Four Steps to Selecting
A Winning Webinar Topic
Engage the audience! Conducting webinars is a great way to accomplish that goal; however, it is important to understand how the topic selected can have a dramatic effect on its success. Just as a great headline can hook readers, a good webinar topic will bring in more attendees—and the more people who attend, the more opportunities will arise for the speaker and his or her firm to sell services. This article discusses what it takes to develop a winning webinar topic.
The frequency in which professional services firms are turning to webinars to drive engagement and gain new leads is growing. As we have discussed in previous articles about marketing your firm, it is important to engage your target audience and current prospects in a way that showcases your expertise.
Conducting webinars is a great way to accomplish that goal; however, it is important to understand how the topic you select can have a dramatic effect on its success. Just as a great headline can hook readers, a good webinar topic will bring in more attendees—and the more people who attend, the more opportunities you have to sell your services. Here is what it takes to develop a winning webinar topic.
More marketing tips like these can be found in Hinge’s How-To Guides from Hinge University, our online learning platform.
Step 1. Brainstorm Topic Ideas
Producing good topic ideas is harder than you may expect. Plan to spend some time with your team developing a range of options. Here are some tips to get you started:
- Make a list of topics in which you have expertise.
- If you have written blog posts in the past, review them and add any that could be adapted to a webinar format to your list.
- Think about conversations you have had with others about industry news, trends, or research. Add these topics to your growing list.
- Think back to exchanges you have had with clients. What challenges do they face? What big issues do they wrestle with? Add these to your list, too.
Once you have a decent list of potential topics, you will need to decide which are likely to resonate with your target audience.
Step 2. Vet Your List and Select Your Topic
Picking the right topic is more art than science. But it is critical the topic you select be relevant to your target audience. As you go down your list of possible topics, ask yourself questions about each one:
- Does this topic address a problem that many of my clients have?
- Would solving this problem help my clients be more competitive?
- Does this topic have a clear benefit?
- Is this something I know a great deal about?
A “No” to any of these questions may be grounds for ruling out a topic. If there is no clear winner at the end of this exercise, go with your gut to decide which topic prospective clients would find most helpful. Even if you have not picked the best option, that is okay. You can use the other finalists in future webinars.
Step 3. Test Your Topic Against Your Firm’s Expertise
Before you make your final topic selection, you should consider one additional factor: how easily can you illustrate key points in your webinar with real-world examples from your firm’s practice? While the answer to this question will have little effect on the number of people who sign up, it can influence your ability to turn webinar participants into conversions.
If you are able to demonstrate through past performance that you have solved this problem before, people will be more willing to take the next step—whether it is downloading a piece of content, taking advantage of a free consultation, or hiring you for a project.
Step 4. Draft Your Title
Your final step is to turn your webinar topic into a title you can use to promote the event. The more specific you can make your title, the better. For example, “How to Develop New Employees in the Accounting Industry” or “Six Ways to Recruit Accountants Using Social Media” are highly specific topics that tell your audience what they can expect to learn from attending your webinar.
For more ideas and guidance on practical marketing techniques to implement at your firm, be sure to check out our Quick Start Kits and How-To Guides on this and many other marketing and branding topics at Hinge University. Best of luck!
Lee W. Frederiksen, PhD, is Managing Partner at Hinge, the leading branding and marketing firm for the professional services. Hinge conducts groundbreaking research into high-growth firms and offers a complete suite of services for firms that want to become more visible and grow.
Dr. Frederiksen can be contacted at (703) 391-8870 or by e-mail to LFrederiksen@hingemarketing.com.
