Multimedia Presentations
by Dan Reid, CEO, The Reid Group

"No matter what industry you're in, it's highly likely that at least one of your competitors is seriously considering outfitting its sales force with a multimedia system."

When should you use multimedia? When you need to:

• Communicate complex solutions
• Present in multiple languages
• Enhance a corporation's image and identity
• Explain the benefits of a product or service
• Shorten sales cycles

You can use multimedia presentations in:

• manufacturing to introduce new products or define the benefits of existing ones
• insurance companies to introduce new services or concepts
• education to get new ideas across to a diverse audience
• travel and tourism to promote facilities, regions or countries
• communications to explain how technology can service the client's specific needs
• retail to help better serve and educate your customers.

"At the heart of multimedia is the concept of interactivity: the ability for people to retrieve information suited to their specific needs, rather than simply absorbing information in a passive, linear way."

Case Study #1 Lauridon Sports Management

Multimedia:

• Makes it easy for the recipients to understand your key selling features and benefits
• Gives the presenters the tools to communicate effectively
• Helps build corporate and brand image for the corporation.

How Multimedia Presentations Increase Sales and Profits

"The problem with many sales presentations today is that key decision makers won't sit still long enough for a lengthy pitch. That's where computer-based marketing can help. It's more engaging and it lets customers sell themselves."

Case Study #2 The Royal Bank: KBI or Knowledge Based Industries

Other important facts for consideration:

• CD-ROM sales more than doubled in 1995 to 38.57 million units with continued strong growth into '96
• Recent studies suggest between 25 and 30% of the Canadian population has access to the Internet
• Video conferencing, capable of transmitting both voice and video, is evolving
• Web TV is available now
• Digital video disks or (digital versatile disks) will bring full screen, full-length movies to your TV and computer in the near future

Case Study #3 Waterloo Insurance

The bottom line:

• Competitive needs will drive companies to expand their networking capabilities (Intranets), create electronic communication strategies (CD-ROM and Web sites), and begin to look at electronic commerce as a way to serve the needs of their clients better.
• In 1996 CISCO sold approximately $75 million over the Internet. In 1997 they project Internet sales to reach 30% of their total sales or roughly $1.8 billion.
• By 1998, more than half of all software support transactions will be online. Of these transactions, over 20% will be resolved directly by customers, with no service provider involved, according to Tom Sweeney, Director and principal analyst for Dataquest's software services program.

If you want to get your message across, make Multimedia a part of your communications strategy.

 

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