WebMeetings have come a long way! WebMeetings were initially seen as a replacement for the conference call. Many are surprised when they find out that conference calling is actually magnified by using WebMeeting. The 200-port conference bridge now becomes a live call for 1000’s of listeners. A recent online conference call by Herbalife boasted over 11,000 live listeners. Because of the capacity of web listening and the cost benefits, live listening has increased. People like to be there live. They like to be the first to hear. They want to be the one at the water cooler who says… “Did you catch last nights call? It was amazing.”

The bigger surprise to many top distributors and corporate leaders is not just the increase in live listeners but, the number of archive listeners. Over 80% of the listening minutes will come from those who listen to the call on archive. This allows your message to reach literally thousands of more people without any additional effort on your part.

Over the past five years of facilitating and observing online WebMeetings, important lessons have been learned. Typically online meetings are audio only and used for training or recruiting. Here are some suggestions to make WebMeetings more effective for both live and archived listeners.

• Visual aids can add interest and improve retention. Audio only calls seem to have a big drop off at about ten minutes. By adding visuals you can increase the amount of time your audience will stay on the call. The visuals don’t need to be fancy, they just need to be pertinent to the subject. A few graphics with words or pictures of the product add up. Use bullet points that tell what you are covering. When you do a slide presentation in front of a group, you might use 40 slides and change slides on every point. In a webmeeting, 15 slides with the same key points provides focus and interest without slowing down the presentation while waiting for the slide to load. Too many visual can be distracting.
• Calls targeted to a specific audience are well attended and listened too longer. For example, a call that is designed for new people in the business which gives the simple and essential steps for a newcomer work well. Or a call that introduces a new product can also reach a target segment. Another effective call is the well scripted recruiting call. Distributors like to know that when they bring someone to the call, they can count on the quality and predict the outcome of the call. A call that tries to do everything for everyone rarely holds the group.
• The length of the call depends on the subject matter. Usually calls that are shorter in length are more effective. People are also more likely to go back and review a call if it is 20 minutes rather than 40 minutes. 15 to 20 minutes seems to be the average length of time people listen to a call.

The most important lesson learned over the past five years is that having a cool web page rarely works to recruit people. People recruit people. WebMeetings cannot replace the building of relationships. WebMeetings simply provide a 24-hour a day way to introduce people to people who can help to explain the business.