Why a Webinar?

Building traffic and marketing products has, for the most part, been done using on-line video streams or e-books. But very rarely do you see a webinar used as a marketing tool. Webinars offer a valuable array of services that not only give your customers the information they seek in real-time, with interaction, but also provide you an opportunity to increase your customer base and build personal relationships with your market.

What is a Webinar?

A webinar is a seminar or training session that is conducted in real-time over the web with a phone number that participants call in to for participation. There are many webinar service providers who give excellent technial support but you will want to be sure and take some training in how to conduct and facilitate your training session before planning a webinar.

From a big picture, marketing point of view, the cost of conducting a webinar is pretty minimal. You can charge your participants a fee to participate which will cover your costs which can range from $50-$200 on average, depending on the number of attendees.

Where Do I Start?

Before you attempt to download the software for a webinar or facilitate one, be sure that you take some training on how to use all of the features in the program. The easiest way to do this is to contact a company that's specific purpose is to coordinate webinars. The major webinar companies provide training on their systems and give a technical support number that you can call before, during or after the event if you have any difficulty.

How to Present a Webinar

The easiest and most efficient way to present a webinar is to upload a presentation prior to the date of your event. You can upload a short introductory video and then a powerpoint presentation. An important difference between a standard video stream and a webinar is that it is interactive. Your participants can ask questions, discuss issues, talk about the subject and ask you questions about your product or service.

When preparing your presentation for a webinar in powerpoint be sure to follow presentation etiquette. Do not put too much information on a slide, do not run through your presentation too fast. Be sure to allow for discussion time. The average webinar, when conducted properly will last about 45 minutes. After an hour you will lose your audience no matter how good the show is. If it is under 30 minutes, your audience will not have adequate time to digest the information and ask questions.

Practice

You want to practice your presentation and training and pre-plan as many of the questions as you can. I usually spend a few days thinking about every possible question that can be asked and have the question, and answer written down prior to the webinar. It is important that you do not use uh's or ummm's in your presentation. It has to flow very naturally and must contain information that is relevant to your audience.

Contacting the target audience

Once you are ready to conduct a webinar and have the information for the call-in number and log-on information, you will want to put your target audience together. If you have a niche business and your email list contains your customer base you can send out an invitation to the entire list through the webinar service. The invitation feature of the webinar will send an invitation which, when accepted, will prompt one or two reminders before the event. The neat thing is that, unlike auto reply, invitations will not be sent out automatically to your email list unless they accept the invitation. On your invitation you will want to include the cost of the webinar with a link for your participant to make the purchase. When conducting the webinar be sure to record it so that you can offer a recording of the event following the live webinar, perhaps at a reduced cost. (This is another feature that the webinar company's have).

For cost savings you may want to connect with another business that also has a training plan, but is not your competitor and you can share the time of the conference and offer two for the price of one to both your email list and your partners.

Final Thoughts

I have found that webinars are a wonderful way to maintain and enhance market traffic and customer base. Once you have learned the basics of facilitation they are very easy to do and there is a great demand for actual one-on-one interaction with many of our web customers. I urge you to give this wonderful mode of communication and sales a try.

Kay's Corner Office provides freelance writing services that include marketing, website content, and article writing. At our website you will find information on creating a work life balance when you have a home business, information, tips, and reviews.

Copyright Ellen Jackson, Kay's Corner Office
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