Last Updated on November 6, 2021
With the pandemic hitting the world unexpectedly and forcing people to work from home, the demand for webinar software has increased drastically. They have become one of the primary ways for educating students, customers and also for lead generation.
What is a webinar?
A webinar is a video workshop, presentation, lecture, or product demo hosted online with the help of software. Often webinars are business-related that share the product/industry updates with a global audience. Webinars can also be used for brand building and nurture relationships with the audience.
Two-way communication is what makes webinars one of the most effective marketing ways.
How does it work?
A webinar software allows the hosts to share files and important documents with the audience during the session. These documents are not just restricted to voice notes, videos, etc.
Webinars are not just restricted for business purposes. The main purpose of webinars is to engage and educate the audience in any niche. The audience can be either your peers, new or existing customers, or students of a classroom.
In short, webinars are most useful for either personal or professional success.
Why use a webinar?
Showcase a product: It is not possible for your clients to book flight tickets and attend your conference every time. However, you can ask them to spare an hour to attend the online event. That is the least manageable thing your client can do.
Audience engagement: Unlike social media, Webinars hold a strong value in terms of audience engagement: scarcity. Webinars provide greater value than traditional marketing. Audiences who did not attend the live webinar will surely feel the worth they missed compared to those who participated in the webinar. Even if you shoot out the recorded webinar, the audience is going to watch after a few days of releasing your recorded webinar. This will make them lose the opportunity of asking questions and gain new insights about your product.
Generate leads: Leads are highly important for any business to function. Leads can be generated in multiple ways, but generating high-quality leads for a business is what matters the most. Since webinars are conducted on the topics relevant to your business, the chances of generating high-quality leads are more.
People who see that you are promoting your business will sign up for your webinar. Once they attend your webinar, some of them show interest in your product, while some will not take any action.
User onboarding: Customer onboarding and retention are very important for any business. Especially if you are a SaaS-based company, it is important to have user onboarding sessions. Else the user will switch to your competitor. Though you might have manuals and how-to guides for your product, it is a good strategy to invite users to the onboarding webinar and solve their initial queries about your product.
Give maximum time for users to ask their questions and solve them in a detailed manner as possible. This will not only retain them but also builds a strong connection with your brand.
Education and training: Webinar tools are great support for educating the students and training the new employees. It is helpful for companies with remote teams.
Companies can share training materials for the new employees during the webinar or conduct orientation training for them to help solve their queries. On the other hand, professors can share the study materials with students on the webinar. They can also explain the lectures in a detailed manner with the help of whiteboard features present in the webinar software.
Establish yourself as an expert: Whatever the purpose of hosting your webinar, most attendees look for your support. Some attendees join your webinar to know your opinions as an industry leader. This will help the users make informed decisions in your niche.
Even if you are hosting the webinar for free, registrants are ready to attend it because they are confident that you are going to deliver valuable information to them.
What are the benefits of a webinar?
They are cost effective
Webinars eliminate the need for traveling and make it free for everyone to attend virtually. Most companies do not charge any fee for the audience to attend their product launch events, as it might put down some potential customers. However, a few companies charge a small fee, which is significantly lower than attending the physical event.
Anyone can join from anywhere
As mentioned earlier, traveling is not needed in order to attend the webinars. Like traditional product launch events, webinars do not require booking a venue, planning, and necessity to plan the show. Be it from the place of work or from their home; attendees can now join your webinars hassle-free.
Attending the events online will save a lot of time and money. Moreover, with the advancement in technology, it is now easier for everyone to access the webinars on multiple devices like mobile phones, tablets, and PCs.
People can watch a webinar at later
If the audience is unable to attend your webinar, they can watch it anytime later. Most of the webinars are recorded by the host, and they are made available to the attendees soon after the webinar is done. These recorded webinars will be available for the registered users for a long time. So, if you do not manage to attend the live webinar, worry not. The link for recorded webinars is usually sent in the mail.
How to create a webinar?
Livestorm: Livestorm is one of the best webinar platforms to create live webinars and video conferences for product demos. In Livestorm, you just need to add a description and the scheduled time for the meeting. You are done with the webinar setup.
Demio: Demio is a user-friendly webinar platform with 24/7 customer support. Demio being a browser-based webinar platform, the audience need not download any application or software to join the webinars. Every webinar is recorded automatically for evergreen uses. Hence, you need not worry about automating your webinars with the help of Demio.
EasyWebinar: EasyWebinar was founded in 2018 by Zeman Casey. This is a browser-based webinar platform currently serving more than 8,000 customers worldwide. Right from lead generation to interactive training for employees and students, EasyWebinars has all the features you want. This platform is best suitable for beginners.
WebinarJam: WebinarJam is the best tool to host webinars and live meetings. On this platform, you can simultaneously host webinars on social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. It offers lowest-priced plans than other competitors in the market. If anyone wants to give it a try, WebinarJam offers a 14-day trial for $1.
GoToWebinar: This platform offers custom branding options for companies with a huge audience base. It supports integrations with major CRM platforms, which makes the webinar automation more simple. Users can create custom landing pages and registration pages and make the best use of the drawing tools to make the webinar more engaging.
What are the tips for creating an effective webinar?
Define your goal: Webinars meet a different set of goals like:
- Educating children through online presentations
- Getting high quality leads from your sales team
- Selling your products or services to customers
Once you identify the goal of your webinar, understand the key performance factors that can help you achieve your goal and accordingly craft the content for your webinar.
Attend other webinars: One of the best ways to host a successful webinar is to understand how your competitors are doing it? Try to attend other webinars and note down the key points your competitors use to promote their products and services. See how you can perform better than your competitors? How can you make the webinar more engaging and drive more conversions?
Outline your content: Once you are clear with your goals, plan the outline of your webinar. For example, if your goal is to educate a new user about your product, you can plan an outline like this:
- Introduction
- How does your product work?
- Multiple features offered by your product?
- Best tips for maintenance of the product
Design presentation slides: Once the outline of your webinar is designed, try to create engaging presentation slides. If you are unsure how to start the presentation from scratch, you can use multiple templates from Google slides and customize it according to your webinar requirement.
Record the webinar: Once you are clear with the outline and create the content for your webinar, record it. When presenting the webinar to the audience, make sure to record everything in it so that the attendees who miss out on the day of the webinar can watch it. Moreover, recordings help you to set up evergreen webinars with ease and bring in passive revenue.
Promote your webinar: Now that your groundwork is done, you must promote the webinar on as many channels as possible so that your target audience can understand the value being provided in your webinar. Create social media visuals, timelines, and posters to promote your webinar. Email marketing is also one of the effective ways to promote webinars and drive sales.
Conclusion
Now that you know the importance of webinars and how to host a successful webinar, pick a best webinar software of your choice and start captivating the leads for your business.
