One of the most remarkable trends among successful internet marketers that has just started to emerge over the last several years is the inclusion of webinars in their overall sales and marketing campaigns. A webinar is a kind of live seminar or presentation that is hosted online. Currently, these kinds of workshops are becoming an extremely popular channel for the marketing and distribution of various products and services.
If you have ever attended a seminar, then you should be reasonably familiar with the general format of the event that usually includes a moderator, one or more people who are making the presentation, attendees, and a question and answer session where attendees have the chance to get more information from the presenters.
The reason for the newly found success of webinars is due to the increase in consumer preferences for real-time video. If you aren’t utilizing webinars in your current online marketing campaigns, here are some of the benefits that have made hosting webinars so popular over the last several years with online marketers.
Personally Introduce Yourself and Your Business
There are millions of potential customers, suppliers, and partners located around the world who know nothing about you, but who probably should. Anyone who would benefit from the products and services that you offer should have an easy way to get to know you.
Although social media platforms like Facebook and professional networking sites like LinkedIn provide excellent touch points, they are limited. A webinar will allow you to provide a more personal approach to meeting your target audience and allow you to talk about yourself and your product.
Demonstrate Your Credibility and Authority
Hosting a live webinar, when compared to a presentation of a pre-recorded video, helps to differentiate between a subject matter expert and a phony. A live webinar provides you with a platform where you can personally demonstrate that you have experience and expertise in your field and that you should be considered an authority in your industry.
However, you have to be sure about what you are talking about, or the people who attend your webinar will quickly see through you.
Push Your Products and Services in a Less Pushy Way
The primary focus of a live webinar is not the obvious pushing of sales, but rather to inform your target audience about your products or service. However, sales can result from clearly demonstrating your credibility, offering your target audience valuable information, and talking about your product or service as part of the presentation. You can even include post-event communications with your attendees that can go a long way in supporting your sales cycle without being overly pushy.
Generate Leads and Expand Your Sales Funnel
Webinars are categorized as online event marketing; however, it is a crucial marketing segment that many people in the industry tend to leave out of their strategic marketing plans. However, this is a huge mistake because of the importance and influence that online event marketing has on other aspects of online marketing.
Expand Your Business Network and Your Mailing Lists
Nearly all of the webinar systems that you can utilize use email to register the attendees, which means that you can quickly build your email lists by automatically obtaining attendee emails when they register. While the individuals might not be explicitly signing up to your businesses’ subscriber list, you can add them and give them an option to unsubscribe whenever they want.
The way to do this is to have an opt-in checkbox that is automatically selected with a quick blub stating that they will be added to your mailing list if they don’t uncheck the box. This is a quick way to gain more subscribers and generate more leads for your business.
Lower Your Expenses While Providing a Convenient Way to Meet
It is a proven fact that hosting an offline event can cost you substantially more money that if you were to hold the same event online. For starters, when you host an offline event, you have to cater to the cost of the venue, print up the flyers and other stationery, and bring in refreshments. With online events, like a webinar, the costs are minimal, because you don’t have to pay for the overhead of holding the event.
Webinars are also very convenient for the attendees because they don’t have to take time out of their day to commute to the event. In addition, online events can attract attendees from all over the world, rather than just locally, because they only need a reliable internet connection to attend the event.
Improve Your Bottom Line
All of the above aspects of webinars have clear profit benefits for your business. This is because people will happily spend their money on products or services that are provided by people that they know and trust. For this simple reason, delivering your sales and informational content through webinars is a great way to generate leads and build your business based on these benefits alone. The good news, however, is that webinars can do a lot more.
When you review, discuss, and promote your product or service through a webinar, you are almost guaranteed to see an increase in leads and ultimately sales. By carrying out demonstrations for the attendees and allowing them to ask questions on your presentations, they can gain a much better understanding of the product or service you are providing and will be more willing to buy from you.
The questions asked and the reactions of those who are attending your webinar can also provide you with useful information that you can use in future marketing campaigns. Plus, sales pitches that are presented at webinars typically have higher conversion rates compared to product launches or sales letters alone.
Thanks to the Internet, it is now entirely possible to have real-time video connections with your target audience no matter where in the world they live. For marketers who host professional events where a simple video chat just won’t do, a live webinar is your answer.
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