A VC in Vacationland

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One of the big problems many start ups face is developing quality marketing collateral. At best, they may have a pretty good website, perhaps a brochure or two and, oh yea, numerous PowerPoint presentations.  The problem is that the founders are not always able to do a live presentation or webinar for a prospective client or funding source. Here's where Brainshark and BrightTALK comes in.

According to their website, "Brainshark is the leader in on-demand business communication
solutions, with patented software that empowers businesspersons to easily
transform Microsoft PowerPoint slides and other business materials into
powerful, voice-enriched, interactive presentations. More than 1,000 companies,
including a third of the Fortune 100, rely on Brainshark software and services
to accelerate training, increase marketing response rates, shorten the
sales cycle or enhance corporate communication." 

Brainshark developed the application to feed the need for
leads. Lead generation was fast becoming an all-consuming job for Brainshark's marketing
team. Its efforts to create awareness of the company's offerings and spark a
dialogue between qualified prospects and sales were successful, but the process
to manage leads and nurture them through the pipeline was clunky and cumbersome.
The biggest obstacle Brainshark encountered was its use of several SaaS
offerings that didn't fully integrate with each other. For example, critical
prospect data housed in Salesforce.com  wasn't able to sync with other
applications, thwarting marketing's efforts to utilize that information in
targeted campaigns.

BrightTALK allows easy creation of webinars. As stated on their web site, "presenters can create powerful webcasts using one, two, or all of our three
main business components:

1. brighttalk.com is our simple-to-use live webcast platform—built using the
latest Web 2.0 principles—where business professionals create and view webcasts
through BrightTALK™ Channels.

2. BrightTALK™ Conferences deliver thought leadership events focused on
market areas where access to the latest information is essential to driving that
industry forward. Enterprises use these conferences to generate qualified leads
and associations use them to keep their members up-to-date and accredited.

3. BrightTALK™ Webcasts provide individual and customized webcasts delivered
through our webcast content management system—BrightTALK™ Media Zone. You’ll
work with our experienced video and audio production teams to create
high-quality videos and to reduce the stress of delivering online events."

I have not personally used either software, but have positive feedback from friends that have developed enhanced marketing materials using their services.  Check them out.

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