Webinars can be a great tool for building brand recognition and loyalty, pulling customers into a sales funnel, and establishing yourself as an expert. If you want to use webinars to market your business, here are some steps you will want to take:
- Decide who it’s for and what you want it to do. As always, go in with a clear understanding of your audience and goals. Popular goals include generating leads, building awareness, showcasing specific products and services, engagement, or even selling access to the webinar itself. Think carefully about the outcome you want and tailor your content to the audience it needs to reach. Consider their position in your marketing funnel (Are they new or existing customers? What interactions have they already had with your company?) And their needs (What are their pain points? What are their interests?). This will help you figure out what content will resonate with them the most.
- Write a script/outline. Make sure you’ve chosen an appropriate topic for the audience and goals you identified above. Make sure it is specific and narrow enough to be covered in a webinar (or divide your webinar into parts). It should be long enough to cover the topic extensively, but short enough that it holds your audience’s attention. Provide expertise and insight that isn’t readily available to the public. Plan for interaction and engagement. Leave room for polls, live chats, or Q& A sessions. Structure your content in an expected way: introduction (including an overview of what is to come), a few specific points with content that supports them, and a conclusion with a recap. Think of the papers you wrote for English 101. Keep the structure simple and organized.
- Create the presentation. Make your slides visually appealing and consistent with your branding. Use the colors and fonts you use on your website and social media. Insert your logo on slides that start a new section or topic. Use images, bullet points, and infographics to hold the audience’s attention and effectively communicate your message. Make sure you practice your slideshow and talking points multiple times to get the tone and timing just right. Try to sound natural, unrushed, and confident. Remember that your main goal is to have people actually learn the topic at hand. Remain flexible so you are not thrown off by anything unexpected that comes up while you’re live.
- Consider tech specs. Choose a platform you’re comfortable with and one that meets your needs. Think about whether you’ll need to share your screen, respond to live chats, record, or access analytics. Consider, too, what platforms are available to your audience and how likely they are to be familiar with them. Zoom and Teams are popular choices right now simply because they are affordable, accessible, and so many people got used to using them during the pandemic. There are plenty of other options out there as well. Whatever platform you choose, familiarize yourself with every feature you will need to use in advance. Test your microphone, camera, and any other equipment you will be using.
- Promote. Make sure you are promoting the live webinar event. Use your email list and social media to get the word out. Start promoting at least two weeks in advance; teasers can come out even earlier. Double your promotion efforts in the two or three days leading up to the event and send out a reminder to people who have signed up on the day before and the day of the event. Remember that people can only join your webinar if they have heard about it.
- Engage during the live. When you’re live, it may be tempting to rigidly stick to your notes, especially if you are nervous. However, it is important to encourage audience participation. Answer questions as they come up. Respond to chats. Provide polls and other interactive elements. People learn better and remember more when they feel included. If you have a shy audience, try to have a couple of people attending who you know will be willing to ask questions or make comments.
- Follow up. After the webinar, send emails to everyone who attended with a thank you note and a link to the recording of the webinar. Keep these attendees as a separate segment of your email list so you can send specific marketing materials to them (special offers, early access to content, etc.).
- Use the recording for content and as a lead magnet. Once the webinar is over and the recording has been sent out to attendees, use the recording as a lead magnet to attract new people to your mailing list. It’s also a good idea to divide the recording into snippets that can be used as social content to promote your business and build interest in future webinars.
- Analyze results. As always, keep track of your results. How many people attended live? How many people viewed the webinar afterwards? How many views were generated by any social posts? How many email addresses did you get with your lead magnet? These results can help you optimize your content in the future. With every new effort comes the opportunity to better identify your audience and their needs.
Substance and Style 