Mix It Up: Why You Should Be Doing Webinars

Mix It Up: Why You Should Be Doing Webinars
by
Corin Tomasello

Webinars are a great marketing tool for many reasons. First and foremost, you’re talking to highly qualified leads and your engaged customers. Webinars are effective in bringing people & their shared interests together. By hosting these presentations, you have the opportunity to showcase your chops and thought leadership in your field.

Webinars afford your business real-time connectivity and interaction between your team, special guest experts, and the audience. One of my favorite parts…even the largest of web events feel intimate, and that you’re interacting as a part of a small conversation.

You don’t have to have a big budget or large team to add a few webinars into your marketing mix! Like organic results in search engines, your business won’t have to spend a lot of your marketing budget. Webinars are a cost-efficient way to market your business, many services aren’t that expensive (ex. WebinarJam) and some are even available for free so the ROI is really easy to achieve with this marketing tactic.

To make the most of webinars for your marketing, you just need a good list of topics that your audience cares about, a way to record the presentation, and a short email cascade to invite and follow up with people who attended and another for those who registered but missed out.

Here are some of the reasons why webinars as a marketing tactic aren’t going anywhere:

Lead Generation

This one is huge! Webinars are a wonderful way to build a bigger, better audience and contact list for your team to follow up with. By collecting contact information in advance of the webinar you have the ability to build your list quickly; you can even have a form that includes an opt-in box for your newsletters to keep the communication going.

By leveraging special guests who can talk about anything related to your market or products, you can really capture people’s attention and bring in a whole new audience for your business.

Convenience

In addition to talking to highly interested people, webinars are convenient! You can connect with your prospects or like-minded people without them having to leave their home or office! It’s best to record every presentation so you can host them on-demand as additional web content. This evergreen content allows people to access your web video content anywhere anytime.

Sales, Sales, Sales!

If you have a new product you’re launching or a promotion running, then a webinar is a great way to (shamelessly) plug your brand a bit. You can include video that shows what sets you apart and have buyer’s questions answered by the presenter. This can have a big impact on people’s perception on what your company offers, and showing is always better than telling in my book.

I recommend simply by adding a footer with a special offer to a few slides, or special bonuses that attendees can get when they buy from you can really up the ante on using webinars as a sales tool. Some vendors even give you a chance to promote a limited time offer for a compelling call to action to seal the deal during your presentation!

Credibility

Webinars also establish your brand’s credibility. When you host a webinar (especially with an expert guest speaker), you give more authority to your ideas. The simple act of putting on webinars allows you to share your ideas and have the audience better understand your concepts by getting to ask questions in a chat or in a Q&A at the end of the presentation.

Everyone has a voice in a web conference, including those watching it in the form of a sidebar comment box. You can get really valuable feedback during these presentations.

Ongoing Customer Support

Webinars are a great way to conduct training or provide support on your products. Your presentations can include how-to videos on your products or services, or even hacks to make whatever you’re discussing easier for your clients. Of course, this training is great because your customers can ask questions along the way.

Three Webinar Best Practices:

  • Practice but don’t over rehearse; you want your presentation to feel like an authentic conversation. Tell your audience when it’s the first time you’re presenting a topic. Then, ask for their thoughts and feedback as you go along. Their candid thoughts let you tweak your presentation to answer common questions so it’s even better in the future!
  • Allow participants to grow their networks. Write the confirmation email from the presenter and include their social contact information; encourage attendees to circulate their contact information ahead of time or during the course of the webinar as well. Everyone likes to add to their network especially with like-minded people. Contact information means everyone can get more out of the webinar and can continue the discussion afterward.
  • Plan ahead and market your webinars as a web “series”. This will set the expectation that you’re there at a specific timeframe so people can tune in. Example: Moz “Whiteboard Friday”.

Web presentations enable you to reach to most people, particularly your target audience efficiently. Be creative and come up with unique topics that you and your attendees will care about. The more engaging your webcasts are, the more invested your audience will be and the more potential you have for enhanced brand awareness and profitability.

Tweet All About It:

Share these tips with your followers! Just highlight the text and share on your favorite social sites. No worries, you can revise the tweet before posting it.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the best days for a webinar. Host between 11AM-2PM for better attendance! Switch up your follow up after a webinar for attendees & registrants; change copy to acknowledge who showed up! #brandyourcharisma

Host a web ‘series’ that sets the expectation that you’re there at a specific time so prospects can tune in. (11AM-2PM is the best time but remember the replay!) #brandyourcharisma