Most businesses today are using online conferencing in some capacity to hold meetings, bridge connections between colleagues and clients, hire remote workers, and even consult with outside contractors. What many businesses still don’t realize, however, is that their software can be used for more than just small scale conferences or meetings. It is possible to hold large meetings with hundreds or even thousands of people simultaneously from around the world using the same software you use for meetings every day. These are just some of the things you can do with it and the benefits it can have for your business:
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Sales Seminar
Most businesses have realized that direct sales techniques and traditional marketing methods such as television and print ads don’t work any longer. According to an article in Masuga from a former advertising copywriter, these methods didn’t even return an investment when they were the norm. Companies today need to come up with creative ideas to keep their product moving and sales up, but this presents a whole new set of problems for companies who are used to doing things a certain way. It can be difficult and expensive for sales people to adjust to new marketing methods such as social media, when there is still no guarantee that those will work or reach younger consumers. Online seminars are an ideal way around this problem, particularly if you are selling an information product or service. Simply put, you can invite your core customer base to an online seminar to address a problem they might be having and use it as a plug for your services. Consumers today like to be given something for free or have a problem solved for them, and it makes them much more likely to buy later on. Think of it like how supermarkets give out free samples to entice you to buy new products. Even physical products can be sold this way if you are creative enough. It can take some getting used to and practice to run seminars, but they are a low cost way to multiply your marketing efforts without too much time and hassle.
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Employee Conferences
The same principle can also be applied to employee get-togethers or industry conferences. One of the downsides of remote working is that many people don’t feel as connected as they once were due to the lack of personal interaction. One way around this is to use conferencing software to allow every person in the company, or between companies, to attend a meeting or seminar together, without the expense of hiring a space and providing accommodation and catering. This not only provides more networking opportunities but allows everyone to bring their thoughts and opinions to the table and improves employee relations, which will allow people to work together more effectively.
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Press Conferences and Product Launches
The traditional press conference to make a new business announcement or launch a new product is still essential today, but with so many being released every day, it is difficult to make yours stand out. A useful alternative is to hold your event online in order to do something different and reach many people all at once, not only journalists. There are many versatile options for this, such as live-streaming a video of customer testimonials which wouldn’t be possible in a press release document or in-person meeting. Enterprise videocasting such as BlueJeans has additional features to save these telecasts and upload them to video sharing sites such as YouTube, allowing them to reach an even wider audience and be shared on social media for maximum exposure.
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Employee Training
Employee training and turnover is one of the largest costs a business has to budget for, as high as $1,888 per year for each employee according to GMS, and one which can easily be saved. Rather than hiring someone to conduct pointless team building exercises (your new hires won’t learn much from building towers out of plastic cups), hold your new employee orientation and training online so that employees don’t need to travel all the way to the office and can begin doing their jobs earlier. You can use the same tools for additional training or development of existing employees as well, without having to spend too much money. This is especially important as industries are changing and technology is evolving so rapidly today that employees need to stay on top of new trends, and those who fail will be left behind.
These are just a few of the benefits that multi-user video conferencing can have for your business. With enough creativity and ingenuity, you can come up with many more that can profit your company, customers, and employees. The single cost of a software subscription can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars each year in expenses, on top of bringing your team closer together and improving workplace efficiency, and gain a lot back for your investment.