Webcasting and Webcast Advertising

What is webcasting?

A webcast is a multimedia event or e-presentation that can play video, sound, slides, or any combination of any of these sensory techniques. Further, a webcast can utilize a database back end to collect and store participant information (opinion surveys, voting, chat, email addresses, etc.) to make it an interactive e-presentation.

Types of Webcasts

There are different types of webcasts, tailored to the different needs of an audience.

Live Webcast: a fashion show, a news event, a concert, an analyst meeting, a sales meeting - any realtime webcast as the event is actually happening.

Archived Webcast: after the live webcast, the webcast can be indexed and archived for people who couldn't view it live.

Stand-alone Webcast: this webcast is placed as an ad or an archive piece - training materials, entertainment or an ad at a popular website.

Interactive Webcast: a webcast that collects information from its viewers - surveys, emails, etc. It can be either live or stand-alone.

Webcast Advertising Objectives

To determine your webcast ad objectives, consider:

Your target market. Gather as much demographic information on your customer as possible (age, sex, job function, income. etc.) Also, consider your psychographic profile. What are your targets' interests, regardless of their demographic profile?

Your advertising communication objective. (Branding, traffic-building, direct sales, corporate communication, public relations, investor relations, etc.)

Measures of successful implementation (high amount of visitation, emails, click-throughs, answering survey questions correctly, etc.) Your budget. Return on investment is another significant measure of success.


Webcasting Media Types

Webcasts can utilize many different types of multimedia. Which forms are best suited to your objectives?

Video

Slides

Audio

Audio with slides

Video with slides

Streaming text with links

Database back end for collecting information