What is webinar marketing?
Webinar marketing has been shaping the marketing landscape since 2010. Around 2005, with the onset of digital research like reviews/ratings, social media and online purchases, the need to educate the customer in a more engaging, personalized manner took the limelight, and webinars became mainstream.
It has been the focus of many industries whose Reason to Believe (RTB) of the brand is highly dependent on the reviews by a Subject Matter Expert (SME) or the consumers who have used the product and are highly satisfied with it. Most marketing webinars are conducted to generate leads through increasing brand awareness or giving a solution to a problem that the consumer did not know existed.
In some industries like healthcare, these webinars are focused on imparting valuable information in the hope that an informed consumer would be better aware of the benefits of the product and hence could be converted to a consumer by pushing him/her down the sales funnel.
For planning a marketing strategy for webinars, we at nunify recommend the 4 U’s of a Webinar – Useful, Urgent, Unique and Ultra-specific. These four U’s not only separate the Webinar from the endless hoard of data and content but also attracts consumers who are looking for an immediate solution to their problems and carries the word further extending the reach and word of mouth for the organizer
1. Determine audience objectives
As an organizer , when planning your webinar, it is crucial to know what product or service your audience is looking to buy or what action you want them to take next. This will not only help you target the right crowd for the webinar but will also increase the conversion ratio.
2. Focus on one topic
Ideally, when creating a webinar, focus on a single topic of immediate relevance to your audience which will not only grab their attention but would also keep them engaged throughout the sales funnel.
3. Respect your audience’s time
When someone is taking out time to attend a webinar, you must ensure that what you are offering is the solution or learning to the problem that you marketed your webinar for. Ensure you give a summary at the start on what you will cover to reduce drop offs during the webinar stream.
4. Structure your webinar
Most webinars are around 60 minutes long, broken down into 45 minutes for the presentation. If you can bring on a special guest don’t forget to market her/him. Oh and often overlooked but keep 15 minutes for attendees to ask questions.
5. Promote. Promote. Promote
There are lots of different tactics to adopt when promoting an up and coming webinar but the highest response rate still seems to come from email. Most webinars get a last-minute flurry of interest and it is observed that 60% of any webinar registrations usually happen in the last week of webinar registrations. Usually, webinars need 2 weeks of promotion where the first week is mostly considered for pivot and market testing.
6. The 2-week golden period
Making a plan for 2 weeks of promotional activity is key to the success of every webinar. Social media channels on which the identified target group is present should be identified along with the traffic hours and announcements across these social media channels.
7. Teasers & your brand website
Ensure you put up the upcoming webinar on your brand’s home page or event page. Don’t forget to use a Hello bar which is simply an in-page pop-up whenever the website opens suggesting the user to sign up for the webinar. A teaser video and animated images can spice up things as people get more attracted to these and can be persuaded to sign up if they have more idea about the webinar and what is the essence of the exercise.
8. Influencers & speakers
Blogs, Social media paid promotions and the Speaker’s followers bring another group of signees who not only join but are genuinely interested in either the speaker or the topic.
BONUS
Remember to record the webinar so a post promotional activity can be conducted for remarketing