Are you seeking a different method to market your business? You have to look for a way that has the potential to create new leads within no time. This article highlights the importance of webinars and how to use them to market your business. In the end, you will learn why and how to use webinars to market your brand successfully.
Webinar Marketing – Definition
Webinar marketing is the use of the internet to conduct a seminar and connect with your audience to market your company. The word webinar is derived from the terms “web seminar”. Most webinars are meant to generate more leads by offering the audience free and helpful information expecting that the participants will realise the need to upgrade to paid services or products provided by the business. Webinars are different from other lead generation tactics – they have the potential to give better leads and more value.
Webinars usually have a presentation session followed by a Question and Answer session. Since they are a visual method, webinars can assist presenters to link with the audience. Most individuals will also grip the information more quickly than if it was put down in writing.
Businesses need webinars to:
- Display their expertise
- Expound on the content on their blog and website
- Showcase their products and services
Webinars can also attract the interest of your audience to make purchases. However, if you are planning to use webinars to generate more leads, there is one thing you need to keep in mind: webinars are not sales offers. It is not based on you; it is about adding value to the participants. That value is the way webinars offer a sales opportunity.
Statistics on Webinar Marketing
Research shows that 58% of marketers in Singapore use webinars to promote their business. And 32% of these people see webinar marketing as a critical digital marketing strategy that will lead to the success of their companies. Other studies show that webinars attract the attention of about 40% of viewers. Another research shows that between 2% and 5% of webinar participants buy something from your company. Between 20% and 40% of webinar participants become eligible leads. Apart from lead generation, webinars have other important aspects which include:
- They speed up your cycle of sales when you include them in your sales funnel
- They are an excellent way to boost your traffic, brand authority, and brand awareness
- They offer a simple way of handling pre-sales concerns
Choosing A Webinar Topic
The first step to a successful webinar marketing is selecting an appropriate topic. You can achieve this by:
- Looking for other webinars in your industry and choosing the theme that suits you best
- Looking at your social media pages and asking your team to check if there are questions that followers keep asking
- Looking at your blog and determining if there are topics that can make a great webinar
Finally, create an attractive title. Like other digital content marketing strategies, webinars depend on titles to attract the attention of your audience. An excellent title is informative and exciting.
Creating A Webinar
The most important thing to remember when creating a webinar is that it should not have a sales pitch. When preparing a webinar, it is critical to know the action you want your participants to take after the webinar. That will assist you to target your webinar to a specific call to action. It is good to repeat that you have to ensure that your webinar offers a solution to the problem you wish to help your customers with. Keep your webinar less promo and focus on providing value. You can mention about yourself and how great you are on one of your slides.
Preferably, when creating a webinar, you should focus on one topic that has immediate applicability to your participants. In short, you should make your webinar very specific, unique, urgent, and useful.
Think wisely concerning your webinar’s timing. You should set your webinar at the time when most individuals in your target audience can attend.
The Most Excellent Practices for Webinar Hosts
Like most of us, you have likely attended a webinar that was a little derp. How do you ensure that you create a webinar that rocks? Easy. Follow these best practice guides for webinar hosts.
Two strategies work effectively. First, you have to present your topic, cover the subject, and summarise it. The other approach involves outlining the problem your audience is facing, share your experience, tell them what is the solution, and explain to them how to apply the solution. You can include your sales pitch between your last two sections.
Regardless of the structure used, you should outline the value the audience is going to gain at the start, deliver at the middle, and highlighting the importance at the end.
Tips for Presenting an Excellent Webinar
Technology is essential in making your webinar great. If you use webinars on a regular basis, it is good to ensure that you deliver high-quality audio and video. Look direct at the camera to make the participants feel like you are looking at them when addressing them. That is an excellent way to start connecting with them.
Rehearse before you start the webinar to ensure that you are comfortable with the content and you can switch between sharing the screen, showing slides, and presenting seamlessly. However, these are not similar to training slides where you can leave the slides to stay for a while. Your slides should move quickly so that your audience remains active. That also indicates that the slides should not be too content-heavy but straight to the point. Ensure that your graphics are clear and straightforward to comprehend. You don’t want the participants to be straining because of minute texts.
Use a simple and straightforward language because the participants in your webinar can come from any region of the world.
When you get near to the end of your presentation, it is now time to frame your sales pitch. But keep in mind that you should not make your pitch too salesy. You don’t want to interfere with the flow and harm the relationship you have established. Take it as a chance to inform your participants how to react to the information they get from the webinar by taking an action you can offer.
After that, get back to offering value to your audience. Here are some strategies to attract more participants to your webinar:
- Using inadequacy to urge them to take action. If you have a discount that expires after a week, individuals see the need to take action quickly.
- Offering discounts on the product or service you need them to purchase
- Giving the participants gifts
Planning to Campaign for Your Webinar
Most businesses in Singapore market their webinars at least one month before the event date. It means you need to prepare even earlier. The biggest challenge is choosing the hosting service for your webinar.
Hosting companies offer various services, but you should look on to the following:
- Chat
- Automatic recording
- Registration options
- Ability to show videos and share your screen
- Free calls for participants from all over the world
- Compatible with other digital marketing software like social media and email marketing
If you wish to partner with another person in the webinar, you should ensure that the hosting solution you select allows for multiple hosting. Also, you need to consider the type of analytics provided by your hosting service because you will require it for your future marketing undertakings.
You can try some of these webinar hosting platforms even in Singapore:
- EasyWebinar
- Zoom
- Anymeeting
- Cisco WebEx
- WebinarJam
- ClickMeeting
- GotoWebinar
If you are new to webinar marketing, it is good to start with a free option. If you own a Google account, you can utilise YouTube Live. You will need to apply some measures to ensure that your webinar remains interactive, like gathering follower questions through social media.
After running your webinar, you may require to host your video after running your webinar. YouTube is the most common video hosting service, but some people also utilise Vimeo and Wistia.
Creating A Marketing Plan for Your Webinar
It I now time to start campaigning for your webinar. The first step is creating a registration page with a signup form. The front page of your webinar should contain the title and description of the event as well as some points highlighting what participants will gain. You should indicate the speakers, plus their expertise. You can also add the duration of the webinar. Stating that your webinar is free is also an excellent strategy.
If you have proof about the speaker or your business, add that too. The number of social shares, endorsements, and testimonials can assist reassure the potential participants that the webinar is excellent for them and that you are the perfect individual for them to link with.
Email is the main webinar marketing tactic. Social media is the second. So, email signups are crucial to the success of your webinar. You require a subscriber form on the main page to remind participants about the webinar. Sending at least one reminder email is good.
Alternatively, you can utilise a countdown timer signup to develop a sense of urgency that incites more individuals to enrol for your webinar. It is also advisable that you include an option to opt-out to get the attention of individuals who are still undecided. You can make use of these opt-ins in your promotional emails as well as your main site.
Most marketers use yes or no options to enable the audience to make a clear choice about subscribing. These subscription forms are proven to boost conversions. Additionally, you will require to develop your webinar invite and create some emails using a qualified email marketing agency. Research shows that most of the subscribers happen two weeks before the date of the webinar.
Also, you will want to keep your social media marketing active. It could be by using paid ads to market your webinar or through sharing the information on your social media pages. Do not forget to send reminders on a regular basis to keep the audience updated regarding the event.
Other webinar promotion strategies include the following:
- Editing the usual “thank you” message to your email lists to add a link to the registration page for your webinar
- Including promotional posters on your site
- Crafting a marketing video for the webinar
- Publishing your guest posts or having them appear in the interviews boost your authority and give you a chance to market your webinar’s topic.
You will also require to use customised URLs for enhanced tracking, and a Facebook Pixel monitor the outcomes from your email marketing.
Consider inviting a market influencer in your area of business to co-host or speak at your webinar. That enhances your reach and conversions.
Marketing After Your Webinar
You still have another chance to convert the audience even after the webinar. Send all your email subscribers and social media followers a link to the repeat video, and write a new message to email to the subscribers who didn’t take action. As mentioned earlier, a short time discount can be an excellent persuader.
Lastly, change the webinar registration page to a replay page and attract more individuals to subscribe so that they don’t fail the next webinar.
A Checklist for Planning Your Webinar
Below is a quick summary to assist you in preparing your webinar properly:
- Select a topic that you feel will be successful depending on your existing content marketing strategies
- Ensure that you have an informative and appealing webinar title
- Run the webinar for about one hour and allow 15 minutes for questioning
- Ensure that your slides are attractive and simple to read
- Make sure that the brand you are marketing fits well with your webinar
- Use email marketing to promote your webinars
- Use social media to advertise your webinars
- Link with the participants of your webinar later and convert them to your clients
It is evident that webinar campaigns are beneficial to your business. They not only market your business, but they also generate sales for your brand. Email marketing is the key to marketing your business using webinars. So, create content that attracts people to subscribe for your promotional emails.
