. omNovia offers different levels of password protection to meet different business-related requirements. As an example, a sales and marketing webinar for which you would like to have as many viewers as possible would not require the same level of access restriction as a closed meeting between C level executives of a public company.

You can set group passwords, individual passwords as well as temporary passwords for specific events. SSL encryption ensures passwords are never sent in clear through the network.

Beyond password protection, omNovia provides strong two or three-factor authentication capabilities. Access may be controlled by verifying digital certificates (holding employees’ digital ID including public and private keys) stored on a physical smart card and/or by validating biometric credentials such as fingerprint or retina scan.

One of the most practical features also provides a more secure environment and reduces the risk of external intrusions: SSO or Single Sign On is an API (Application Programming Interface) that allows full integration of the omNovia Web Conference with your web based members page or with your internal LDAP or Active Directory. By implementing SSO, your attendees would login to your members area (or internal portal) using their usual username and password, then click a button to access your conference room without having to remember yet another password. It provides easier access for your attendees while simplifying user management on your side. Studies show that lower number of passwords to remember inherently leads to more security as users will not expose their passwords in emails, files or even post-it notes. On the other hand, a terminated employee for instance, would no longer be able to enter your conference rooms as soon as you cut his/her access to your members/employee portal. More information on the SSO API is available at http://support.omnovia.com/kb/141.

Faithful to the “Technology, Process, People” methodology, we have also put in place strict rules for our employees not to provide any passwords online or on the phone. In fact, omNovia employees do not see any passwords in clear as they are encrypted in our databases. This brings us to database protection.

Database Security

There are two different angles to consider when it comes to database protection: data stealing and data loss.

Protection against hackers trying to compromise databases is a serious threat against which omNovia employs the latest techniques to prevent unwanted access. Additionally, omNovia uses data encryption for sensitive information and never stores end-users credit card information.

Data loss can result not only from malicious attacks, but from inadequate processes in the software or from human error. omNovia uses advanced, secure and frequent backups to ensure the integrity of customer data.

Communication Security

Eavesdropping on web conference sessions by listening to the audio, reading chat messages or viewing the live or recorded media can be considered as fundamental threats to any web conference session. Although direct access to a room might be protected, there may be ways to eavesdrop on the network without being actually inside the virtual room. omNovia employs 128-bit SSL encryption for secure rooms in all client-to-server or server-to-server communications including but not limited to chat, voice, video, application sharing, PowerPoint content and file sharing.

Server Security

If communication channels were protected without restricting access to voice and content servers, we would only be shifting the weak link. omNovia servers are hosted worldwide in environments with the ultimate physical and logical security. Three levels of personnel identification are required for an engineer to access the physical boxes while strong 2-factor authentication is mandatory to access our servers online. In addition, omNovia infrastructure engineers and staff are also screened for any past criminal records.

For customers requiring an extra level of security, dedicated servers are used for heightened security and performance.

Server redundancies in various regions as well as mechanisms to move live conference rooms from one server to another provides business-continuity in case of severe server problems. For example, during Hurricane Ike in 2008 that severely damaged Houston (Texas), our customers using Houston servers were transparently moved to servers in other states and did not experience even one minute of service disruption.

Privacy Protection

Last but not least, special attention is brought to our customers’ privacy protection on an ongoing basis. omNovia does not resell or expose our customers’ or their end-users’ information and we also engage in building a “Chinese Wall” security policy, which ensures information from one customer is never shared with other customers.

Conclusion

While we have taken extra measures to ensure the highest level of protection for our customers, we understand that security is an ongoing endeavor and requires daily efforts to maintain and enhance the protection level. omNovia Technologies has made a choice to focus on high quality and custom web conferencing. This means that we will work closely with our customers to adapt our solutions to their needs and further develop or customize them to meet their most stringent requirements.

About Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Shawn Shadfar

Shawn Shadfar is the founder and C.E.O of omNovia Technologies. Mr. Shadfar was a member of the engineering team that invented the first java-based smart card in 1997 and later co-founded the Information Security group at Schlumberger. His group provided a smart card based digital ID solution to the U.S Department of Defense, the NASA, Chevron, ExxonMobil and other Fortune 500 firms. He has published many articles and has spoken at numerous events in the Information Security industry. Mr. Shadfar holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech in Atlanta as well as a Master of Science in Computer Science from Supelec, Paris.

omNovia is particularly powerful for sales and marketing webinars. In addition to offering a 100% web based easy to access and use platform, capable of hosting thousands of participants with high quality image and sound, omNovia offers you a number of interactive tools to optimize your presentation and significantly increase your conversion rate. Our customers have experienced conversion rates of over 30% by leveraging the following techniques!

The success of a marketing webinar depends on three factors: the quality of its content, the quality of its rich-media delivery and its level of interactivity. The only area where omNovia cannot help you is the content of your presentation!

Use the omNovia Event Registration

The integrated “Event Manager” in “My Account” offers an intuitive solution to create and promote your online events. By inviting your prospects to register for your event and answer custom questions, you can:

• Have complete reporting on registrants and participants
• Schedule automated email and Twitter reminders
• Increase participation

Display an in-room marketing banner

omNovia’s room layout and functionality is fully customizable. In the “Room Settings” section of your “Admin Page”, you can set top or side marketing banners for your room. Clicking these banners opens a separate web browser that takes attendees to a web site of your choice. During the webinar, the presenter(s) can refer to these banners and ask participants to click them to sign up for a service or purchase a product.

Play a background music or display a custom message

As attendees enter the room, you want to create a welcoming and comfortable atmosphere. Think of your omNovia room as a physical social environment, such as a hotel ballroom, where your prospects can become future customers. The customizable background music, with or without the eCurtain, can be used to play music or a looping prerecorded message.

Show the World Map

By leveraging the World Map tool, you can show all the participants a live map that displays the location of everyone who is in the webinar. You can zoom in to focus on a specific country or region. This unique feature demonstrates to attendees not only that they are not alone, but also that there is a great level of interest and demand for your event.

Show live video of presenter(s)

To personalize your presentation, we suggest having your presenter(s) greet your participants using the room’s live video module. After the initial introduction, you can switch off your webcam if you want your participants to focus on your slide show or other material.

Show marketing videos

With the omNovia Video Player, you can show movies of any length or instantly access millions of publicly available YouTube videos. Think of your webinar as a TV Show! Some omNovia customers start their presentation with a short commercial, funny introduction or even a testimonial. The rich-media capabilities in your room can help increase your viewers’ interest and remove boredom or other effects caused by lengthy and monotonous presentations.

Conduct Live Instant Polls/Surveys

Interactivity is an essential component of a successful webinar. Your attendees can get distracted or bored no matter how great your presentation content. You need to ask questions and engage them in your “show.” A useful tool is the Instant Poll. You should create your questions and answers ahead of time (although you may also type them “on the fly”) and run a few surveys during your live presentation. The poll results are available in the room reports.

Use clickable links in your Slide Show

The Slide Show module in your room can show Microsoft PowerPoint presentations with animations, transitions and hyperlinks. To prompt action from your audience, you can have a large link on your last slide inviting attendees to click and go sign-up for a service or purchase a product. Insert this link into your slide using the hyperlink function of PowerPoint before you upload the presentation to the Slide Show module.

Display Room Announcements

Another way to call for an action during your webinar is to post messages as Announcements. Unlike general chat messages that scroll up as new messages are added, the Announcement module enables you to post a colored message, or clickable link, on top of the chat.

Leverage Documents Folder

Would you like your attendees to download your brochures or testimonials? The Documents Folder (located on the right side of your room) allows you to upload any type of file(s) or link(s) and make them available for attendees to access at any time.

Use the in-room Timer

Marketing studies show that giving a sense of urgency can be particularly effective in getting prospects to take an action. The Timer function in your room lets you display a count-down timer. As an example, you may place a temporary discount of 30% on your product if purchased in the “next 10 minutes.” The Timer will display for everyone how much time remains until the end of the special offer.

Use the Cobrowser module

The omNovia Cobrowser takes your attendees to any web page where they can individually interact and take actions. As an example, during your webinar you can take your attendees to a sign-up page and have each attendee fill out the form while you answer their questions.

Place a relevant end-room URL

Finally, when you end the room, you can navigate your viewers’ browser to any web page. This page could be the “ordering” site and may encourage participants one last time to take a step. You can set this parameter in the Room Settings section of your Admin Page.

The features and characteristics you need in a web conferencing system naturally depend on the purpose of your presentations. Offering a weekly sales webinar has different requirements from conducting 6-hour online trainings on a daily basis. However, there are requirements that are common to most usages of web conferencing as businesses increasingly use this powerful online tool for new applications. On this page, we discuss the 10 most important features and how they can benefit your business based on our experience with omNovia customers.

No 10: Controllable Document Sharing

You should be able to allow your attendees to download files such as brochures, agendas, presentations and such within the web conference interface without having to email them. Shared Folders provide this function. There may be times that you would need to mark a document as private so that only selected moderators or presenters can access those files.

No 9: Configurable Chat

Although all web conferencing platforms offer some type of chat (ability for attendees to type messages), many lack some important features that can enhance your online meeting experience. You may want to have the option to privatize the chat so that attendees cannot read each-others’ messages. You may also need a configurable and controllable Private Chat function between attendees. Ability to create a moderator, the person who is in charge of selecting the questions to pass to the presenter, can be very useful particularly in large presentations. And finally, having the ability to make major announcements is also a plus as it helps your important messages not get diluted among the many messages that scroll up.

No 8: Powerful Slide Show

Although you can use the application or desktop sharing function available in most systems, it is preferable to use a Slide Show function of web conferencing platforms to show Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. There are three reasons behind this:

Your viewers may not have the same screen resolution as you do and they may get scroll bars on presentations if you show your desktop

Fast animations may not be seen properly through desktop sharing

When running a PowerPoint show, it covers your entire screen (although this is configurable) and would not allow you to see participants’ messages and questions

You need a Slide Show module within a web conferencing platform that supports both PowerPoint 2003 and 2007. You also need to make sure it does support all or most animations. The majority of web conference slide show functions do not do a good job at supporting animations. Another important feature is the ability to annotate your slides live.

No 7: Flexible Recording

The ability to record and archive a presentation is critical. Most systems produce either very large file movies or low quality ones. You need to ensure the recording function provides a compromise between quality and file size so that your viewers don’t need to download Gigs of data to see a 30-min movie. Another important factor is the ease of accessing the movies. The advantage of having the archive in Flash format is that they can be accessed from any browser on PC or Mac without any software installs. In addition to traditional recording methods, omNovia provides a unique Recast technology that does not produce any large movie files. The conference room “remembers” every step of the presentation (including audio and video) and at the time of replay rnoeproduces the event exactly the way it happened live in an interactive environment. This means that during the replay time, the viewers can access shared files and take polls, for instance, as if it was live.

No 6: Full Reporting

The back-end administration of web conferencing platform is also very important. You should be able to access reports on attendance, archive views, typed messages… as soon as an event ends. You should also be able to export reports in Microsoft Excel format and/or use APIs to download them automatically and interface with your CRM systems.

No 5: Ease of Customization

Our advice is to seek a system that can be easily integrated to your website and be customizable in terms of look and feel as well as functionality. Integration to your site does not only mean a link from your site. It should mean the ability to have attendees access the conference room with a click from your Members Area. This would make user-management easy for you but also offers a better experience for your customers.

No 4: Integrated Voice

With the advanced VOIP (Voice over IP) technologies available today, you should demand the system have a fully integrated voice system. This means that your attendees would simply listen through their computers without using the phone or any other device. A bridge to outside telephone lines, however, offers more flexibility. You might have attendees or presenters not always able to use the audio on their computers. Most systems however lack the high quality voice that you need in web conferencing.

No 3: Versatile Desktop Sharing

When it comes to sharing your desktop or a particular application, three factors are critical: 1. Image transmission should be fast 2. It should go through most firewalls. 3. It should not use too much CPU (your computer’s calculating power). Advanced systems optimize image transmission speed and reduce required bandwidth by only sending the areas of the screen that change.

No 2: No software installs

One of the most important factors is the ease of access and use. No matter what type of webinar or online presentation you want to carry out, you need to make sure your attendees can access your conference room in simple steps. Having a browser based system that truly does not require any software installs is important. Many systems claim being web-based but require installing a large Activex or run on Java (which is not present on a significant portion of computers) that defeat the purpose of being browser based. Systems such as the omNovia Web Conference run on Flash which is already present on over 98.5% of computers worldwide. In addition to making the access easy the first time, no software installs means it that there will not be necessary to make any software upgrades which makes system maintenance convenient.

No 1: Reliability

If the key word in real-estate is Location, Reliability applies to web conferencing. No matter how good the features, the up-time of the system and its ability to automatically correct problems will determine your success during your webinars. The majority of web conferencing platforms (especially some of the recently developed low-cost systems) provide a “good-enough” platform that works 97% of the time. But web conferencing when used for business critical applications is similar to electricity. It is “not good enough” to have 3% of the time technical problems. It has to work all the time. Many systems allocate 1 server to 10,000+ users to reduce their costs. Reliable systems cost a little more but provide servers with less users, high availability and more importantly the ability to instantly and seamlessly switch to another server or servers in case of technical trouble.

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