Web seminars are fast becoming a cost-effective alternative to traditional venue-based events, according to a survey recently conducted by Wainhouse Research for WebEx Communications, a provider of on-demand collaborative business applications.

Survey respondents said that they use web seminars primarily to reach new geographic markets and generate sales leads more cost-effectively. Some highlights from the survey include:

• More than 61 percent of respondents are replacing traditional in-person events with web seminars.
• The overwhelming majority of respondents, 87 percent, are using web seminars to create new marketing programs and tasks.
• On average, respondents reported a 32 percent increase in leads generated when using web events in place of traditional marketing mediums.
• Respondents listed expanded geographic reach and better cost-per-lead as the top two benefits of replacing in-person events with web seminars.
• WebEx Event Center had an overall customer satisfaction rate of 95 percent.

"In less than half a decade, web seminars have gone from being a novelty to being a powerful way of delivering information to large geographically dispersed audiences. The effectiveness and economics of web events not only create a real challenge to in-person events, but also deliver unique advantages that are only possible through a virtual medium," said Andy Nilssen, senior analyst and partner, Wainhouse Research.

In late 2005, Wainhouse surveyed 116 users of WebEx Event Center. Respondents unanimously reported that web events are less expensive to produce than venue-based events and that ease-of-use was the number one consideration in selecting a web seminar provider. The survey also found that the growing popularity of web seminars is fueled by users employing the solution not only as a replacement for traditional in-person events, but also for new applications that capitalize on WebEx Event Center’s unique capabilities such as the virtual auditorium and automatic lead scoring.