How to Use Webinars to Increase Your Loyalty and Bottom Line
The views expressed by the business participants are their own.
Webinars have become a popular presentation tool for many businesses. They allow a company to educate customers and promote products or services to an online audience. However, some businesses are not using webinars to their full advantage. Here are some lesser-known tips for using webinars to help companies build their reputation as experts and sell more value to customers.
Offer real value without selling directly
When people sign up for a webinar, they want to learn something useful without feeling like they’re being sold to. You need to focus your content on providing real value to your visitors with useful tips, tricks, case studies or data that they will find useful. You can do this without directly listing your products or services. This will build credibility as an expert that people want to learn from. Later in the webinar or follow-up, you can discuss how your contributions can help them apply what they’ve learned.
For example, if it’s web design, your webinar can give you tips on how to improve website usability without selling. Later you can define how your web design services can implement those usability best practices. Attendees will be more receptive to your solutions after the first exposure to useful content.
Related: Why Webinars Should Be a Key Part of Your Online Business Strategy
Ask difficult interview questions
One key thing you can do is pause during your webinar to ask open-ended questions that encourage discussion and interaction in the chat box. Questions like “What challenges did you face in this” or “How can these tips apply to your situation” get people to engage and think more deeply about the content. It makes the webinar feel more like a conversation than a one-way presentation. Compelling questions also help reinforce key ideas as people need to process them in order to answer them.
Share relevant lessons and examples
Nothing sells better than real world examples. Look for case studies from clients or community stories about how other businesses have successfully applied techniques or tools to your web topic. Discuss the challenges they faced, the steps they took and the results they achieved. Attendees can easily imagine applying ideas to their own situations when supported by specific examples. Make sure you get permission to share any customer stories or share what is publicly available.
Record and distribute the webinar later
Many people sign up for a webinar with the intention of watching it live, but real life gets in the way and they miss it. Others may receive an important topic after the live date has passed. By recording your webinar, you give it longer legs and a chance to reach a wider audience. You can upload the recording to your website, share it on social media or send a link in follow-up emails. Become an evergreen piece of content that boosts your expertise for months afterward.
Provide a valuable downloadable resource
Along with sharing the webinar recording, also provide attendees with a downloadable workbook, checklist, template or other takeaway resource that they can refer to later. This could be a compilation of web chat questions, key statistics shared or a planning guide for implementing strategies. By giving them something useful immediately that they can use, it leaves them with a good experience of your website and product.
Related: 12 Steps to Creating the Perfect Webinar
Ask for interaction during the live session
To keep people engaged when you visit your live webinar, always ask poll questions or type answers into the conversation. Questions like “Type A if you have faced this challenge or B if not” or “Rate your confidence on a scale of 1 to 5” make people active participants instead of passive listeners. You can have everyone introduce themselves in the conversation to create a connection. Interactions make web experiences more engaging and impactful.
Follow up regularly after the event
Just because the session is over doesn’t mean your communication with the attendees has to end. In the following days, you can send at least 3 follow-up emails thanking people for attending, recalling important takeaways, and offering additional support or resources. You may also want to send out a survey to gather feedback about your web experience. Consistent tracking is key here!
Promote your upcoming webinars in advance
You can simply publish the web registration link on the day it will happen. Promote your upcoming webinars in advance, either on your website, blog, emails or social media. Using emails enables you to inform your customers about your next session. This is important because you need to give attendees time on their calendars and generate early interest and commitment by using snippets about the topic and speaker. You could even do an early bird discount for those who sign up a few weeks in advance to promote this. This advance promotion will spread the word widely and will lead to higher registration numbers.
Related: 7 Effective Steps to Hosting Webinars That Drive Sales
Consider a web series
Instead of one-off webinars, you can also organize a webinar series around a specific topic or set of related topics. This can be very effective – it could be a monthly web series like “website optimization tips” or a multi-part series like “social media marketing techniques.” The thread approach will allow you to delve deeper into the content over time and build a community around the topic. It will also give your attendees a schedule to look forward to.
While getting started with webinars requires planning and preparation in advance, putting these strategies into action can begin to produce positive results for your bottom line over time. I wish you luck!
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