5)Some web-enabled presentation challenges include need to keep people involved – you can do this easily by leveraging chat capabilities, dynamic polling, and standard Q&A components built into application. The higher their interest level (as in real world meetings) better your meeting or presentation will be.

6)Marketing presentations can be easily archived and made available to others on a 24/7 basis – this archiving can include standard presentation, enhanced with video or audio components, depending on sophistication of your presentation. Be prepared to pay an extra charge for this – but marketing ROI can be significant, especially when you factor in how little most companies charge for an archiving service versus your front end costs.

7) Virtual marketing enables a whole set of web-enabled processes – you will have ability to easily capture your prospect/customer's e-mail address and standard contact points via a registration process, involve them and capture preferences via polling in your presentations and "push" follow up communications during your presentation/meeting or later. But, it's very important to include standard "privacy" statements in your materials and adhere to them as you move forward through your business processes.

8) How does video conferencing impact your assessments of web-enabled presentations or collaborations? This depends on your budget, number of people attending presentation, presenter and attendee locations and other intangible that are specific to your business. In general, video conferencing works better for very small (under five people) presentations or meetings, due to some of inherent challenges of this medium.

* A financial planner gets 65-70% of his new business from referrals and now only spends 10% of his time on phone trying to get appointments.

* A computer software company now gets 35% of new business from referrals and made an extra $200,000 from just one direct mail piece sent to his list of referral prospects.

* A newly-opened skin care business launched into high profitability and perpetual referrals with just one innovative referral marketing system.

The above examples are impressive, and fact is, any type of businesses or professional practice can use referral marketing to drastically increase their leads, clients, and profits for little or no extra marketing cost.

Referral Marketing Tips:

Increasing clientele and customers with referrals is a simple process, but it is amazing how few companies realize upside potential. This is because very few understand how referral marketing works. For example, many people think that generating referrals means asking their clients these intrusive questions:

* "Do you have anyone to recommend to me?" * "Whom do you know that could use my product?"

These questions will NOT convince anyone to refer ANY business to you. The following is a list of general tips on how a referral marketing system works:

1. Position yourself as unique in your industry 2. "Wow!" your clients with an excellent product or service 3. Actively trade referrals with your contact and clients 4. Make referrals a condition of doing business 5. Offer your clients discounts on your products/services for referrals 6. Give incentives for referring business to you

Conclusion:

If you wish to leverage your business into increased profits and sales, as well as reduce amount of money and time wasted on not-so-profitable tasks such as cold calling and prospecting, then referral marketing is almost always first place to start for any business or professional practice.