Webinars are such a powerful marketing tool so it’s actually surprising to see only few companies using them successfully. It’s true that webinars require some work compared with other forms of content marketing. But in my opinion the benefits more than make up for it.
Some organizations actually hold webinars, but they don’t know how to maximize the benefit. So let’s take a look at some ways to get the most out of your webinars.
Figure Out Where It Fits On Your Marketing/Sales Channels
The first step is to identify the places you can use your webinar. It could be in the middle of your sales process where a potential customer is looking for more information. Product demo webinars are great for these kinds of situations.
They can be part of the marketing process where you need to reach new audiences. Webinars done on current topics are great for these. It’s important to note that webinars done on current topics lose their value over time. So if you’re hoping to reuse your webinar for a period of time its best to talk about evergreen topics in your webinar.
The key thing is to figure out how your webinar matches your objective. For example webinars are great for remarketing because they have already shown interest in your product or service.
If you’re having trouble figuring where the webinar fits in then its best to visualize your marketing/sales funnel using a flowchart or any other similar diagram. It will clearly show you the different stages of the funnel so you can make a better decision.
Set Up a Dedicated Landing Page
Don’t just upload the webinar as a downloadable file. Take the effort to create a dedicated landing page where you can capture email addresses or any other relevant information.
Capturing the email is your objective. But having a dedicated page is useful in many ways. You can use the page to give more information about the webinar and some basic information about the topics covered in the webinar. You can include other things like product information, company information too.
Having a dedicated page shows the user that you care about the webinar and consider it important. All of which contribute to better return from your webinar.
Create a Professional Webinar
As I mentioned before one reason webinars are not utilized much is the amount of effort you need to put into creating a webinar. But if you have the right tools it’s not that hard to come up with a professional webinar that can impress potential customers.
A good webinar software costs around $50 per month. This, however, depends on the number of attendees as well. If you’re just starting out and testing the potential, a plan that can accommodate 50 users is more than enough.
If a monthly payment is not an option you can start with Google+ hangouts. It has its advantages but the biggest drawback is the number of attendees. A normal Google+ hangout supports 10 users and if you have a Google business account then it supports up to 15 users. Not ideal, but something is better than nothing.
If you’re looking for a more professional webinar solution then ClickWebinar is a great choice. It supports up to 1000 attendees and allows for multiple presenters. Plus it’s integrated with other useful services so you can track, notify easily.
Bundle It With Other Material
Webinars are great for giveaways as well. You can bundle it with a few other webinars you have done and use it as a prize in a giveaway. If they are really high quality and provide great value then you can even sell them as a bundle as well.
You can even get creative and bundle it with material provided by related companies/people in your niche. This way you’ll get exposed to a new audience and your readers and customer will get access to more unique material as well. A successful joint venture requires many things but providing value to both parties is the most important.
Make it Easily Accessible
Webinars are usually large files so it takes a while to download them. So its important that you make it as easy as possible to download them. There are quite a few ways to go about this as well.
One option is to upload it to a file hosting site. Usually you need to have a professional account if you want to capture emails, get statistics etc. Most file sharing sites have mirror servers across the world so users can download from the one that is closest to them. This decreases the download time and improves user experience.
If you’re hosting it on your own site then you need to consider other ways to improving the download time. If you’re selling your products and services across the world then moving your site to a content delivery network is a good choice.
However if it seems an expensive choice you can move part of your site to a CDN. Products like Amazon Web Services make it extremely easy to set up and configure these things. Not only will it improve the download time, CDN’s have a profound effect on your
Anything Else ?
Listed above are some useful things you can do to make the most out of your webinar and turn it into a lead generating monster. Had success with something else? Make sure to let us know in the comments section.
Images: “Blue webinar button on keyboard/Shutterstock.com“
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