interactive

You are currently browsing articles tagged interactive.

Interactivity at Point of Business

March 16, 2009 in Technique by Doug Wolfgram | No comments

What is the most critical point in your sales cycle? This is a question that perplexes sales organizations daily. In most cases, the most critical point is that point where a customer flips from being an interested bystander to a willing customer. But how do you know when this will happen?

If you just sit back and wait, you will never know when it happens. But if you proactively create the moment, you can be prepared to monitor and record it. With interactive presentations this seemingly impossible task becomes routine. By creating a scenario in your presentation where you are controlling what the audience is seeing and interacting with, you are in a position to capture their input at a moment when their emotions are highest and they are most likely to move towards a purchase decision.

Let’s say, for example, that you are promoting a new sculptor in your art gallery. The typical approach is to present a slide show of works by that artist and the sometime later, ask the audience what they thought. But what if you provided a 3-D rotating sculpture? The audience rotates the 3-D image to an angle they find most pleasing. On that same screen they provide input through a slider conveying their impression.

You are gathering information when they are interactively engaged and emotionally involved with your product.  This is what we call “Interactivity at Point of Business.”

Try it with your product or service. PresenterNet allows you to place interactive elements on any slide in your presentation providing the ultimate in control over emotion-driven information gathering.

I’d love to hear your comments on how you use Interactivity at Point of Business.

Tags: ,

Conversing with your customers is the key to success

January 11, 2009 in Lead Generation by Doug Wolfgram | No comments

Most websites fail miserably at properly engaging prospects. If you look closely, you’ll find that most websites provide literature on their products, perhaps even a fun video to watch, then expect interested parties to take an action to request additional information. This is known as the old ‘fill out this request form’ method of obtaining new customers.

The new paradigm of using a website to its maximum potential is to engage your visitors in an interactive conversation. But how can you do that?

Look at your own website, for example. I’ll bet you have beautiful pages designed that inform customers all about your products or services. They’re full of images, bullet lists, bold headlines to get attention — you’ve done everything right. You are certain they are so engaging that every visitor will read them in their entirety and then beg for the form to fill in to get more. This is a lot like meeting a prospect for lunch, introducing yourself, talking non-stop for 20 minutes then handing over your business card and asking for a call when convenient. In most cases, your prospect won’t ‘get’ it all, will become bored and most definitely will not be calling.

So why not create a simple PowerPoint presentation that engages your prospects in a conversation. Takes slide or scene, show something the prospect cna relate to then ask them how it relates.  This is done very simply with Interactors in PresenterNet. You can save their name to use throughout the presentation for familiarity and you can narrate it in your own voice. In the end, you have collected all the same data you requested in the form but it will have been provided in a more comfortable, honest setting. People respond more honestly when not confronted.

Give it some thought and it you think an interactive conversation will increase your sales, give us a call. We’d love to talk to you about it.

Tags: , ,

80% of Adwords Campaigns Fail

December 12, 2008 in Uncategorized by Doug Wolfgram | No comments

Do you know anyone who can honestly say “for every dollar I spend on adwords I get more than a dollar back.”? Probably not. And you know why? Not because adwords campaigns aren’t valid. Not because no-one is reading the ads. That is all tracked by paying per click. Most adwords campaigns don’t work because of a lack of follow-through. Many companies use adwords to drive prospects to a site where they expect them the read and digest reams of information before making a decition to move to take next step in the buying process.

PresenterNet allows you to capture a much larger percentage of your advertising respondees by putting an interactive presentation in frnt of them. When they are working through your presentation, they are emotionally involved in its message. When they interact, they are expressing preferences and interests. And the end of the process, they have clarity about your offer and are much more likely to take action.

Take a close look at your advertising processes and see if perhaps they might be improved by using and interactive presentation as a communication vehicle, rather than a ream of static web pages.

Tags: ,

The Myth of Lead Generation CRM Software

September 15, 2008 in Webinars by Steve Vachss | No comments

CRM companies and related software providers offer a myriad of tools to identify, qualify, and track sales leads. Many of these offerings sound great to potential CRM users, but they all have one basic flaw that can leave them useless. They all depend on a system being able to identify qualification criteria, or simply offer database searches based on plug-in criteria like industry, size of company, revenues, etc.

Salespeople know that there are only three TRUE criteria for qualification:

  1. prospects must be interested in speaking with them;
  2. the product must meet the prospect’s needs;
  3. and the sales contact must have the capability to make or drive a buying decision.

Unfortunately, these criteria can only be defined by prospects themselves, not by database searches or even by sales rep call reports.

The most successful sales of any product or service are those that occur when a potential buyer informs a sales organization that he or she is ready for serious discussions. The success of Webinars as lead generators has grown exponentially for that reason, but Webinars alone aren’t the full answer. The fact that a potential prospect attended a Webinar is indeed an indication of some level of interest, but the overwhelming majority of attendees are not prospects, having participated for a variety of reasons other than buying interest.

Webinars on PresenterNet however, add the most important element for qualifying a true sales lead. By providing InterActors on slides that enable attendees to respond onscreen to various questions during a Webinar, they capture information directly from the potential prospect. These are the kinds of questions that a salesperson would want to ask if given the opportunity to speak candidly:

“Would you like us to call you for an appointment?”

“Do you have a need for the kind of product we sell?”

“Are you the decision maker, or should we contact another person in your organization?”

“Do you currently have funding to commit to this area?”

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how interested are you?”

“How do you see our product potentially fitting into your company’s plans?”

Answers to questions like these help sales people to find and close the very best opportunities. Interactive slides with these capabilities therefore become the missing links to making Webinars the top business drivers available to any sales organization worldwide.

Tags: , ,