Feature Friday: Simplify Webinar Design with ON24 Console Builder

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Research proves that visuals are powerful drivers of engagement and conversions, with 80% of audiences remembering what they see, compared to only 20% remembering what they read. That’s why ON24 is a huge proponent of webinar customization opportunities that let you create immersive brand experiences that leave a lasting impression on your audience.

Though, for some, designing can be daunting. With ON24 Webcast Elite’s Console Builder, you can simplify your webinar consoles design without the need for any web design experience or HTML skills. Anyone on your team, no matter what skill level, can easily create beautiful and engaging webinar consoles!

Getting Started with Webinar Console Design

The Console Builder allows you to easily customize everything from backgrounds and layout to custom fonts and colors. Choose what engagement tools you want to leverage to engage audiences. Navigate to the Engagement Tools Manager and place it anywhere you want. To resize, you just need to pull and adjust the windows.

For backgrounds, you can choose a single color, utilize gradients or upload your own image. No need to worry about any coding.

Fine Tune Console Design with Easy-to-Use Tools

You can adjust and fine-tune your console design even further using the Console Customization settings. Using simple sliders, you can adjust:

  • Window Shadows: The shadow around the border of each engagement tool window.
  • Window Corner Radius: How rounded each window corner should be or you can just keep square corners.
  • Button Corner Radius: How rounded each button should be or you can utilize square corners.

Within the Console Customization settings, you can also change your button colors and adjust engagement tool labels, such as having a white, gray, black or transparent header. All of these customization selections are possible with just a few clicks.

To experience the audience’s view as you build your console, just click the preview button. This is the default view the attendees see upon joining your webinar. Aspect ratios can be locked to what you set or you can allow audience members to resize and move each window based on their own preferences.

Whether you’re new to webinars or have been creating webinars for years, you can create engaging and on-brand webinars consoles in a few simple steps. The Console Builder is easy to use so that what you create and see is what your audience members get.

Feature Friday: Bring External Videos Into Your Digital Experiences

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Video is one of the most popular types of content for marketers. It enables you to deliver your message efficiently and effectively, which is especially useful when there is an increasing number of distractions around the buyer journey. In fact, the medium is so powerful that 80% of marketers say that video has directly increased sales.

But once you’ve built the content and published them to your hosted channels, like YouTube or Vimeo, how do you extend their reach and leverage them to optimize your digital programs and audience experiences?

At ON24, we and our customers love video! From creating categories of training or product overview videos in ON24 Engagement Hubs to drive buyer or customer education to feature personalized videos for top accounts in your Target pages, and leveraging videos to promote upcoming webinars, we want to ensure that incorporating video is easy and efficient. In addition to uploading video files directly into your digital experiences, we’ve now added the capability to add videos from YouTube or Vimeo channels with just the URL. No need to download and re-upload.

You can quickly add videos from YouTube or Vimeo by using the video URL both services provide. Simply add the URL into your Media Manager and manage it alongside all the other content in your ON24 account. There is no need to remake content; the videos already created can be easily added to any digital experience.

When incorporating external videos into your digital experiences, you not only increase viewership but also gain insights into your audience’s interest. Your YouTube and Vimeo channel can continue to be the centralized place to track views or you can leverage the ON24 Intelligence engine which gathers total views, unique views and viewing duration so you can continue to understand content performance on your ON24 digital experience and optimize programs.

If you’d like to learn more about ON24 Engagement Hub or Target and leveraging external videos, please contact us. If you’re an ON24 customer, contact your CSM to get started.

Feature Friday: Secure Reporting to Stakeholders

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At ON24, we value not only the security of each event — with unique features to encrypt data and to avoid unwanted audience members — but also the ensured privacy and security in reporting.

As an added layer to safeguard the data you collect, you can set up ON24 accounts to require a valid ON24 login to view webinar performance reports. To complement this setting, we’ve recently added more reporting features to both efficiently and securely inform internal and external stakeholders of performance.

Grant and Revoke Access with Report Access Permissions

With new report access permissions, users can easily grant and/or revoke report access to and from any external stakeholders, such as partners or extended team members without designated ON24 logins. This is especially useful if you produce partner webinars and need to regularly update them on program performance, such as registration, attendance and engagement. With these new permissions, they can access the report at any time with a unique report URL designated for their email address. Additionally, save yourself from the cumbersome chore of having to repeatedly download and send reports to these stakeholders.

To grant report permissions, users simply add each stakeholder’s email address in the permissions list. Only those selected will receive a unique link via email to view those reports. You not only can set expiration dates for report access, but also easily revoke access at any time — it’s that simple!

Remove Personally Identifiable Information

To support compliance needs, or to simply limit the distribution of audience personal details, users can hide personally identifiable information (PII) from reporting. With this setting, you can still inform stakeholders of overall performance but still protect your audiences’ privacy by excluding sensitive information.

To send a reporting link without PII, simply look for “Include Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in report” in your Report Access Permissions panel and toggle the button to off. When the switch is off, PII such as name, email address, physical address and phone number will be hidden. These details will still show in reports when logged into the ON24 platform, but will be excluded from the reports sent to external stakeholders.

With these new features, your reports and audience details remain secure, all while effectively reporting on webinar performance.

If you’d like to learn more about the ON24 Platform and how it secures your information and events, please contact us. If you’re already using ON24, please contact your CSM.

New at ON24: Automated Captioning Controls, Expanded Journey Controls and Much More!

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The ON24 Platform continues to help you engage audiences no matter where they are and the content consumption journey they’re on. With our latest product release, we have added exciting enhancements that enable you to better capture audience attention and engage prospects and customers. Here’s a bit of what to expect:

Added Flexibility with New Automated Captioning Controls

Last year, we introduced the ability to add automated captions with translation capabilities to your on-demand and simulive webinars— enabling you to not only reach those who are hearing impaired but also a global audience without needing to recreate webinars in multiple languages.

With this release, you can leverage new automated captioning controls to activate or deactivate each on-demand caption file per webinar, giving you more flexibility on when captions should appear. When the event is available on-demand and after the captions are automatically created, webinar producers have the ability to select which captions should or should not be shown to audience members. This allows you more time to review or edit these captions before they are released. Additionally, you can select which captions are needed for particular audiences.

For example, you can display English, French and Vietnamese captions, or even decide to not display one or any at all—but still have the files to use later.

Continue Ongoing Content Journeys and Capture Feedback Through Post-Live Engagement

We’ve made enhancements to the Call-to-Action (CTA) tool so you can continue to move prospects and customers through to curated content experiences or to capture feedback simultaneously.

If you have a CTA and a survey set to appear at the end of a live webinar, both can be displayed to catch attendees when they’re most engaged. The post-live survey will be shown as an overlay on top of the CTA—so audience members see a sneak peek—and after submittal, the CTA(s) will be fully revealed. With these post-live tools working together, users can easily capture audience interest and intent.

For both post-live CTAs and CTAs in the audience console for any type of webinar, we’ve also added the ability to auto-register attendees to a customized content landing page built with ON24 Target. By auto-registering, eliminate any redundant forms so attendees can easily and seamlessly access all the content in your page—no need for audiences to fill out their information again while you still gather audience engagement and content consumption details. By removing barriers, your prospects and customers can and will consume more content.

Securely Inform All Stakeholders of Webinar Success

We’ve added new reporting features to securely and easily inform all stakeholders—internal and external—of webinar performance. With new Report Access Permissions, grant and/or revoke report access to and from any external stakeholders, such as partners, or internal team members without designated ON24 accounts. Simply add or remove each stakeholder’s email address in the permissions list. With these permission options, only those that you select will receive the unique link to review your reports.

And with this release comes a ton more to help you grow and scale your digital experiences! Be sure to check out our Webinar Best Practices Series for tips and tricks to optimize your programs.

Feature Friday: Facilitating Multi-Presenter Webinars

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When it comes to presenting webinars, sometimes more is merrier — especially when a subject requires multiple perspectives or explanations. To that end, ON24 Webcast Elite makes it easy to host up to eight presenters in one webinar. That’s up to eight presenters bouncing off each other, making the content fun, conversational and engaging.

If you have multiple presenters, not only does presenting with webcam or video allow audiences to follow who is speaking but also creates a more “human” connection to each presenter. To facilitate this, Webcast Elite offers multiple presenter layouts and audio connection types to support each type of webinar and presenter.

Flexible Webcam Layouts

The Media Player can show all presenters who are attending the webinar via webcam simultaneously. Voice-activated switching highlights whoever’s presenting and seamlessly switches to a new speaker when it’s their turn to present.

But say you want a webinar layout that doesn’t need voice-activated switching. No worries. You choose from three different presenter layout options and even change the layout during the webinar. To select your layout, log into the presenter tool, navigate to Control Panel and then Layout. From there, you can choose to display:

One Presenter at Time: This layout is ideal to showcase presenters in sequential order. Voice-activated switching will display only who is actively speaking.

Four Presenters Simultaneously: This layout will display four presenters simultaneously, each with their own equally-sized window. All presenters can be heard and seen at the same time. This layout is ideal for four or fewer presenters using a webcam. This layout is particularly great for panel discussions, with panelists continuing to bounce off each other!

All Presenters Shown: With this layout, up to eight presenters can be shown at once, with all presenters able to be heard and seen at the same time. The presenter who is actively speaking will be shown in a larger view while the remaining presenters will be shown below. We recommend this layout if there is a moderator with a group of subject matter experts or panelists.

Multiple Audio Connection Types

While we encourage leveraging video to make your webinars more engaging, we understand that presenters can have different comfort levels. In a panel discussion, maybe one presenter is great on camera but another strongly prefers to not be seen. This doesn’t mean you are limited to audio-only for the entire webinar.

When using live video and audio, presenters can choose to connect via dial-in, webcam or PC microphone. Accounts can also be set up to connect via video conferencing units. Each presenter can choose which connection type is better for them. For example, one presenter can connect via webcam and computer mic while another presenter can choose to use the dial-in number. This way, you can alleviate any presenter nerves while still using video.

Whether you’re hosting a fireside chat, roundtable or moderated panel, ON24 Webcast Elite offers the flexibility needed to support any type of event to ensure increased engagement and connection between audience members and presenters.

If you’d like to learn more about ON24 Webcast Elite and building engaging digital experiences, watch our demo. If you’re an ON24 customer, contact your CSM to learn more on how to leverage best practices to engage audiences.

New at ON24: New Advanced Layout, Chatbot Integration and Much More!

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ON24 Target and ON24 Engagement Hub experiences are getting some major upgrades through our latest product innovation release. We have baked in more engagement opportunities and design flexibility so you can deliver even more personalized and immersive experiences that increase content consumption and accelerate buyer journeys. Here are some of the latest highlights:

New Chatbot Integration Drives Direct Audience Engagement

Today’s buyers move quickly, from researching solutions to making purchase decisions. And with 80% of B2B buyers expecting real-time communication, it’s more important than ever to continually engage with audiences to effectively lead them through the buyer journey.

We are thrilled to announce new chatbot integrations across Target content landing pages and Engagement Hubs. With this new addition, marketers can now establish a direct connection that drives personalized and direct conversation. The first chatbot integration we’re offering with this release is with Drift, the chatbot market leader, with more to come soon.

So why do this? Because the more you can engage your audience, the more insight you have into their interest and intent. That’s why we are committed to providing you with all the tools to connect with them directly. Powered with these new integrations, you have the opportunity to build a unique content path, promote upcoming events and capture registration, or connect audiences with sales team members and accelerate buyer journeys.

New Page Layout and Added Styling Capabilities

Next, we’re introducing a new Target page layout with more design and customization flexibility. Featuring a hero image, page header and added design options, this new layout is purpose-built for engagement and empowering you to deliver the right content at the right time to targeted audiences or accounts. Not only can you add and customize a background image to go along with your featured content, but you can also include action buttons to lead audiences to consume content or register for upcoming events and additional copy to capture attention.

We’ve also added new styling capabilities available for all Target layouts. New capabilities include configuring font families, newly designed thumbnails and other design features to help you fine-tune your entire experience.

Extending Content Support with YouTube and Vimeo

Increase views and extend the life of content already hosted in your online video-sharing platforms by adding YouTube and Vimeo videos into your Engagement Hub and Target pages. No need to have the original video file and easily increase views of each online video.

Be sure to check out our Webinar Best Practices Series for tips and tricks to create engaging digital experiences. And keep checking back in for more enhancements and new tools!

Feature Friday: Do Not Fear the Friday Webinar

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Oh, Fridays. The end of the workweek and the start of the weekend. Some relax and take it easy. Some need to attend to last-minute to-dos. Most, I hope, read Feature Friday blog posts (thank you!). One thing you might not think happens often on a Friday, however, is a webinar. But the times are changing!

Due to concerns that audiences would not be available, marketers often avoided hosting a Friday webinar. But running webinars on the last day of the business week may be key to increasing conversion and lead rates and connecting with prospects and customers.

Audiences are now just as engaged on a Tuesday as a Friday. In our 2020 Webinar Benchmarks Report, we noted that the mid-week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, were the best days to host a webinar. But the massive shift to remote work due to COVID-19 health concerns has opened up Friday as another great day to host.

Friday’s Numbers Overall

Here’s a quick breakdown of why Friday has become an ideal day to run webinars: Between Q4 2019 and Q1 2020, webinars hosted on Fridays saw a registration to attendance conversion increase of nearly 10% — a number that’s expected to grow. When comparing engagement during the first week March (right before most United States lockdowns began due to the spread of COVID-19) versus the first week of April (after more cities and states instituted lockdowns), Friday webinar attendance increased by 406% globally.

Previously, Fridays weren’t a critical part of the webinar equation. Now, however, Fridays are seemingly becoming part of the Friday fold. The ON24 Platform also experienced a 173% increase in the number of Friday events between the first week of March and the first week of April.

Strategic Friday Webinars

So what about when there isn’t a massive stay at home movement? How can webinar practitioners strategically use Fridays to their advantage?

Anecdotally, we’ve found Fridays for recurring events like our Daily Demo. Contrary to what you might expect, the Daily Demos on Friday have traditionally generated the most leads out of all the days in the week. This makes sense from a certain perspective: Fridays are good days to catch up on emails, calls or other low-priority tasks you haven’t had the chance to manage earlier in the week. A 30-minute demo is an easy addition to round out a week.

In sum: If you want and need more availability and engagement opportunities, you don’t have to fear hosting a Friday webinar. Your audiences can still attend and engage with you and your content.

Be sure to check out our 2020 Webinar Benchmarks Report to gain more perspective and insights on digital experiences.

Feature Friday: Leveraging ON24 Engagement Hub for your Virtual Event

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ON24 Engagement Hub is not only a great resource to host all of your content, but it can easily and efficiently create a rich digital event experience that is just as engaging as a physical event. Let’s dig into all the tools and features you can leverage to make Engagement Hub your next virtual event venue.

Host Upcoming and On-Demand Webinars with Full Interactivity

Along with various multimedia types such as PDFs and videos, ON24 Engagement Hub is directly integrated into ON24 Webcast Elite and can host both upcoming and on-demand webinars. By hosting these webinars in an Engagement Hub, attendees only need to go to one place, similar to one conference hall, to engage with your content and speakers. They can easily join all of your virtual event’s sessions and interact—all without the lengthy commute time or running from one ballroom to the next.

Simplify Registration with One-Click Registration

Digital attendees don’t want to fill out any more forms than they need to. With One-Click Registration, attendees need to only register once to view all content in the Hub and sign up for any upcoming or on-demand webinar. By removing extra forms, attendees are given one coherent experience, rather than sitting in a bunch of individual, disparate webinars.

Pro Tip: You can simplify registration even more by using the CTA engagement tool in ON24 Webcast Elite to auto-register your audience members to a webinar, seamlessly sending attendees to the next scheduled session. We highlighted this recently in Feature Friday: Humanizing Your Digital Experiences.

Customize Your Hub for an Immersive Brand Experience

Getting all the signage and decorations for a physical event is costly, time-consuming and stressful. By hosting your event in an Engagement Hub, easily customize layouts and branding to allow your digital experience to not only beautifully display your brand, but also create an immersive brand experience just like an in-person event. Use your brand’s colors, banners and custom thumbnails. Additionally, by organizing and categorizing your webinars and content to align with conference tracks or event dates, attendees can easily find relevant content.

Enable Breakout Sessions and Networking

Link your online meeting rooms, such as Slack or Join.me, to Engagement Hub so participants can easily network, discuss and ask questions. Attendees can even turn on mics and webcams to have a more visual experience. And, by creating a category or area focused on these meeting tools and conversation channels, you have your new smaller “conference room” location where individuals can have a deeper discussion.

Ready to go digital? Check out our Taking Your In-Person Events Digital guide to leverage the ON24 Platform to scale, reach broad audiences and deliver event ROI.

Feature Friday: Humanizing Your Digital Experiences

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There are a few benefits to realize by moving an in-person event to a digital one: no need to rent a huge conference space and limiting attendee travel time. However, we understand there’s something in the magic of being face-to-face, connecting with others on an intimate level.

At ON24, we love fostering that human interaction in the digital world. Here are three unique ways you can successfully extend your event from in-person to digital while continuing to drive engagement and connection.

Show Your Face

Showing your face during your webinar makes the whole experience less robotic. Attendees want to not only hear but also see, excitement for your content.

Simply turning on webcam or video capabilities add another dynamic to your entire event. Don’t worry about how you look as the preview window will ensure that you see what your audience sees. You can also incorporate Broadcast Video to bring broadcast-quality HD video to your webinars.

Use CTAs to Easily Lead Audiences to the Next Session

Physically running from one session to another can be stressful. With the CTA engagement tool, audiences are guided into the next session to continue their learning and engagement.

When creating your CTA, simply select the Webcast option and put in the audience URL. As long as the registration fields are the same, attendees will be auto-registered to the next event without needing to re-type all their information.

If the next session already started, attendees will dive right in. If it hasn’t started, attendees will see a landing page noting they are registered for the next session. That page will then be refreshed to allow the attendee to start viewing when the webinar does start. No need to rush to the other end of the conference hall!

The CTA tool can be set up as:

    • Always on the console: Allow the attendee to check out another session whenever.
    • Post-live: The CTA will be launched when the presenter ends the current webinar.

The CTA can also lead attendees to visit another webpage, to contact you or visit an ON24 Engagement Hub. If you’re an ON24 customer, check out the knowledge center for more best practices or contact your Customer Success Manager to see how else you can leverage the CTA tool.

Encourage Networking via Chat

One of the best aspects of an in-person event or conference is all the networking. From connecting with other like-minded individuals during a breakout session to those side conversations in the hallway, events foster meeting new individuals to grow professionally. With ON24’s Chat engagement tool, audiences and attendees can not only engage with your content but also with each other — digitally!

With Chat, attendees are able to interact and exchange ideas. They will feel like they are still part of a larger audience, just sitting digitally next to one another. Another added benefit of digital networking is unlike a physical event with many side discussions, all chats in an ON24 event are still logged in the webinar reporting.

…But wait, there’s more!

The ON24 Platform is built for engagement. Other features such as the Q&A, polls and surveys continue to allow audiences to stay engaged, interact and connect with the presenter.

Ready to go digital? Check out our Taking Your In-Person Events Digital guide to leverage the ON24 Platform to scale, reach broad audiences and deliver event ROI.