Delivering Content: The Top Five Benefits of Webcasts We’ve discussed the benefits of online training and the power of a learning management system in past blog posts. But did you know there are other options to deliver training and content marketing outside of a traditional online course? A great solution to reach a sales channel is a webcast. What’s a webcast? A webcast is a live, interactive, online event that allows the free-flow of information between presenter(s) and audience. Oftentimes, a webcast is broadcast live only once, but it is recorded and archived so that it is accessible many times over in the future. Although many people traditionally associate webcasts as a vehicle for meetings, it’s an excellent tool for delivering training as well.
Why a webcast? Elearning is an effective way to deliver information and verify retention, but many companies have specific considerations that may preclude developing a custom course as the best training solution. If a customer anticipates there could be a lot of questions from the audience, for example, an online course might not be the best option. Let’s take a looks at some of the top benefits of using webcasts as a method of training.
Benefits of a webcast A webcast’s unique features make it an attractive option for training people. Key benefits include:
1. Agility: A webcast is nimble. While course development can be time-intensive, you can deliver a webcast in just a matter of days. Do you have a big announcement to make? Are you launching a new product and need to quickly get your sales team up-to-speed on its features and benefits? A webcast can deliver product information to your sales channels quickly and easily. Webcasts take many forms; one or many presenters on screen at once, embedded video, an on-screen or off-screen host and even live demonstrations.
2. Reach: Anyone with a smart phone or a computer with an internet connection, and speakers or a phone line, can participate in a webcast. You can easily repeat the same webcast, covering different time zones, live. Train all of your field reps from your office, without the expense of airfare and lodging.
3. Interactivity: A webcast allows the audience to interact with the presenter and the host, increasing engagement and shared information across teams. During the webcast, the host, presenter or attendees can ask questions using the chat feature or phone. Polls, surveys, white board activities and interactive games are other ways to get and share immediate information with the audience.
4. Cost Effectiveness: Webcasts are affordable to produce and deliver; they are a more economical way to deliver content than custom course development. In fact, the archived webcast is the fastest, most inexpensive way to create an online course as it uploads easily to a Learning Management System. This also saves money as the recording is readily available for viewing for those who couldn’t take the time away from their schedule to attend the live event - working the showroom floor and serving customers for example.
5. Sales Results: Webcasts support sales and marketing programs. For example, immediately following a webcast on a product’s features and installation instructions, delivered through a Learning Management System, participants complete an online quiz to verify their understanding of the training. Because the presenter has contact information for all attendees, they can follow up directly with those participants that may need or want additional information. Often these webcast attendees are not already in a company’s contact list, so the webcast provides deeper access to a sales channel. Broan-NuTone saw excellent sales results when using webcasts to launch a new fan product.
Learn more BlueVolt has produced hundreds of webcasts for companies small and large. If you would like to talk about how a webcast can effectively deliver your training or marketing, please see our website, or, better yet, send us an email!
http://www.bluevolt.com/blog/delivering-content-top-five-benefits-webcasts