Choosing Web Conference Software: A How-to Guide
It’s always a challenge deciding where to invest our business dollars. We know we have to spend money to grow our business, but we can’t afford to waste a cent. Web conference software can grow your business, if you understand how to select it.
We often hesitate to sign up for internet conferencing services, thinking it’ll cost too much or that we’ll get stuck with features we didn’t need. This article should help you understand the plans available and decide what features are important to you.
The good news is that web conferencing software has pricing plans geared for small business owners. For example, Webex’s MeetMeNow prices out to as low as $35 a month for an unlimited number of meetings (10 participants per meeting). The other companies (Cisco, Microsoft) have similar plans.
Of course, you still have to decide whether that price makes sense for your company. Pencil out how much you would save on travel, long distance phone calls, and cellular phone minutes. It’s not at all unusual for this to work out to much larger savings than the cost of an entry-level internet conferencing plan.
The next step is to decide which internet conferencing features you need. If you’re an hold hand at web conferencing you already know what you want. If not, the best advice is to read this list of features and then sign up for a free trial — take the software for a spin.
Audio Conferencing: Your vendor will provide a toll free number for meetings. They’ll often offer VoIP calling (calling over the Internet) as an additional option.
Video Conferencing: Do you have a webcam on your PC? If you like the personalization offered by webcams, many web conference vendors integrate video streaming into their software.
White Board: I love whiteboards, real or virtual. A shared, online white board is a must for me. The group can work together on an idea, just as if they were in the same room.
Annotating Documents: Reading and edit documents together. Mark up that Proposal as you go, with everyone seeing the same results.
Meeting Quantity and Size: Plans vary here. Some give you unlimited meetings for a monthly fee. Some are priced per-meeting. Also, the number of participants allowed per meeting may vary. Take a look at the quantity and size of your current meetings to estimate what you’ll need in the future.
Take a few minutes to review this list of features and think about how you’ll use web conferencing software. The best way to decide is to sign up for a free trial and see if it meets your needs.
