Augmenting Your Campaign With Webinars
When running a digital marketing webinar, there is one thing you need to focus on: your customer. The focus is not your product or your service, but your expertise. While it may seem strange to not directly up-sell or link to a service, focusing on providing informative content and discussion is in the long-run the better option. By showing you can provide informational value, this in turn, becomes an up-sell for your product and brand as you become a trusted voice.
Webinars are, effectively, marketing without a pitch, which is a tough challenge to handle. However, the results speak for themselves; statistics state that more than 65 per cent of potential customers purchase goods or services after viewing an effective brand video.
Figuring out how to balance these marketing principles with an educator’s flair can be tough, but is a struggle that is duly rewarded.
Educate, Don’t Sell
Webinars that come across as a hard-sell or preachy are never effective. The goal of a webinar is to increase consumer trust in your brand, prioritising your industry expertise to improve your reputation.
In a way, webinars need to trade the explicit for the implicit; always imply any up-sells and product placements. Webinar attendees are there to learn, so that should be your priority.
While the webinar itself should be packed with useful information, the question and answer section at the end should be the main hub for showcasing your expertise. This unscripted part of the webinar is your time to flex.
So never assume that Q&A’s are an optional element of a webinar, as 92 per cent of webinar attendees want and expect a Q&A session at the end of the session. And while Q&A’s are obviously unscripted, having a few answers to common questions prepared in advance won’t hurt.
Be Passionate
Ultimately, the key to delivering a good webinar is to maintain the usual tenants of good presentations: eye contact, a pacey flow, and visible passion. Even if you aren’t passionate about your chosen webinar subject, it might be an idea to try not to sound too forlorn or bored.
A passionate speaker is much more engaging and entertaining, plus you’re representing your brand. You want to avoid associating your business, or the brand you’re representing, with a tone of voice that is rushed or despondent; sounding nervous can be easily forgiven and forgotten, but sounding wholly negative sticks.
Concerning tone of voice, try to practice beforehand. The webinar should work like a well-oiled machine, the tone of voice included. Practice sounding upbeat, knowledgeable, and calm, as it will ensure that the webinar is memorable and effective.
Offer An Answer To A Difficult Question
Lightweight webinars in which the content addresses simply or easy questions aren’t going to get great views. To turn heads, you must offer – or at least market – an answer to a difficult industry question.
Any educational content you produce shouldn’t be too broad and typically, webinars should focus on one fleshed-out aspect relevant to your industry. It’s pointless being too broad as there’ll be a real void of detail, plus topics you may touch upon in a wide analysis could be developed into standalone webinars in themselves.
Focusing entirely on one aspect opens up avenues for serialisation. Each webinar can be a stepping stone to an overall educational goal; several detailed and concentrated webinars are much more beneficial for viewers and present you with the opportunity to extend your communication with consumers further.
This isn’t to say that you should be overly selective with the information you divulge, however. Statistics show that 41 per cent of webinar attendees prefer 30 minute presentations and 44 per cent want their webinars to last at least 45-minutes. If you’re stretching your content to fit a particular topic in 30 minutes, then consider trying a topic a little more refined.
Have A Snappy And Effective Deck
More often than not, webinars will take the form of a slide presentation with a voiceover. If this is the approach you take, then make sure your deck is full-proof. Typos, grammar mistakes, and cluttered slides come across as unprofessional. Ensure your presentation has a logical structure without over-burdening the viewer and remember: slides are meant to support what you’re saying, not to act as a substitute.
Don’t be afraid to spend a lot of time on a deck as it can be re-used in future webinars. Forty-seven per cent of presenters take more than eight hours to design a deck, with the majority of presentations sitting between 21 and 40 slides. Additionally, make sure your deck is in-line with your company aesthetic for a touch of sleek professionalism.
Schedule A Date And Time That Makes Sense
Long story short, you don’t want to host a webinar on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon. Nobody, not even the most enthusiastic worker, hobbyist or aficionado, is going to want to watch a webinar nursing a Monday hangover or desperately waiting to go home on Friday afternoon.
Typically, the golden window for webinars is midweek mornings, with Tuesday and Wednesday being the most popular dates. Annual leave tends to peak on Mondays and Fridays, too, which is another reason to avoid these days.
Promote Your Webinar
Sign-ups tend to peak the day before your webinar, so ensure you promote it as much as possible from its announcement right up until the date it’s held. Usually, promotion begins around three weeks before the scheduled date of the webinar, with the actual promotion itself centring on ad-space and e-mail marketing.
Creating a persuasive e-mail marketing campaign should be the first major step in promoting your webinar, as roughly 70 per cent of all webinar sign-ups come through e-mail.
Keep In Contact Post-Webinar
Your work doesn’t stop when the webinar ends. The webinar itself should have converted a significant portion of your audience, but sending a link to a replay video, feedback form, exclusive discount, or a personalised reminder page, can be the extra touch people need to invest in your brand. You can use this opportunity, too, to advertise your next webinar.
Overall, webinars are an excellent way to propagate conversions without overtly falling into marketing tropes. By showcasing your knowledge and helping others, you’ll find that they will naturally be more inclined to return to your service in future.
Want to stay ahead of the webinar curve and learn how to establish long-term relationships with your customers? Brush-up on Figaro Digital’s digital marketing case-studies; we offer comprehensive advice on how to vary your marketing campaigns with interactive, effective content.