MUMBAI, INDIA: With the current economic scenario around, businesses see high value in adopting innovative tools such as webinars,  online or virtual events, podcasts etc., as it provides effective market reach with better returns at lower cost.

For instance webinars, the virtual form of physical seminar or event transmitted over Web, offer several benefits to businesses. Webinars offer rich audio-video and graphical content designed for specific audience, educate them with information and also allow interactivity.

“Marketing events are critical for any business. However, it involves huge cost depending on the kind of event - whether it be a multi-city or a single one - as it includes the cost of hotel, traveling and infrastructure and other elements,” says Balaji Kesavraj, marketing head of Cisco WebEx.

“However, using webinars, which is a replication of physical event or seminar, companies can easily save cost of hotel, traveling and other expenses. The participants can sit in front of their computers to attend the event without traveling to the event venue and can ask questions to speakers using the Internet,” adds Kesavraj.

Talking about webinar's benefits, he points out the webinars can be recorded for those people, who were unable to attend and they can even ask questions post event. So it offers a great advantage to businesses and people.

“As webinars are pre-registered online events, it provides measure of audience with their correct information and details. The cost of webinar is one-tenth of any regular physical event,” Kesavraj points out.

Cisco WebEx is a top rated company, which offers web conferencing and collaboration solutions for large and medium businesses including Event Assist and Event Center, which are online event production services. According to Frost and Sullivan, the company tops with 67 per cent market share in the collaboration solutions market in India for the past five years from 2005 to 2009.

Marketers