At Demand Frontier, organizing and promoting webinars is part of our expertise. Which is why we reached out to one of our in-house authorities to give us a comprehensive look at the workings, requirements, and benefits of hosting a webinar and the impact it can have on your company.
When kicking off a digital marketing plan, it’s easy to fall back on well-known tactics: email marketing, media advertising, and social media. But you may be ignoring a few tools that could help generate traffic to your web page, boost lead engagement and position your company as an authority. One of them is the Webinar.
Alexandra Nisimblat, our Vice-President of Client Success, has 16 years of experience working in various areas of marketing in numerous industries and is our resident webinar guru. Her world-class experience in B2B Lead Generation, Marketing Automation Technology, and Event Management allows her to execute Lead Generation and email marketing campaigns, as well as manage creative development and marketing communications expertly in order to help our clients achieve their business and marketing goals.
She also helped us by answering some questions a marketer might have when considering hosting a webinar for the first time:
What is a webinar?
Alex: It’s a seminar on the web – it’s the perfect way to connect in real-time with a large audience across the globe. Plus, webinar technology has advanced significantly. Webinars consisted of a presenter (audio only) with slides, now a webinar can have a live demo, live chats, or roundtable discussion with multiple speakers in multiple locations. Webinar interactivity has grown significantly as well, giving you more insight into your lead/prospect.
What purposes do webinars have in a company’s marketing strategy?
Alex: Butts in Seats! Webinar’s are a great way to get prospect engagement and build content.
What should you focus on when picking a topic for a webinar?
Alex: Relevance – talk about something important!
What characteristics should a webinar speaker have?
Alex: The speaker should be an expert on the topic – the more they know, the more information they can provide and are more credible. They should also be comfortable speaking in public – even though they don’t have a live audience in front of them, they need to be comfortable speaking – it’s best not to read a presentation word for word.
What are some strategies to promote webinars?
Alex: Webinars can be promoted via email, social platforms through various media pubs, ad placements, etc.
How can you give a webinar more shelf life than just the live event?
Alex: We like to slice and dice them into bite size pieces! The smaller videos often times become a teaser for the promotion of the on-demand event, and can also be used to promote on social media or in an email campaign. Also, we can chapterize webinars, which allows the audience to watch the topics that interest them most.
The Takeaway
Not only are webinars a great way to engage with your audience directly, but they’re inexpensive and highly effective. A great practice for webinars is to hold a Q&A session afterward, so your customers can ask questions and receive expert answers in real time, giving you valuable insight into your audience’s pain points and establishing a trusting relationship with them. Overall, it’s a powerful tool that can help you grow your audience, add value to your business and gather leads.
This is the first in our six-part interview series, where we’ll be diving into various elements of modern digital marketing and how you can leverage different strategies to boost your company’s ability to generate ROI. Stay tuned for our next issue on: Email Marketing.
