How to Get Started with Webinars
Nine Steps to Engage Your Audience
Hinge’s latest research on high-growth accounting and financial services firms makes the case that your firm should consider adding educational webinars into your marketing mix.
Hinge’s latest research on high-growth accounting and financial services firms makes the case that your firm should consider adding educational webinars into your marketing mix.
Why? Well only 34.9% of these firms reported that they conducted webinars last year—and it seems that for those who did, they were worth the effort. In terms of perceived impact, conducting educational webinars was the third most impactful marketing technique used in this industry. What are some reasons for this?
Webinars educate your audience on solving issues they care about while demonstrating your expertise in a more interactive setting. This builds trust that you are the expert you claim to be and gives prospects a sense of what it might be like to work with you. Best of all, webinars are not that hard to pull together. In this article we will take a look at the steps towards conducting an effective webinar.
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Step 1: Select a Topic
You need to select a topic that you are comfortable with presenting, connects to your firm’s services, and is relevant to your audience. If one of these criteria are missing, then you risk presenting on a topic that will not cultivate engagement from your audience. It is vital that you select a topic that showcases your expertise and ability to solve your client’s issues.
Step 2: Choose a Presenter
The next decision is who will present your webinar. You will want to choose one or two people within your organization who know the subject matter inside and out. Most webinars are not scripted, so they must be comfortable working off a slide deck, improvising, and answering questions about the topic.
Step 3: Develop the Presentation
Once your topic and presenters are selected, you can begin the process of developing the presentation. Some tips here include the following:
- Design the presentation to engage the audience
- Stay on topic
- Include images and graphs as much as possible
- Incorporate real world examples
- Make sure you save time for questions
Step 4: Choose Your Platform
There are plenty of webinar platforms on the market, so you will want to explore a few options and see what works best for your team. Some popular products include Go2Webinar and ON24.
Step 5: Select a Date and Time
As you get closer to finishing the development of your presentation, you can schedule the date and time for your webinar. Do not pick a random time! Think about when your audience will have availability in their schedule to pause for an hour and engage with your webinar. Many studies show that times right after lunch are the best.
Step 6: Create a Landing Page
We recommend that you create your own landing page on your firm’s website for your upcoming webinar. As you promote your webinar through e-mail, social media, blog posts, and other channels, you want to direct possible registrants to your firm’s website. Who knows? After they register, they may keep exploring the rest of your firm’s website.
Step 7: Begin Promotion
You have done all the hard work of creating this presentation—but will it matter if no one attends the webinar? Starting at least three weeks before your webinar, you need to begin promoting its registration page to your prospects. The most common channels for promoting webinars include your website’s homepage, e-mail, and on social media. Do you have prospects who could benefit from the topic? Send them a personal invite! It cannot hurt.
Step 8: Practice and Test
Do not skip this step! Your team needs to ensure that they are comfortable with the technology you are using. Moreover, your presenters need to know what to expect! Will someone introduce them? Will questions be taken during the presentation or at the end? A practice session is a great forum for ironing out all these last-minute details.
Step 9: Deliver the Presentation and Follow up with Attendees
It is time to conduct this webinar! Recognize that your attendees have set aside a small part of their day to hear from you. Respect this fact and bring your best to the session. Leave time for questions and perhaps include a poll question or two to keep audiences engaged. When the webinar is finished, follow up with your attendees and thank them again for joining. If you included an offer as a part of your presentation, reinforce that opportunity when you thank them.
Webinars are a terrific marketing channel for engaging your audience in a meaningful way. Follow these nine steps and you will be on your way to implementing a repeatable marketing technique that elevates the expertise of your team.
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.
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.
