I love webinars.
Why so?
What’s not to love? Webinars improve brand awareness and positioning. They produce sales-ready leads and help brands connect with consumers anytime, anywhere. They help align marketing, customer service, and sales to meet business goals efficiently. And last but not least, they are convenient, productive, and fun.
In short, webinars are the equivalent of Swiss army knives for marketers.
However, very few marketers utilize their full potential, especially on the conversion front.
Are you one of them?
Fret not. Read this post carefully.
I’m going to discuss how to sell through webinars. Plus, I will explain how to utilize webinars to engage consumers, widen your reach, and maximize your productivity. All of this can help you boost your revenue and grow your business.
Let’s get started.
6 Ways to Grow Your Business Using Webinars
Webinars, as I mentioned before, are effective tools to skyrocket sales. I’m not talking about using webinars as a sales pitch. That would be a tactical error with discerning consumers.
Then what?
I’m referring to how webinar marketing can help you dominate the industry and grow your brand exponentially. Take a look at the growth-hacking applications of webinars below.
Build a High-Potential Contact List
You probably already have a contact list, but how many of your contacts are responsive and engaged?
Not many, I bet. People tend to overlook branded emails.
Webinars are a great way to expand your mailing list with engaged contacts. Most webinars require people to register with their email addresses. Some events also ask for a registration fee.
The contacts you get from webinar registration are high-quality since they are ready to pay and/or set aside time to attend your event. These are high-potential leads for your business.
If you nurture them with personalized and timely emails, you can get them to convert faster than random contacts. In fact, 73% of B2B marketers consider webinars the best lead-generation tactic around.
Increase Conversions on Big-Ticket Products
The internet has connected brands with consumers. Ironically, consumers have become more elusive.
It can be a pain for marketers to convince online audiences to invest in high-value items. That’s where webinars can come in handy. They are particularly effective in selling high-ticket items.
Why, you ask?
Three main reasons:
- For selling high-value items, you need to gain the trust of consumers and build relationships with them, which is possible through face-to-face webinars. One-way content marketing tools like blogs and social posts produce only “soft” leads.
- Webinars are an ideal platform to resolve pre-sales objections instantly. Expert-led webinars inspire confidence from end consumers. Webinar tools like demos provide instant gratification by showing how a product works in real time.
- Through hybrid webinars (live + automated), you can create tailored customer experiences for each attendee. Built-in content downloads available on-demand enable research and on-the-spot decision-making.
If your webinar funnel is well-planned, content is on-target, and timing is perfect, you can instantly convert 2% to 4% of the attendees. When we’re talking about sales running into thousands, that small percentage can translate into significant returns.
Maximize Your Productive Time
Time is a valuable commodity, both for you and your audience.
But as your enterprise grows, a lot of your productive time is wasted on coordinating in-person meetings. Planning, organizing, hosting, minute-recording, and analysis of meetings eat up most of your working hours. Where is the time to plan expansion and scaling?
Sound familiar?
I bet it does. Virtual meetings through webinars are an excellent alternative for busy entrepreneurs. Whether you have to catch up with employees, stakeholders, prospects, or investors, webinars are your go-to tool.
If you use a platform like FLOW, you can configure complex webinars in minutes. You can preload content and automate all interactions in advance, which can help avoid last-minute glitches and save you a lot of time.
For repetitive webinars (employee orientations, training sessions, etc.), the tool offers simulative features. You can devote all that meeting time to ROI-generating activities.
The clincher?
Registrants are as hard-pressed for time as brands. 38% of them prefer to watch webinars “on-demand.” If you value their time by offering them recorded webinars, you can win conversions and maintain viewership at the same time.
Improve Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is crucial to business success. Engaged customers convert faster and stay loyal for longer.
While there are many strategies to keep consumers engaged, interactive formats like webinars are among the most effective. Webinars provide an immersive experience using audio-visual content and tools like Q&A, quizzes, and polls.
If done right, webinars can hold the undivided attention of flighty audiences for a full 60-70 minutes. That’s sufficient time to convince them about your value and win their trust.
Need evidence?
The ON24 survey I cited before found that 65% of “top-performing” marketers used more interactivities in webinars as compared to their less-successful peers.
To be precise, 81% of successful B2B marketers used Q&As, 70% offered downloadable resources, and 22% used polls to get the participants talking.
Image via ON24
There seems to be a direct link between customer engagement and marketing success.
I have compelling facts to prove this.
According to a Walker report on customer experience (CX), modern marketers struggle to meet the heightened demands of customers on three fronts—personalization, ease, and speed. Well-planned webinars offer all of these.
Also, 46% of the surveyed marketers said building a customer-centric culture is the best way to meet the evolving needs of customers.
Webinars are one of the most customer-first formats out there. You share the spotlight with the audience, allow them to interact one-to-one with panelists, and ask for their opinions throughout the sessions.
Needless to say, customer satisfaction rates are high, which can improve your revenue in the long-term.
Expand Your Reach and Income with Joint Ventures (JVs)
Once you are a pro at webinar marketing, you can scale up your business even if you don’t have a ready-to-use registrant database.
You can partner with complementary brands and host joint webinars. For instance, if you built a great online course on weight loss but don’t have a mailing list, join hands with reputable wellness spas or plus-sized clothing companies.
The arrangement works like this: You set up the services and content. You handle the promotions and after-sales bit. Your JV partners provide ready-made audiences.
To make it mutually-beneficial, you can work out a revenue-share business model. You earn a pre-fixed commission on the sales attributed to the event. This is a great way to generate passive income.
On top of the additional income, you get access to a new set of qualified leads. You leverage the trust that your JV partners have built with the audience. You also get free publicity and scaled-up content distribution.
Crowd-Source Product Ideas
You can host free webinars with the aim of sourcing product ideas from end-consumers.
In these events, brainstorm ideas with the audience, understand their needs, elicit their expectations regarding features and pricing, and pre-sell the product even before it’s ready.
Impressive, right?
Here’s how you can pull this off:
Have a poll/questions at the end of your webinar (“what’s better: all-in-one body massager, spot massager, massager-and-steamer?”) Follow up with more close-ended questions about features, customer services, and pricing.
Once you collate all the responses, you have a product blueprint in front of you. End the event with an enticing on-the-spot offer (“raise your hand if a 10% early-bird discount sounds good to you?”)
The result?
You generate new leads for your sales team to pursue. You also ensure that you invest in in-demand products with desirable specs.
Ready to Be a Webinar Pro?
Now you know why I said webinars are more than sales pitches. They are a great channel to connect with consumers, cut costs and time, build contact lists, and widen your reach. Think out-of-the-box and come up with innovative ways to utilize webinars to grow your business.
Do you need more growth-hacking advice? Write your questions in the comments below. I’ll answer them as soon as I can.