Some best Online Meeting tools for great Virtual Sales Presentations

January 29th, 2017 by ali No comments »

The digital market has changed webinars and virtual conferences into powerful weapons that are vital to enhance any serious marketing strategy based on distant sales. What are the best products for virtual presentations available on the market? From R-HUB Turbomeeting to Hangouts, the choice is wide. Here comes a selection of some of the best solutions according to our opinion.

Selling remotely necessarily implies meeting virtually. There are many inexpensive tools that can be utilized for this purpose; some of them offer free versions with limited functionalities, some other a trial period – usually of 30 days. Almost every tool has the necessary instruments to make your virtual meetings engaging and interactive, like file and screen sharing and HD Video.

R-HUB Turbomeeting (http://www.rhubcom.com )

R-HUB produces a suite of highly professional and reliable on-premise servers for virtual conferences. Being based on solid hardware, their technical approach is quite different from the other producers of web conference products. It ensures the best video/audio quality and the highest security, two features that make R-HUB Turbomeeting servers particularly interesting for e-commerce.

To tell it in other words, hackers cannot intercept your meetings. Another great advantage of R-HUB’s technology is that your guests do not lose their attention because of no disruption in audio or video, as the quality of the streaming is made independent from participants’ web connections. The set of instruments to engage attendees is wide.

The price is convenient, as R-HUB Turbomeeting servers start from $295 – Onetime payment only. Pay Once, Own Lifetime. No Hassles of monthly payments. . 30 days free trial period.

MeetingBurner (https://www.meetingburner.com/ )

MeetingBurner allows you to host free conferences for up to 10 participants forever. Over this number, it is necessary to change to the paid versions. To give you an idea of prices, the premium version costs 99.95$ per month. The max number of participants per meeting is 1000, and there are several useful instruments especially thought for e-commerce, like a good system of analytics and PayPal integration. Being their technology cloud-based, attendees do not need to download any software.

Vyew (https://www.vyews.com)

Vyew is an online tool for webinars and virtual meetings. The free version allows you to host up to 10 participants meeting. The max allowed number of participants is 150.

Among  Vyew’s features that can be particularly interesting for e-commerce,  we remember the whiteboard functionality that enables presenters to draw sketches during a demonstration,  VoIP ( the possibility to place a phone call through the net),and voice notes.

FuzeBox (https://www.fuze.com/)

FuzeBox is a cloud based solution that supports up to 125 participants virtual conferences and 12 HD video streams. Its distinguishing feature is that FuzeBox adjusts video and audio on the available bandwidth, in order to minimize choppy audio. Fully webinar support and the possibility to share video presentations of your products are two other interesting features for e-merchants.

This list of products for virtual meetings is not exhaustive, as many platforms that are not purposely designed for e-commerce can be profitably used for sales presentations, for example Skype or Hangouts. The best approach is thus to exploit the free versions or free trial periods of each product, in order to try them out and discover what is the best solution for one’s business.

If you do not find immediately something that suits you well, just be patient; virtual meeting products are mushrooming today; so, it is only a matter of time to come across the right one for your business.

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What is the Best Live Meeting Platform to support your E-commerce Marketing Strategy?

January 26th, 2017 by ali No comments »

Webinars and virtual presentations have become crucial weapons in every marketing strategy that relies on the web. For this reason, being able to choose the right product for your conference call is vital.

After the success of Chet Holmes’ “The Ultimate Sales Machines”, the motto: “Stop selling and start educating” has become the new mantra of e-commerce marketing. Virtual conferences are crucial in this scenario, as you can reach a broad audience with them in no time. What platform to choose for your webinars and live meetings among the many available on the market? To answer, let’s have a quick look at some of the mostpopularand effective products for virtual events.

R-HUB’s Turbomeeting http://www.rhubcom.com

R-HUB’s web video conferencing servers ensure an excellent audio / video quality and a rich set of tools to engage your audience, two features that any video conferencing product must have in order to effectively support a marketing strategy.

Another important advantage of R-HUB’s product suite is that the adoption of an on-premise server based technology prevents many of the problems (for example poor audio or video quality) that are usually caused by bad or spotty internet connections.

Participants per room can reach the number up to 3000, which is a record in a world where most free web video conferencing platforms allow a max number of 10-12 guests per meeting.

Coming to costs, there is no need of an IT team or a dedicated room, as R-HUB web video conferencing servers are self-upgrading, plug-and-play devices that takes up very little space and are so silent that they can be stored on a shelf of your bookcase. Prices start from $295 (One time cost only)

Adobe Acrobat Connect http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect/enterprise.html

Adobe Acrobat is a highly flexible suite for virtual meetings and events that offers fully integration with your existing systems. It is available in the forms of either hosted SaaS or on-premise server based solution. Its functionalities may be enhanced by a rich set ofapps, and it is even possible to develop one’s own tailored solutions. The level of security is high, as Adobe Acrobat Connect has been certified by the Department of Defense.

The cons are costs. The most inexpensive version (Adobe Connect Meetings) is sold for $50 per month; the one for webinars – that is the most common utilization for e-commerce purposes of this kind of products – is sold for $120 per month. To cut it short, Connect is great product, but if you look around it is possible to find platforms that offer similar services for less.

Cisco WebEx https://www.webex.com

Who doesn’t know this popular platform that is one of the most used in the world? WebEx can host webinars and conferences up to 3000 participants and has all the features you need to conduct a great virtual event, from mobile access to session recording. It is modular and flexible and offers a high level of integration with your existing IT systems.

However, Cisco does not offer its services for nothing. Again, the problem is costs. The price of WebEx Meetings Premium, for example, is 69$ per month, yet it allows you to host meetings up to 100 participants only. Probably too expensive for many small businesses which have been coping with increasing budget restrictions in the last few years.

AnyMeeting https://www.anymeeting.com/

The pros of AnyMeeting is price: you can hold unlimited meetings up to 200 participants for free. The cons is the fact that they pay their bills by using an advertiser based model. And being AnyMeeting browser based, it cannot assure you the same level of security and reliability of other solutions that implement a server based technological approach, like Turbomeeting or Connect.

In conclusion, what really make the difference among all these solutions is price and the max number of participants allowed per meeting, while the tools to engage the audience are quite similar and the quality of the stream often good.

However, this does not mean that you can buy on a price-only based approach: while a product like AnyMeeting could be a good solution for small businesses that need to host small virtual events, R-HUB Turbomeeting could be a better option in terms of costs and performances for those who need to scale up or wish a less expensive solution than the ones offered by the giants of the sector, like Cisco, Adobe and Microsoft.

In one word, your purposes and real needs still weigh in the decision making process of what product to buy in order to enhance your ecommerce marketing strategy.

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What are the Alternatives to GoToMeeting?

January 25th, 2017 by ali No comments »

From on-premise server based solutions like R-HUB’s Turbomeeting to desktop applications like Hall, there are many inexpensive options to replace GoToMeeting when your free 30-days trial ends. Let’s have a quick glance at the most popular.

Undoubtedly, GoToMeeting is not that bad. It allows clients to host video conferences and webinars up to 100 members with many useful features, like the option for VoIP, and the possibility of recording meetings and joining conferences without the need to utilizea PIN number. But all that is not for free: it is necessary to pay a tough monthly fee, which makes this platform inconvenient for small business with tight budgets.

Luckily, on the market the number of video conferencing products that ensure good quality at affordable prices is increasing. Let’s have a quick glance at some of the best-known options.

R-HUB Turbomeeting http://www.rhubcom.com  

If you are looking for a pay-once-for-all solution, purchasing a R-HUB Turbomeeting server can be the right choice. For a price starting from $295 only, you get a machine that supports virtual meetings from 10 up to 3000 guests per room according to the model. No additional fees or extra money of any kind is due when adding new participants to a conference, thanks to R-HUB’s flat license policy.

Another advantage is that it is not necessary to have a dedicated IT team, as Turbomeeting servers are self-installing, self-configuring and self-upgrading devices. In one word, they are the ideal solution for small businesses with low budgets.

CliqMeet

CliqMeet http://www.cliqmeet.com offers a free plan that allows clients to host up-to 3 participant’s private meetings. HD video conferencing is available along with several useful tools and features like 20 minutes of free recoding, screen sharing and polling. For those who hate technology this platform is a great solution, as it is not necessary to download or install anything on your pc. The only requirement is the creation of a free account on CliqMeet’s website.

HipChat https://www.hipchat.com/

Giving the possibility to host conferences with an unlimited number of participants, HipChat is one of the most convenient platforms for virtual meetings that offer free plans.

In order to use HipChat, it is necessary to create an account and download HipChat`s software. The free version is presently available for Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone operating systems. Its features include document sharing and the possibility to create an unlimited number of groups.

Google Hangouts https://hangouts.google.com

In our list of free alternatives to GoToMeeting, we may not omit Google Hangouts. It offers up-to 10 participants chats, but its real benefit is that conference calls are unlimited as well as the integration with the wide range of Google Apps. The downside is that it is compulsory to create a Google profile.

These products for virtual conferences are only some of the many that are available on the market today. Other popular platforms that offer video conferencing are Join.me, Mikogo, Twiddla etc. just to mention a few more, and the list would be much longer should we list all possibilities. In conclusion, you have only to open your browser and take your pick.

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The Secret to choose the best Virtual Conference tool for your Business

January 24th, 2017 by ali No comments »

Undoubtedly, price matters when buying a virtual meeting product, but there are some other important aspects that you’d better consider carefully. From security to console features, let’s outline what to look for in order to pick up the right virtual conference tool.

How to go virtual in the most effective way with your business meetings? The choice of the right product has become difficult after the big proliferation especially of web conferencing platforms in the last few years.

In a nutshell, the leading criteria are security, video and audio quality, scalability and the available cooperative tools. Let’s see these four points one by one.

Security. Panama paper affair shows how much important is hacker attack prevention for businessmen. Unfortunately, most web conferencing platforms are web based and thus intrinsically unsafe. If you wish to protect your privacy, an on-premise server based solution like R-HUB’s web video conferencing servers (website: http://www.rhubcom.com) is more advisable.

Video and audio quality. Webinars and virtual conferences need a good audio and video quality to bear the expected results. As a rule of thumb, almost all web conferencing platforms support HD today.  But if you are particularly keen on this crucial feature, you could find useful to pay a short visit to Fuze Meeting’s website, a multiparty HD video collaboration tool (https://www.fuze.com).

However, on-premise server based solutions (like, R-HUB’s server suite) perform better even in this case. The reason is simply that they are not dependent on clients’ web connections. To understand this point better, consider that many participants use their smartphones to join your conferences and they could be whenever. So, the risk to have only a spotty or poor connection at hands is quite high for many of them.

Scalability. Like physical persons, companies grow sooner or later. While scaling up is not a great problem on cloud based solutions like Cisco Meet Instantly(http://www.meetinstantly.com) and Meetin.gs(https://www.meetin.gs/), there may be issues with products like GoToMeetings that put severe limits on the number of participants to a conference (not more than 15).

How do on-premise based solutions perform on this regard? R-HUB web video conferencing servers allow you to host conferences up to 3000 guests per room, depending on the model of the server. In one word, they do well.

Console features. They change from platform to platform, so it is important to check what each single product offers you both in terms of tools to manage  conferences  (like conference recording, desktop, application and command sharing, file sharing, multiple screens, muting participants) and engage the targeted audience (polling, raising hands, screen sharing).

Views and Zoho Meeting (https://www.zoho.com) are two online platforms that offer a wide set of useful features, just to give you some names.

Other important aspects to take care of are the need to install software or hardware, the support to tablet and mobile operative systems (like Android, iOS),and the ability of resizing and adapting to the effective screen dimensions of the devices that participants use in order to attend your conferences.

In conclusion, you will always have to trade off among security, quality, price and features. Then, the secret to choose the best solution for virtual conferences is to be able to find the right compromise that maximize the pros and minimize the cons, by weighing carefully the needs of your business and the technical features of the tools that are available on the market today.

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What are the 4 Best Web Conferencing solutions for small businesses with tight budgets?

January 22nd, 2017 by ali No comments »

From on-premise servers based solutions, like R-HUB’s suite of servers, to the classical on-line services; there is a world of opportunity to get inexpensive and performing virtual meeting products. The trick is to exploit the free packages that are generously offered by many platforms. If it is true that their features are fewer than the ones of paid plans, it is also true that this creates no issues to small businesses in most cases.

A tight budget does not necessarily imply being compelled to fall back on worse web conferencing products. On the contrary, it can be the right occasion to reflect upon possible (and inexpensive) alternatives. Here comes a list of the 4 best web conferencing solutions that I found browsing through the web.

R-HUB Web Conferencing Servers

R-HUB’s on-premise web conferencing servers have been purposely thought to offer a valid alternative to the traditional web platforms for small businesses. The result is a product that is highly performing and easy-to manage, yet inexpensive.

Just to give you an idea of R-HUB’s web conferencing server’s capabilities, consider that they can host up to 3000 participants for each conference room. The set of tools is rich and includes useful features, like command, document and screen sharing.  The quality of the streaming is always good because R-HUB’s technology relies on, On-premise servers based technologies and it is not dependent on your web connection.

Maintenance and installation are not real issues: R-HUB’s web conferencing servers are self-configuring, self-updating and self-installing, so that no dedicated IT team is necessary. Another interesting feature is that they are so silent and take so little space that you can put them on a shelf of your bookcase.

Coming to pricing, the free trial lasts 30 days. Then, you have to buy one of the several products of the suite. Prices start from $295. For further information, please visit R-HUB web site at http://www.rhubcom.com

FUZE

Among the on-line platforms that offer web conferencing free plans, Fuze is probably the most generous in terms of max participant’s number, as it supports up to 25 guests per meeting. To make a comparison, consider that usual free plans do not allow more than 10/12 participants per meeting.

The on-line space includes all the necessary resources to run successful web conferences, like 1 GB to store documents, desktop and application sharing, audio conferencing via VoIP and 12 simultaneous video feeds.

Unfortunately conference recordings are not included in the free package.  You have to upgrade to the paid plan in order to get this important feature.

 

MEETING BURNER

Their free conferencing plan allows you to meet up to 10 people and includes all the collaborative tools of the paid plan. However, this is not a great advantage, as this platform is not very rich in instruments to engage the audience. For example, you may not download files and give control of the screen to someone else.

Despite these limitations, Meeting Burner could be a solution for those who need a simple and fast online instrument for collaborating with their teams, thanks to the high number of conference guests that are allowed.

CISCO WEBEX MEETING

Despite the max participants number per meeting is only 3 people, WebEx is still an excellent solution for small businesses because of the rich variety of its collaborative tools. In fact, the free plan offers you the ability to take down notes, to share files, to use chat boxes, and some other useful features.

Another interesting aspect of WebEx is that the free period is unlimited, and there are no limitations on how often you may host meetings through the free plan.

In one word, WebEx is a great solution for those who need a one-on-one conference solution to meet clients, partners and staff members.

These four products are just the tip of the iceberg.  Choosing the right one depends on your company needs; if it is true that some special features are not available on most free plans, it is also true that you often do not need them at the early stages of your business. So, the trick is to be able to find the product that offers the tools for free that you really need. Considering the wide number of platforms that are available on the market today, this shouldn’t be a difficult task.

 

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