Webinars can be a cost-effective and efficacious digital tool for right now. For successful output, the rewards are plentiful; creating engaging content, generating qualified leads and building cumulative brand value to name a few.
Ranieri Digital Strategies offers a simple 6 step guide to getting it right.
1. Choose the right topic.
The topic should answer questions that your audience typically asks and preferably be highly specific. For example, if you’re hosting a webinar on Influencer marketing, focus measuring engagement.
Your webinar should provide value to your audience. Think about your company and your unique value proposition. What topics are you an expert on and what topics can you provide value on?
2. Choose a webinar tool.
There are many webinar services you can use to create your webinar. For example, ClickMeeting, GoToWebinar, and Zoom.
When researching a tool to use, consider your objectives. How many people do you think will attend? Do you need a tool that could allow over 1,000 attendees? How much does it cost? And how easy is it to use?
Additionally, you’ll want to make sure the tool can handle the type of webinar you want to host – can it handle video chatting for panel or Q&A webinars?
3. Produce the content.
Once you find a tool and you know the topic you want to present on, decide what type of webinar you want to host. Will it be a PowerPoint and talking head presentation? Or perhaps you want to do a live panel Q&A? Either way, you’ll have to produce the content and prepare accordingly.
If you’re creating a PowerPoint, you’ll need to create your slide deck. Make sure that the slides emphasize your points, but don’t include a script. These slides should be visually appealing and include interesting graphics and images.
If you’re hosting a discussion-style webinar, plan out your speakers, gather audience questions, and prepare any other questions you might have so you can prioritize your time during the webinar.
4. Select the right day and time.
You’ll want to consider where your audience lives. Use tools like Google Analytics to see where people are, so you can choose a convenient day and time zone.
According to?research, Tuesday from 10-11am GMT, is the best day to host a webinar. This is because it’s great for a wide range of time zones and typically avoided most commute times or work hours. This time avoids conflicts with the most amount of people.
5. Promote your webinar.
To promote your webinar, you can create a landing page where people can sign up and then distribute and promote that link in several ways.
For example, you can consider running ads through social media and search engines. Additionally, use free promotion tactics; posting on your own accounts, website, and send an email to your subscribers. It’s important to use your own follower base to get people interested.
Additionally, reminder emails are also helpful. Consider sending “Don’t Miss Out” or “Seats Are Filling Up” emails as the day gets closer.
6. Follow up with your audience.
Webinars are a great sales opportunity, and you don’t want people to leave your webinar and never think of you again.
That’s why you’ll want to send them a thank you email and gather feedback from attendees so you can plan better webinars in the future.
Additionally, attendees generally like to have a recording, so you can send them a link to the recording afterward – no one wants to take fervent notes during a webinar. This also means you can send it to registrants who wanted to attend but weren’t able to.
And when people do sign up, you’ll want to remind them leading up to the day. You should send them the webinar link about an hour before so it’s top of mind and they don’t have to go looking for the link in their registration email.