Whether you’ve been trying to cut down on your events’ budget or you were forced to shut down most of your marketing activities thanks to the lockdown, webinars make for a great alternative solution. Forget all the hassle of finding a venue, hiring an event organizing agency, or running around in circles trying to find the IT guy to fix technical issues. Why go through any of that when you can simply host a webinar online and reach the furthest corner of the globe?
As appealing as the idea of a webinar sounds, it’s not always a piece of cake. Your webinar can either break your marketing and sales numbers or hurt your reputation. To ensure your efforts aren’t wasted, and satisfy all your strategic goals, ask yourself the following seven questions in advance.
Is a Webinar the Best Tool for Your Purpose?
Are you sure that holding a webinar is what your business really needs? To answer this question, you’ll need to revisit your marketing strategy. What do you want to achieve from this webinar? Are you looking to increase sales, promoting a new service or product, raise awareness, or increase engagement? Once you identify your goals, you’ll analyze your target segment. If you want to address seniors or young teens, a webinar may not be the best tool you use to satisfy your goals.
How Will Your Webinar Go?
If you’ve concluded that, yes, a webinar is what you need at this point, then it’s time to plan for a mind-blowing one. There are multiple steps to take to present a well-prepared webinar. For starters, you must decide on the topic. Next, you’ll choose a format for the webinar.
Do you want to be the main speaker? Would it be better to make it a panel discussion? Are you going to divide it into sessions, each session tackling a different topic or having a different format? All of these factors will be taken into consideration. Once you finalize the structure, you’ll need to prepare the full content of the webinar; this includes both the speech, introductions, discussion, and the visuals.
Do You Need to Hire a Team?
By now, you’ll have an idea of how your webinar will proceed. Are you sure you’ll be able to carry it out all on your own, or will you need a team to help you achieve this feat? If you need a team, how many members will you hire – or, realistically speaking, how many can you hire on your budget? What will their roles be? Remember to account for everything, starting from marketing efforts to reaching out to guests and fixing technical issues.
Which Webinar Tool Will You Use?
Despite the best planning and preparations, many marketers fail to deliver the webinars they had envisioned due to technical issues. From poor resolution to website crashes, the worst thing that can happen during your webinar is to lose the interest of your attendees. Not to worry, though; Simon from The Economic Secretariat has compiled this review https://www.ecosecretariat.org/best-webinar-software/ of the top-ranking webinar hosting services you can use to deliver a smooth, top-notch webinar. Make sure to ask the right questions before you settle on a service provider, and you’ll be ready to break your marketing records.
Have You Done Your Test-Run Yet?
Even if you think you’re all ready for blowing the minds of your virtual audience, you will never be fully prepared until you do your test-run. During the test, you’ll encounter technical issues, missing content, lack of organization, or any other issue that would otherwise take place in your actual webinar. On the plus side, a test-run allows you to rehearse your presentation.
Isn’t it About Time to Promote the Webinar?
With everything in place, it’s time to promote your webinar. Make sure to include registration documents so that the attendees can book their spot beforehand, and you can get your leads. Speaking of which, will you make it available for the public or limit it to a particular region? Moreover, will it be free to attend or paid for?
Have You Booked the Place and Equipment?
Don’t wait until it’s time to run the webinar to book the venue and equipment; you never know when they’ll be all rented out. To be safe, book everything two weeks in advance, and have back-up contacts for reserves in case anything goes wrong.
With the right mindset and the right tools, you can guarantee the webinar serves your marketing strategy flawlessly. Now that you control all the aspects, you’ll be sure to blow away your audience. While you’re at it, make sure to gather data for further analyzing and optimization.
