A Webinar (combination of “web” and “seminar”) is a video presentation, lecture, or workshop hosted online using webinar software.
A Webinar session is often business-related and can be used for staff training or to share updates, ideas, and knowledge with people worldwide. Webinars can explain a product, capture leads, build and nurture relationships, and develop authority around a brand.
Why Host a Webinar?
Hosting an online event provides many opportunities, including:
- Presenting your latest product
Customers cannot physically attend your conference every time you launch a product. Showcasing it in a webinar, however, is more convenient. You can also attract a wider audience, such as leads and your brand supporters.
The structure of a webinar also enables answering questions more quickly than if you were in a massive conference room.
Despite being virtual, a webinar actually closes the gap between you and your audience, allowing for discussions that can reassure existing customers and help push leads down the pipeline towards purchases.
- Positioning yourself as the expert
Hosting a webinar around a topic and providing registrants with unique, valuable, interesting, and exciting information positions the presenter as a thought leader.
- Engaging your audience
Unlike traditional marketing tactics such as banner ads or social media marketing, webinars hold the power of scarcity and even play on people’s FOMO. Social media posts remain, ads are hard to escape, but live webinars promise a more unique value.
When people miss a live webinar, they feel that others who attended now know something they don’t. Even if they watch a recorded version later, they feel left behind and robbed of the interactive (Q&A) aspect. The aim is to make webinars so alive and engaging that missing one is not like missing a video.
- Generating new leads
Marketers struggle to attract high-quality leads, which are essential for a business. However, an excellent way to achieve this is by hosting webinars related to topics around your business. Those who actually go through the sign-up process to attend your event are already high quality.
Useful Webinar Features
Webinars have a wide range of tools to keep your audience engaged. These include:
- Text chat
- Slide decks
- Recording
- Screen sharing
- Whiteboard
- Surveys and polls
What are the Challenges?
While there are many benefits, hosting webinars does have some challenges, such as:
- Technical issues
- Promotion
- Measuring success