A webinar, also known as a webcast or web seminar, is an online event held by any individual or organizational setup to broadcast the information or ideas to a confined group of audience. Analogous to real seminars, webinars have speakers and specialists who express their thoughts and ideas on the assigned subjects.
As it is an online event, technology and innovative methods are extensively used. Popular tech tools that are used in a typical Webinar videos, Powerpoint presentations, and other multimedia content. The visual content of the webinar can be shared and accessed through any standard Internet browser such as Firefox or Google. Also, one can use some proper web conferencing tools for the same purpose. Google Hangouts and ClickMeeting are some of the most cited webinar service providers.
Having a two-way communication facilitates more real-time questions and sharing of ideas. Moderators/speakers address the relevant questions and thus the success of a webinar highly depends upon the audience engagement. Born in a millennium where Internet has become a necessary organ for all of us, webinars serve as a highly functional and effective way of transmitting the essentials.
Why Webinars are a huge success worldwide?
Information minus Boredom
Webinars allow you a many options to inform your audience through impressive visuals (graphics, videos, animated, etc.) so that the audience can relate to the transmitted information. Since you intend to promote your services as well as yourself as a brand, you can utilize this feature by demonstrating “how your products can help a customer reach his ends” conveniently.
Brand awareness
Webinars are not just an informative class. They work great in creating the brand (and also in brand-recalling). Creating brand awareness requires you to promote yourself consistently through various channels like social media, online and offline advertisements, etc. You can achieve the same end through a webinar. Hold a web-seminar based on the topic that involves your product or brand and your audience will begin identifying the value your brand can add to their lives.
Captivating and convenient
Almost everyone has access to the internet, whether through computers, mobiles or tablets. Holding a session through webinars lets you connect with a large audience at very little cost. So whether you are in California or New Jersey, you can participate in a webinar hosted by an organization in Houston without having to travel at all!
Generate new leads
You can include a smartly developed lead generation questions at the stage where a user signs up for the webinar. You can easily get good inputs for your potential customer database such as names, location, phone numbers, email ids, etc. Try not asking too many questions though, nobody likes to fill a long form.
Massive customer reach
A webinar on some trending topic, say a news piece or currently launched gadget, gets you to target an enormous audience group. Having a good research and quality content presented in an appealing visual manner, you are sure to draw your potential customers in the webinar.
It is important to understand that the more engagement your webinar can have with the audience, more you can impress them and ultimately generate leads for your website and business.
You will also be able to derive important insights about your customer’s preferences by analyzing their responses during the webinars.
Establish your authority in virtual world
When you hold a webinar and gather the audience, your reputation and authority is automatically established. Instead of pitching your daily sales script, you are now going to make them more informed and helping them make their right decisions. Naturally they will be more connected to you and hence rely more on your credibility.
Economic and sound solution
Webinars are not at all costly. It is as cheap as browsing through your Facebook page. Or watching a Youtube video. Simply put, all you need to host a webinar is a proper internet connection, an adequate service provider such as Google Hangout and a small team that can create the content for the web session. While having a few esteemed guests or speakers will add value to the event, a good and well-researched content will do better. Have a team to plan a line of action and execute that for your webinar.
Points to consider while hosting a Webinar
- Choose a topic that is trending or that people will like to know more about. You can use Web analytics tools like Google Insights to understand which theme is in great demand these days.
- Prepare a good, researched and balanced content for the selected topic. Use more visual content (infographics, powerpoint presentations videos, etc). The content should be thought-provoking and should encourage audience to put forth their opinions and feedbacks.
- Set a webinar session with the service provider such as Adobe Connect, GoToWebinar.
- Use social media, blogs Google ads, etc. to inform people about the webinar. You can also promote this event as a news piece on your website in “News and Events” section. If your website has a newsletter, you should inform the subscribed users about the webinar in well advance.
- You can also write a blog post (or guest post) about the web event you intend to host. Apart from general ideas, the post should be able to express the key features your webinar is going to address and how it will benefit the audience. The blog should be short and written in a clear and concise manner.
When you hold a webinar and gather the audience, your reputation and authority is automatically established. Instead of pitching your daily sales script, you are now going to make them more informed and helping them make their right decisions. Naturally they will be more connected to you and hence rely on your credibility.
