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Anjali Prayag

This will help target thousands of customers at the same time

Bangalore , June 7

Leading pharma and financial services companies in the country are now disseminating information on products and services through `webinars' or Web seminars.

It means that resource persons are now marketing products and services from their homes.

"This does away with hectic travel schedules, expensive hotel bookings, and the hassle of getting together 2,000-3,000 target audience for a company," says Mr Sandeep Mehra, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Webex Communications India Pvt Ltd.

Webex is a Bangalore-based Web seminar provider.

To generate sales

According to a survey by Wainhouse Research, a US-based research firm, webinar is the No. 1 application for online events to generate sales.

He says in India too, companies are increasingly excited about webinars, especially to market new products and services.

Webex has facilitated several pharma clients (Nicholas Piramal, Alchem, Pfizer) to address doctors on new research methodologies or new drugs or to conduct doctor workshops. This application is very popular when thousands of `busy' customers have to be targeted at the same time.

Banking and financial services have also used Webex's `webinar' concept to disseminate information to high networth individuals (HNIs) on new products, like credit cards or exclusive real estate products.

High sales at low cost

"Shrinking marketing budgets and the ability to generate high sales at low costs has made this popular," says Mr Mehra.

In fact, companies realise savings of 80-90 per cent when they give up traditional seminars in favour of webinars, according to him.

It also helps in getting better sales leads because `people' who are too busy to travel and attend a seminar may actually log in and listen to the resource person.

Increase in leads

According to the Wainhouse report, on an average, respondents reported a 32 per cent increase in leads generated when using Web events in place of traditional marketing mediums.

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