Why You Need To Use Zoom In Your Business

At the time of writing this article, the world is gripped by the coronavirus pandemic making it difficult to meet with people face to face. As a result, the number of people using the Zoom platform has grown significantly as it provides them with a great way to connect with people during quarantine.

Even after the pandemic there are many good reasons why you should use Zoom to grow your business and we will cover the most important ones here. The Zoom platform is very flexible and you can do a lot of things with it even with a free account.

Collaboration with your Team

A lot of businesses nowadays outsource specific tasks to freelancers who could be located anywhere in the world. If you have a small business then it is unlikely that you will have the budget to recruit web designers, copywriters, programmers and others. So it makes sense to outsource these kinds of roles.

Communication is very important with anyone that you have outsourced tasks to. You need to ensure that they fully understand what you need and it will help to explain to them the role that they are playing in the development of your business. Zoom meetings are a very convenient way of doing this.

Even if you have your own employees they may be located in different offices and it is far more cost effective to hold a Zoom meeting to discuss business then it is to have everyone travel to a single location. The bottom line here is that Zoom helps you to collaborate with your team better and save money and time in the process.

New Leads and Customers

You can use Zoom to generate leads and acquire new customers. The Zoom webinar platform is a great way to do this for example. You can also use Zoom meetings with your existing customers to generate more business from them.

If you have a business that people around the world can benefit from then you must use Zoom to communicate with them. Even a local based business can benefit from using Zoom. There are many examples of where local businesses have used Zoom to provide their customers with a better service.

A good example of this is where a restaurant accepts Zoom calls to discuss menu options and specials etc. If you want to order food to be delivered to your home you can use Zoom to speak with the restaurant to ensure that you get exactly what you want.

You can use the Zoom platform to train your students. Let’s say that you offer a training course on social media marketing. You can charge people to attend your live Zoom training sessions and then use the features within Zoom to deliver the training.

It is possible to train or coach with a one to one Zoom call or train a group with a Zoom meeting. You can share your screen to provide “over the shoulder training” and you can also use the whiteboard feature to explain concepts. Prepare a presentation on your computer and then share this with your students for learning.

These are just three great ways that you can use Zoom to grow your business. We recommend that you take a look at what Zoom can do and then identify how you can use it to your advantage.

How To Prepare For Great Zoom Events

Some Zoom events are unforgettable. The host comes across really well and the audience feels that they got great value from attending. Other Zoom events are dull and boring and all over the place resulting in a lot of the audience leaving the event early or just ending up confused.

There are some simple things that you can do to make all of your Zoom events unforgettable. Preparation for any group meeting is highly recommended as “winging it” on Zoom rarely provides a good result. If your audience detects that you are unprepared then they are going to be more likely to leave early or not take the action that you want.

What do you want to achieve with your Zoom Event?

This is the first question to ask yourself. You need to have a clear goal in mind for every Zoom event. If you are holding an internal collaboration meeting then what are the things that you want the attendees to take away from the meeting?

For a lead generation or customer acquisition event such as a Zoom webinar you need to decide how you will pitch your offer and how you will follow up with people after the event. You need to plan your presentation so that you provide the maximum value to your audience.

It is very important that you have everything prepared before you launch your event. Prepare your presentation slides and determine what other information you will need to share with your attendees. Maybe you will want to show them some web pages or an application? Also if you are going to share files then prepare these and have them ready in a folder.

If you are just going to use the whiteboard feature for your Zoom event then plan how you will use this and get your point across. We recommend that you use as many different methods as possible such as sharing your screen, the whiteboard, using the annotation tools etc so that you make your Zoom event memorable.

Use High Quality Equipment

Don’t try to conduct your Zoom events on the cheap. If your webcam is poor quality then this is going to turn off your audience very quickly. You are the host of the event and the audience will want to see you in all of your glory. Grainy video is not the way to go if you want a successful Zoom event.

The same is true for the audio quality of your event. Cheap microphones need to be avoided here. If your audience are struggling to hear what you are saying then they will leave the event in droves.

You do not have to spend a fortune on equipment for a great Zoom event. There are high quality webcams and microphones available for less than $100 each. Also you may want to consider investing in some good lighting so that your face is lit up properly. Bad lighting will mean a bad Zoom event.

Test your Meeting

Zoom provides you with the option to run a test meeting without any participants. If you are new to Zoom then we highly recommend that you do this. You can record this test meeting and then play it back to see what was good and what was not so good.

 How To Setup Zoom Webinars For The Best Results

Once you have decided to use the Zoom webinar platform you will want to set up your webinars for the best results. In this article we will run through some of the most important features and the things that you need to do to get the most from your Zoom webinars.

The Webinar Registration Process

There is actually an option with Zoom webinars to disable the need for webinar attendees to register at all. You do not want to choose this option. Always make your attendees register for your webinars.

When you are setting up the webinar registration process you will have 2 options when it comes to approving the people that you want in your audience:

1.      You can approve each registrant one by one manually

2.      You can instruct Zoom to automatically approve all of your webinar registrants

Once a registrant is approved to attend the webinar they will automatically receive an email from Zoom notifying them of the joining instructions. You can customize all webinar emails that are sent out and even choose not to send some emails. We recommend that you let all of the emails go out as they are designed to encourage maximum attendance.

All webinar registrants will need to complete a form to register. As a minimum the form will require that they enter their name and email address. You can ask for other information too such as the industry they are in, their telephone number, their job title and so on.

If you already have a list of people you want to invite to your webinar then you can create a CSV file and automatically import these into the Zoom webinar platform. Each row must include the attendees name and their email address or they will not be accepted.

You can customize your registration form and you should do this. Add any branding to the form such as your logo and change the form them if you want to. Zoom will provide a default description which you can change to make this more appealing.

Schedule your Webinar on Zoom

It is not difficult to schedule a Zoom webinar but you will need to make some decisions and provide accurate details. Sign in to your Zoom web portal and then select “Webinars”. If you have scheduled any webinars before you will see a list here.

Now go to the “Schedule a Webinar” tab which will take you to the screen for webinar settings. The first thing to do is to provide a title for your webinar and then add an enticing description. You will need to enter the date and start time and an estimated duration time for the webinar.

Setting Up Recurring Webinars

If you plan to run the same webinar often, which you should do, then you have the option to set your webinar up as “recurring”. Here you will be presented with some time options:

·         Daily

·         Weekly

·         Monthly

·         No Fixed Time

After this you will need to decide on some other details such as ending your webinar after a set number of repeats or specifying the exact date when you want the webinars to stop recurring. These are optional and you can leave your webinar to run indefinitely if you want to.

Other Webinar Settings

We recommend that you record all of your webinars so that you can send out “replay links” to those people that registered and did not attend or to your contacts who didn’t register but you think will be interested. The other feature we highly recommend is the questions and answers panel.

Avoid These Zoom Meeting Mistakes

Zoom is a great platform that you can use to grow your business. Unfortunately not everyone uses it right and they end up with Zoom events that do not achieve their goals. In this article we will discuss the most common mistakes that people make with Zoom meetings so that you can avoid them and get the best results.

1. Not Planning your Zoom Event

While it is sometimes OK to just have a one to one Zoom call with someone without any planning, it is a different story if you are scheduling a meeting with a number of participants or a webinar.

You need to decide what you want to achieve with your meetings before you hold them. If you don’t do this then it is very easy to wander all over the place leaving your attendees totally confused.

Make sure that you have all of your materials prepared prior to your Zoom meeting. This includes presentation slides, web pages that you want to use, applications and so on. A good tip is to have web pages and applications already open on your computer so that you can quickly bring them up when you share your screen. Nobody wants to see things loading.

The best Zoom events are always well prepared for. You can practice your event on your own before you go live as well and record this so that you can identify weak areas that need to be addressed. If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.

2. Get rid of Distractions

There is nothing worse than a major distraction in a Zoom event. If you are explaining a complex concept and suddenly your phone rings then you are going to lose your audience. You must do everything that you can to eliminate distractions.

If you are hosting your Zoom event from home then keep your children and your pets away. Screaming kids and barking dogs are not conducive to a good Zoom business meeting. We get it that you love your kids and your pets but they can be a real distraction so do the right thing here.

Check your background prior to launching your Zoom meeting. Does the room you are using look totally cluttered with stuff? If it is then this will distract your audience and they will quickly form a bad opinion of you that you want to avoid at all costs.

3. Be Interactive

Nobody wants to attend an hour long Zoom event where the host just rambles on the whole time. This is very boring for the participants. Make your Zoom events interactive by getting your audience to participate as much as possible.

One of the best ways to do this is to allow them to ask questions which you will answer. You can either have questions and answers at the end of each section (if this is appropriate) or at the end of the meeting. Ask your audience questions as well to test for understanding. Use surveys and polls for even greater interactivity.

4. Not Timing your Zoom Event

The attention span of human beings is getting less and less. Studies have found that people will digest information best in 7 minute chunks so bear this in mind with your events. If you tell your audience that your event will last around an hour then try and stick to this as much as possible.