Engagement is one of the most important watchwords in Digital Marketing.
Through the production of different contents, the idea is to engage the consumer, develop a positive relationship, and bring them closer to the brand
In this process, the production of a successful webinar can make all the difference.
Whether it’s to educate the lead on a subject or to live broadcast a relevant event, the fact is that webinars have a huge potential to engage a large audience.
Beyond that, they’re a way to diversify your approach to digital communication.
Before producing, however, you must take some steps to ensure the quality and relevance of your content. Want to know more about creating and hosting a successful webinar?
In this text, we’ll answer:
- What is a webinar?
- What are the benefits of a webinar?
- How does a webinar work?
- What are the 4 best practices for a successful webinar?
Keep reading!
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What is a webinar?
The word webinar is self-explanatory. It’s a combination of the terms “web” and “seminar”, indicating that the content is nothing more than a web-based seminar.
We can define it as a one-way video conference used for commercial or educational purposes.
In the context of Content Marketing, webinars are usually employed in the middle and bottom of the funnel phases.
At these stages, leads begin to seek more in-depth information, so offering a web-based seminar is one way to meet this demand.
Webinars, however, are not limited to generating information and knowledge.
Live broadcasts can be used for a variety of purposes, ranging from simple product tutorials to event coverage. The secret is to know how to create a qualified persona-based content, capable of generating business benefits.
But, after all, what advantages can you achieve by producing a webinar? We’ll address that in the next topic.
What are the benefits of a webinar?
We’ve already mentioned the main benefit of a webinar: engagement.
Easy to consume and interact, the content has a great impact on consumer 4.0 since it allows their active participation.
Through the platforms’ resources, the audience can interact and even influence the seminar’s development.
The main engagement factor, however, has to do with capturing the audience’s attention. As you know, retaining lead attention is much harder than attracting it.
The tendency is that this challenge will become bigger and bigger, given the large volume of digital content produced daily by several market players.
Most of this content takes the form of text and images, which then become less appealing to the public. Videos, on the other hand, are considered one of the most significant trends in Digital Marketing.
They are easier to consume, allow more specific approaches, and, in the case of live webinars, can be watched in real-time.
With all this engagement potential in mind, you’ll now learn about other advantages your company can achieve by producing a successful webinar.
Generates traffic
If you already work with a Digital Marketing strategy, you’ve probably already got your website. Keeping it up to date and running is critical to gaining brand authority.
The challenge, however, is to make the buyer persona effectively access the site and become a frequent visitor.
To achieve this goal, it’s not enough to employ the good old SEO techniques.
What really matters to ensure the user experience and guarantee its return in the future is the relevance and quality of the website material. And quality content, as you well know, means diversified content.
Among the different formats you can use, the webinar stands out as an excellent traffic generator.
If the audience likes the content, it’ll spontaneously refer it to more people, thereby also increasing your lead generation.
Enables in-depth discussion on a subject
If you produce content intended to educate the public, you know that it’s necessary to consider the audience’s level of knowledge.
You can set up your material production to reach the audience at the most appropriate time based on the different marketing funnel phases.
Following this idea, you should provide leads in the attraction stage with more comprehensive and straightforward content, usually taking the form of blog posts.
Once the audience begins to understand the subject, you can evolve to more sophisticated approaches.
One of the best ways to conduct an in-depth discussion is to offer specialized webinars.
A video conference setting is well suited to passing on more specific information, as the audience’s attention is much higher.
Besides, the webinar enables the viewer to engage by allowing them to ask questions in real-time. This makes the process of lead nurturing easier and helps you to educate your audience.
Increases brand authority and awareness
As your audience gains more knowledge, your brand establishes itself as a reference in the matter.
Successful webinars have a positive impact on consumers, who start to see your company as a reliable source of information.
Naturally, this generates an increase in the level of access to your channels.
In terms of Digital Marketing, your authority rises, which positively impacts the SEO strategy. More authority means more points in search engine rankings.
The consequence is a considerable improvement in the number of leads that your business generates on the Internet.
The effect may extend to the offline world, as recommendations from users satisfied with the experience may attract more potential customers.
Generates insights about customer behavior
One of the most unexplored features of webinars is the potential to generate insights into consumer behavior.
Of course, your priority should be the streaming quality, but it’s critical to keep an eye on the data you can collect on a webinar platform.
An excellent way to take advantage of such potential is to insert quizzes and polls into the conference.
In addition to being excellent for engaging the audience, this interactive content can point out, for example, the level of knowledge the persona holds on a particular subject.
To learn more about your audience, you can monitor engagement analytics in real-time.
Complete platforms offer metrics such as the number of visitors, audience time-on-page, concurrent sessions, new visitors, active visitors, and much more!
Allows monetization
Besides being excellent for marketing, communication, and educational purposes, a live webinar can also generate immediate financial input.
For this, the platform you choose to host your events must include ad monetization resources.
If it does, you can establish partnerships to display sponsors’ brands during the webinar.
Some platforms also allow you to create restricted events and charge an entrance fee for those interested in watching.
Performs conversions
Educating the audience is undoubtedly one of the main functions of a webinar. However, they can also be used to convince the public to make a purchasing decision.
To understand how that works, we need to consider the marketing funnel once again.
When the lead reaches the decision stage, they’re already looking for a solution that fits their problems.
So all you have to do is help them understand the advantages you have to offer.
The webinar is a very interesting resource to give that final push. It allows the creation of several contents that directly address the main concerns of the lead, therefore eliminating them.
With no doubts remaining and confident in the partnership, the user is far more likely to convert.
How does a webinar work?
To enjoy all the benefits we’ve just listed, you need to face your webinar strategically.
There’s no point in producing poorly structured events with little promotion. In fact, bad transmissions can even cause the opposite effect and damage your brand image.
So before you start producing your webinar, check out how the process works.
Choose a subject and a date
First things first.
Efficient planning is fundamental to the success of any strategy, and creating a webinar is no exception.
So, define in advance the subject that will be addressed in the seminar and come up with an attractive title that is both creative and informative.
Then set the date when the event will go live. Give yourself some time to plan all the webinar details smoothly, especially if you’re still inexperienced. This time will also be essential to promote the event.
In addition to the date, set the webinar starting time. The most important factor in this decision should be the behavior of the audience.
Based on data collected from social media channels, you can find out when your followers are most active and use it as a reference.
Choose a good platform
There is no point in planning if the webinar is not carried out on a high-quality platform.
This is a very important decision in developing your strategy because stream quality factors can negatively affect the user experience.
So, write down your main needs and try to identify the best solutions available for your problem.
To help you, we’ve separated a list of some of the best webinar platforms on the market:
Create the landing page
With access to the platform, you can use the resources directed to the dissemination of your webinar.
It’s crucial to create a landing page and attract new people interested in the event. In exchange for accessing the content, visitors will leave their contact information.
To boost your landing page performance, improve your web design and add interactive content. You can include features such as quizzes and testimonials to make the visitor experience more complete and facilitate their conversion.
Promote the webinar
After planning your webinar, choosing the platform, and creating your landing page, it’s time to attract attendees to your event.
Use all your Digital Marketing channels — paid and organic — to reach as many potential people as possible.
Don’t forget, however, that quality is worth more than quantity. During the promotion phase, use your buyer persona as a basis to reach people who might actually be interested in the webinar. If you already have a segmented email marketing list, this is the time to use it.
Other than that, mobilize your social networks with periodic posts reminding followers of the webinar.
Use the different features of these channels, such as Instagram Stories countdown function, to create engaging and informative content. Always remember to include the exact time of the event.
You should prioritize the social networks best suited to the audience you want. If the event is corporate-oriented, for example, promoting it on LinkedIn is much more relevant than on Instagram.
In your blog posts, add calls-to-action directing the reader to your landing page. It’s also interesting to create short videos as a way to pump up the audience’s expectations.
Write a script
Even if you completely master the webinar subject, don’t take risks: structure a script to guide your lecture.
As you gain experience, you’ll feel more confident in reducing the details included in the script.
Ideally, however, you’ll want to keep at least the most important sentences.
To stimulate audience engagement, include storytelling elements. With this technique, you’ll capture the attendees’ attention and convey your message more understandably.
In the script, flag moments when you should perform your calls-to-action. During the webinar, CTAs should be designed to stimulate audience interaction.
At the end of your main presentation, make a more specific offer. You can recommend another content or even hint your product as a solution.
Prepare a presentation
No matter how good you are at public speaking, using visual elements is always a good idea to make the audience experience easier.
So prepare a presentation and display it in the background for your speeches.
The slides should not pull all the information from the webinar; their role is to help orient the reader during the event and to support what the presenter is saying.
If the theme of the webinar is, for example, the growth of marketing this year, it’s essential to have graphics and charts to validate and illustrate the information.
Besides being informative, presentations should be attractive. This means that you should develop a modern and clean design, which you can do using specialized tools.
What are the 4 best practices for a successful webinar?
1. Invest in quality equipment
If you don’t have the financial resources to invest in equipment at the moment, don’t worry.
Smartphones and notebooks can provide the necessary conditions for you to conduct your webinar without any major problems.
However, as the results appear, consider investing in more advanced equipment.
Headsets, cameras, and microphones can increase your videos’ sound and image quality and optimize the visitor experience.
2. Choose a quiet location
It’s also vital to define where you’ll broadcast the webinar from. If you have the structure to book a room just for that, great, but the reality is that you can always improvise.
Give preferences to locations away from doors and windows to avoid noise and interruptions.
However, if you can get a space with natural lighting, you can use this in favor of your video conference quality.
3. Make it interactive
To explore the full engagement potential of your webinar, you need to make it interactive.
A good platform provides resources to facilitate this, as we showed when we talked about interactive quizzes. Learn about these features and use them without hesitation.
It’s also essential that you express to the audience the importance of their interaction. Encourage attendees to ask questions and, if appropriate, make room for discussion.
After the webinar is done, it’s a good idea to send polls to seek the audience’s opinion.
In addition to reinforcing your commitment to the user experience, this generates valuable insights that we’ll address in the next topic.
4. Always monitor the results
Your best webinar should always be the next one. Regularly monitor the results of your events in order to measure your success and find room for improvement.
Based on feedback from users, find solutions to correct problems, and deliver increasingly qualified content.
Monitoring results is not only crucial to the content production process, but also the promotion process.
Based on the demographic data generated by the webinar platform, you can find the most suitable locations to target your campaigns, increasing your Content Marketing ROI.
Producing a webinar can be what you need to improve your relationship with your audience.
The online seminar allows you to address more specific topics, which makes it very important in education, nurturing, and lead conversion. Use the tips in this text and explore webinars to achieve your goals.
Ready to produce your webinar? To help you with that, we created a webinar’s checklist so that you won’t forget any important detail. Download now!
