Webinars are still quite new in the Australian business marketing landscape and so are a great way for YOU to differentiate you business from its competitors. Webinars provide the opportunity to grow relationships between your company and your customers; allowing you to reach out to new potential clients whilst also enforcing your position as an authority in your field. In a recent webinar with Ken Burgin ‘How to Create Great Webinars’, Ken and I outlined the benefits of starting up and integrating webinars into any business plan. In that webinar I spoke about these four reasons the Australian Businesswomen’s Network has been delivery webinar, on an almost weekly basis, since 2007, and why I recommend you consider adding webinars to your marketing tool kit.
1. To create leads
Webinars can be either free or available for a fee. Free webinars are very useful as an entry point to your business – attracting potential clients. They can help inform and convert people who are new to your business and not yet sold on your services. Holding free webinars allows your business to build up a database of potential clients to whom you can provide further information about the business, its products and future activities. Social media plays a central role in promoting our free webinars to people who are not already on our database. By registering they are moving across from being just followers on social networks, to being part of our marketing communications systems.
2. To educate
Webinars provide an extensive (30-60 minute) look into a given topic and can build rapport with clients already involved with or interested in your business. Webinars allow for an in-depth examination of issues in an environment where you can help the audience by sharing your (or another expert’s) experiences and knowledge. Education through webinars can be useful for building client relationships in that you are providing something valuable in exchange for their support and interest. The audience is able to ‘go home’ with a greater understanding or skill set which they might not have had before, which can work as an incentive to choose and stay with your business.
3. To position you and your business as an authority
Authority is built when your clients get to know you as an expert on your given area of expertise. For example, you might be a hairdresser and you have 25 ways to do your hair for a night out. Your authority in that area may be demonstrated by sharing that expertise on a webinar. Through the creation of a webinar, you are promoting yourself as knowing a lot about a field which can, in turn, reinforce a client’s trust in you and your business.
4. To create content
Webinars are a great way to create online content for the purpose of attracting new prospects and to having search engines find YOU when customers are looking for problems to solutions that you can provide. Publishing information about your webinar on a blog, webpage or social media attracts people’s attention. The lifespan of a webinar does not end after its initial publication. Articles and blogposts, created from transcriptions of your webinar, prolong the value and repurpose what you have already created. Webinars have a multitude of uses, which can enhance client relationships and also build revenue. The more good content your business has published, the more reach you can have to potential clients; and producing webinars is a great way to promote and market a business online. Content should be thought of as a marketing asset which optimises your ability to reach a larger audience. This post is based on the How to Create Great Webinars webinar. Learn more and access the recording, here.
