In these socially distant times, companies want to find new ways to connect with customers, fans, and potential leads. Most tactics for digital marketing are still relevant, but one that appears to be increasing is to conduct effective webinars.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, people were already aware of the power of webinars. According to a InsideSales.com report, 73% of marketing and sales leaders said that webinars are the second most effective way to generate quality leads. Only “small executive events” ranked higher (77%) – and currently no one organizes such events.
If done properly, webinars are an effective way to make your business accessible to a large audience, whether it's a B2B company, a direct customer business, or something in between. Now that we are stuck together at home (and will continue to do so when business returns to normal), webinars enable intimate, real-time interaction. You can explain complex topics, connect with your audience and quickly demonstrate the value of your business.
In other words, webinars are a means of building your brand – and thus also trust and loyalty.
If you are new to the concept of the webinar as a marketing and lead generation tool, we’ll look at a few key ways to get you a return on your webinar. The first steps you need to take is to set up your webinar infrastructure. That means you create a landing page where you can collect email sign-ups (emails that can be used for future marketing activities), test your technical equipment, and build a slide deck to showcase your case.
When you're ready to start broadcasting, you can determine the marketing value of your webinars as follows:
When it comes to webinars, you want to read the room. What do your existing and potential customers with whom your company can speak think? A perfect example is the novel outbreak of the corona virus. If you run a B2B business, how can you bring your expertise into a presentation that informs, reassures, or otherwise adds value to other business owners?
An evergreener webinar – a topic that will have value in a year like today – is also a good idea, but you may find more traction on social media and by searching for a topic that people are seeing now search for information.
Of course, you choose a topic that matches your brand and expertise – the more authentic you can be, the better. Concentrate on the part of your company that is related to the topic, set the goals to be achieved with the webinar and prepare to answer questions answer questions that relate both to what your company can offer and to the topic in general.
Answering questions at the moment may be a unique challenge, but this real-time answer helps build your brand as a thought leader and your company as a conversation driver.
One of the main reasons a company should host a webinar is to collect email addresses. Email marketing is effective – it has one of the highest ROIs of any digital marketing tactic. Email addresses are used as gas in your tank.
