woman doing presentation

Have you leveraged webinars during this lockdown period?

The Coronavirus pandemic has created a lot of change in business, pushing many businesses to digital realms they would never before have utilised, or atleast, not to this extent. The push from in-person to video meetings has been of great benefit during this lockdown period but, there is another way businesses can benefit from their video conferencing software to build their network, generate leads and gain an authoritative voice in their industry, through webinars.

Many of the digital and top tech companies have made webinars with top experts freely available for users to attend, where in the past, such events would have incurred quite a hefty charge. This is not only for top dogs though, and can be of benefit even for small to medium enterprises. By doing a webinar, you can:

Create valuable content to be used in marketing

Webinars can be recorded, so they can be added to your blog and other content platforms such as Facebook and Linkedin and even edited to be used multiple times on various platforms in various ways. This is of great benefit for your online marketing efforts, because you will be providing search users with fresh, unique content.

Generate Leads

Everyone who subscribes to your webinar could potentially be a lead that can be converted into a sale for your product or service. For example, if you run a tax consulting service and you do a webinar on the top methods to reduce your monthly business taxes you would inevitably be aiming such a webinar at business owners or managers which then could open a door for you to add those attendees to your email marketing campaigns, and ultimately your services.

Become a trustworthy source of industry information

If you present a webinar topic that could potentially solve a problem that your potential target market has, such as the one in the tax example above or, if you’re a technology company, giving solutions to improve business network security you are able to establish yourself as a trusted source of information in your industry.

To set up a webinar doesn’t require you to be a tech genius, it just requires some basic tools and resources that most businesses already have access too. To get started, a business would need:

  1. A video conferencing software
    Using a video conferencing software solution like Starleaf, that can handle up to 100 participants at a time is a requirement if you are wanting to get a webinar up and running. This type of video conferencing software allows users to dial in to your webinar with a click of a link, no matter what device they make use of.
  • A topic
    Ideally, you would want to find a topic of interest that will be able to benefit the audience you want to present to. During this lockdown period, there are many individuals and business owners looking for ways to navigate their way through the current crisis with nothing more than a few bruises, so, if you have any strategies you can share, now would be a great time. The majority of webinars aim to solve a specific problem, whether it is related to marketing, technology, or finance, or any other area of business or life in general.
  • Some presentation material
    Webinars should be very visual so you would need to create some aesthetically pleasing slides that will highlight key bits of information that you can expound on during your event. Using a tool like Microsoft Powerpoint which comes as part of the Office365 package, is the best way to go about it as it comes with all the functionality needed to present your webinar content professionally.
  • A marketing strategy
    How are you planning on landing in front of your target audience? Marketing specifically to this group of individuals is simple and can be done across Facebook, Linkedin and Google. You can also send emails or make direct calls to specific individuals you feel may benefit from attending your webinar. Putting some budget behind this will be beneficial, but considering the value it can bring your business, it will definitely be worth it.

Once you’ve successfully run your webinar event, its important to follow up with your audience to get their feedback on what they thought of your event. This will also be a great way to take your communication that one step further by opening a door to potential services that you could offer to these individuals or businesses or synergies with companies in your field of expertise.