If you’re looking for new effective ways to promote your business, webinars are certainly worth giving a try. Webinars have proven to be an effective tool that generates high-quality leads quickly. One of the great advantages of webinars is that even small businesses and startups can afford them.
If you own a small business, the chances are that you like to learn something new and you already know what webinars are. And if you don’t, here are some great webinars for small business owners. However, webinars are not only a good educational tool but also a very effective solution for businesses that want to promote their products or services, gaining visibility and attracting a fresh audience.
What Webinar Marketing Is
Webinar marketing is based on the use of online seminars in order to reach out to a wider audience and to promote products or services. Usually, webinars provide valuable information for free, giving the participants an opportunity to purchase services and products offered by the company that created the webinar.
Just like downloadable ebooks or checklists, webinars act as lead magnets. However, they offer more value and they can also bring you better leads. Usually, webinars include a presentation and a Q&A session. The video format allows you to establish effective communication and to demonstrate your services and products in real-time.
Webinar marketing is an approach that benefits you while also educating your audience, which adds value to your marketing efforts. Besides, video content is extremely popular. Experts predict videos to make up 82% of all internet traffic by 2022. Besides, 72% of consumers like to learn about new products from videos. Compared to other types of video content, webinars are relatively cheap to produce. That’s why we mentioned webinars in our list of the best types of video content for small businesses.
Although webinars are often aimed to get the audience interested in purchasing something, it’s important to understand that they shouldn’t look like a sales pitch. A successful webinar provides value. Relevance and quality of the information that you provide determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Here are some tips that will help you make your webinars interesting and effective.
How to Boost Your Business With Webinars
Choose the right topic
The main thing that determines whether or not people will want to attend your webinar is the topic. First, you should choose the right words for your title so that it will appeal to a wide audience. Secondly, you should determine what topic is most likely to generate interest.
When choosing a topic for your webinar, you can research keywords related to your niche and determine what people are searching for. The chosen keywords must be not only popular but also unique. Offering something unique is especially important for new businesses that face strong competition.
You may also check your existing ebooks and posts on social media or blogs to find content that has performed well. This way, you may find an engaging topic that will be interesting for your target audience. The main thing so to research your niche and not to choose a topic simply based on your instincts.
Plan your webinar properly
Successful marketers know that they shouldn’t rely on luck. You cannot improvise when your goal is to create an effective marketing product, especially if you’re creating educational content. You need a well-designed strategy and a clear plan.
First, you should understand why you need this webinar. You can use webinars for various purposes, and your purpose determines what strategy you should use. For example, you may want to launch a new product, to attract new leads, or to establish your brand as an expert in the niche.
When planning a webinar, think of your audience and determine what types of content might be most valuable and engaging for them. Focus on a single topic and plan the structure of your seminar. Usually, seminars are one-hour long. You may dedicate 45 minutes to the presentation so that you can spend the remaining 15 minutes answering your audience’s questions.
Do your best to create high-quality content
First, we recommend that you approach this step as a continuous process. Even if your marketing strategy has already demonstrated some success and some people showed up, you won’t be able to make them come back if you don’t produce more great content. Your content must be exciting and fresh.
We recommend that you offer useful information and a solution to the problem you’re helping your customers with. Always try to provide the ultimate solution but make sure to focus on helping your attendees, without being too self-promotional.
You should also make sure that your webinars will reach the widest audience possible. If you’re selling your products internationally, you may want to make your content understandable for people who speak different languages. Although it’s difficult to translate webinars in real-time, you can record them and add subtitles. Just make sure to use the right translation service, such as The Word Point.
Keep your audience engaged
Your presentation shouldn’t be boring. Thanks to modern technology, you have plenty of opportunities to grab your audience’s attention and to keep them engaged. Make sure that you’re broadcasting high-quality audio and video. Look at the camera so that your viewers can maintain visual contact with you.
The pacing of your presentation is also important. We recommend that you switch slides quickly so your audience will pay attention. Otherwise, your webinar may become boring. Your slides must be to the point and not overloaded with text. Just write the key points and keep your presentation simple and straightforward.
Promote your webinars
Even if your webinar is very informative and engaging, you may still have to do a lot of work to get enough participants. First, don’t promote your webinar at the last moment. According to statistics, only 33% of your audience is likely to register on the day your webinar goes live. We recommend that you start promoting your webinar in advance.
If you want to get the biggest number of participants, we suggest that you start to promote your webinar at least one month before it goes live. We also recommend that you promote your webinars on Tuesdays, as it turns out that 25% of people who attend webinars register for them on this day of the week.
When promoting webinars, try to use as many channels as possible. Promote them on social media and run email campaigns. According to research, 70% of people sign up via email. Don’t forget to create a nice registration page and send reminders before your webinars start. You may also edit your thank you message to add a link to the registration page.
Wrapping Up
Webinars are a great marketing tool that allows you to not only promote your business but also sell your products. However, the success of your webinars depends on your ability to create valuable and engaging content. Follow our tips, and you will take your marketing strategy to the next level, creating winning webinars that help your audience and generate sales.
Guest Post: About the Author
Frank Hamilton is a blogger and translator from Manchester. He is a professional writing expert in such topics as blogging, digital marketing, and self-education. He also loves traveling and speaks Spanish, French, German and English.