As more and more people enter into the realm of e-commerce to buy and sell their products online, promotions have definitely become imminent.
But, of course, you cannot rely solely on sending emails to generate sales leads. In fact, it depends on the value you provide to your customers.
Now brands are attracting new subscribers and prospect consumers through webinars, which have successfully proven to increase conversion rates, driving up revenues and engagement.
What is webinar marketing?
Webinar marketing refers to holding an online seminar to engage with an audience for a specific marketing purpose.
The people that register for your webinar can become a part of your marketing automation and CRM platforms as they connect with your landing page for the webinar.
The customers can ask questions in these seminars, like receiving a training session or a product demo.
This provides an excellent opportunity for marketers to make conversation with potential customers and walk them through the sales cycle to turn them into actual customers.
Some other things marketers want to achieve with webinar marketing are:
- To exhibit their skills or experience
- To engage an audience
- To generate leads
Why do you need a webinar marketing strategy?
Webinar marketing has immense benefits for your business. Jeff Molander, the founder of Communications Edge Inc. and an accomplished entrepreneur, stated in his blog that his webinars have 94% attendees till the end and his best webinar had the close rate of 29%.
On average most webinars can maintain the attention of 40% of their listeners.
Similarly, Mariah Coz, the name behind Fentrepreuer, has said that in 2015 she prepared a webinar within a day while also notifying the audience and figuring out the tech stuff within the same 24 hours’ time period. After presenting that 1-hour webinar, she earned $4000.
This is not surprising, as the standard conversation rate of an email, from when it is opened to when a purchase is made, is about 2-3%. For social media posts, it is lower than 1%.
Whereas the average registrant to attendee conversion rate is 55%, depending upon the size of your audience. A good webinar conversion rate can also range between 35% and 45%.
How to create your own webinar
Now that we know why a webinar marketing strategy can be great for your brand. Let’s have a look at some tips that will come in handy to create your own webinar.
1. Choose a suitable topic
Choosing a suitable topic is one of the first things you should consider while planning a webinar marketing campaign. The following ideas will help you get started:
Check out the comments under your blogs: You can take an idea from what people ask about or comment underneath your blogs.
This would mean that they are interested to know more about a particular aspect of the topic/discussion, and you can take that as a starting point for your webinar.
Use your customers’ queries on social media: Just like your blog, you can use your social media accounts and see what people are most interested in or what kind of questions you get the most on your customer service forums.
Take inspiration from other webinars: You can also take inspiration from the other webinars out there. See which topic is more up to your alley while also help sell your product or service.
Search up on industry-specific forums: Apart from blogs, and social media, industry-specific forms can also help you pick out an idea for your topic.
Usually, people go to these forums to seek an answer to some specific query. If you make a webinar out of it, then surely those people will attend it as well.
Pick a topic that is neither too broad nor too narrow: To round it off, whatever topic you choose, make sure that it can cover good content.
You surely can’t discuss every aspect of the topic if it is too broad or give out enough information to the audience if it is too niche.
2. Plan the contents of the webinar
Planning is crucial for any marketing campaign. Before you put in your time, effort, or money in creating a webinar, be mindful of the following things:
Have a centralized objective: Set a goal for yourself to review the success of your webinar later on with the metric you set. It can either be to have a specific number of registrations, etc.
Choose a cross-channel approach: After coming up with a goal for your webinar, choose a platform where you are planning to promote it.
For example, you can do paid search, email marketing, social media posts. Whatever it is, make sure that it targets the right audience for you.
Make a schedule: Think about the day you want to host the webinar, at what time, when should the social media promotions begin, when the emails should be sent out, etc.
Use a checklist: After making a schedule, keep track of what is done and what is left to be done using a checklist. You can use Google Sheets for the purpose or manually keep notes.
Coordinate with others: Communication is the key. Stay in touch with your team, your guests. Share updates, insights and walk them through the schedule you have created.
3. Choose a webinar hosting platform
Where to host your webinar is a big factor to consider and the cost can vary depending number of participants, bandwidth usage, and technical support.
Charges can start at the low, low price of free for small-scale webinars and can go over $1,000 for corporate events with massive audiences and multiple hosts.
Free versions generally lack features and may not be suitable for most businesses.
Most importantly, you should ensure that while choosing a provider, it allows integration with the other software you may use and offers options to screen-share, chat, record, register, and international dial-ins.
Here are some webinar hosting platforms you can choose from:
Demio
With Demio, you can host live webinars with real-time HD streaming. There is also the option to put your event on autopilot with a pre-recorded presentation with tools that allow flexible registration.
You can also record your events automatically, build an interactive room, share replays with your audience. In the end, it also provides you with actionable insights about your webinar campaigns.
Cisco Webex
With Webex, you can do HD video or audio calls and screen-share. It also allows up to 30,000 attendees for hosting customer webinars with options such as live chat, Q&A, polling, branded invitations, etc.
Webcasts are included with event subscriptions with 3000 or more users. After you schedule an event, you get three emails: one for yourself, one that all panelists receive, and one for attendees.
Liverstorm
If you’re collaborating with multiple people, Livestorm is your platform. It is the highest-rated webinar software on 3rd party websites Capterra and G2 Crowd.
Some of its features include a customizable modern design to fit your brand, with no need to download or install, an attendance rate above 15%, and effortless integration with any software or CRM.
GoToWebinar
This platform offers custom webinar invitations, a registration page, and automated email reminders. In addition, you can add your brand colors, logo, and images on your webinar materials with a custom channel page.
It allows up to 5,000 participants in the webinar room with mobile apps for managing your online event.
ClickMeeting
ClickMeeting is a suitable platform for web entrepreneurs or small or medium-sized businesses. It offers extensive interaction options; a live presentation, preloaded video or audio, whiteboarding, etc.
The platform is browser-based, and on the dashboard, you can also keep a record of your past and scheduled webinars overview.
Undoubtedly, all these platforms are great, but if you are looking for some less costly and easier way to hold a webinar, then you can try out YouTube Live with a google account. Some other options are Google Meet, Wistia, or Vimeo.
4. Choose an engaging format
The interview webinar
In an interview webinar, you can invite an industry expert to answer questions related to your field or service.
It has an engaging conversational format and thus is more exciting rather than just hosting the webinar yourself.
The expert panel
An expert debate occurs between speakers who are experts in their fields, where they are allocated some time to remark, respond, offer a rebuttal to a question or topic in discussion.
It is a more sophisticated alternative to a traditional fireside chat webinar.
The ask me anything (AMA) webinar
The AMA or Q&A webinar format allows you to address the queries and concerns of your audience.
92% of webinar attendees prefer a live question and answer session for a webinar.
The case study webinar
For a case study webinar, you can utilize video or written case stories.
For example, include a client’s story where they talk about an experience of using your product/service. These webinars are effective at creating a sales funnel.
Read more: The Benefits of Using Video Case Studies for Your Business
The panel discussion
A panel webinar is a moderated discussion managed by the host with a panel of speakers. Each panelist talks about his or her viewpoints on a specific topic. Thus, this webinar style is more dynamic in nature.
The online event or conference
An online event is a cost-effective and more far-reaching alternative or addition to an in-person event.
These virtual conferences are more flexible with their global reach, thus allows the attendees to interact with the presenters without any geographical limits.
5. Promote your webinar
Use social media: Post about your webinar on your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Start a hashtag trend and put up reminder posts in the promotions tab of the group where you’re uploading.
Make a teaser video: Record a 1- to 2-minute video giving a sneak peek into the webinar. Maybe introduce the guest you’re inviting over or give a brief intro to the topic you’re planning to cover. Then, upload it on YouTube and other channels.
Read more: How to Promote Your Podcast on Social Media with Clips
Create an email marketing campaign: Email your database about the webinar. Include CTA for people to register. Try not to send more than three emails for this purpose.
Add internal blog CTA: First, cover your webinar in the form of a blog both before and after the event. This is a great way to take a long-form piece of content and repurpose it to get the most value out of it.
Repurposing is also a great way to produce video content at scale.
You can add the Q&As that were covered or the transcript of what the guest talked about. Most importantly, add internal links leading to the webinar page.
6. Review the performance
To see how the webinar helped out your business and to what extent, reviewing its performance is definitely essential. There are a variety of ways you can do this.
First, there are the social metrics, webinar platforms analytics, reporting tools, etc. But perhaps the most effective method is checking the number of registrations you have got, your attendee engagement rate, etc.
These results can then be documented in a report to match them against the core objectives or KPIs you set out earlier and see what further improvements can be made in the future sessions.
That’s all
Thank you for reading this blog. If you need help creating webinars, tutorials, or training videos for your customers. Then, get in contact!