Are you planning to hold an online event in a bid to pique the interest of potential customers for your business? If so, your first thought might have been to deliver a webcast — especially given the large audience it could (at least theoretically) attract across the world.
TechFunnel explains that webcasts are intended “for a larger audience of up to thousands of people typically” — while, when it comes to a webinar, “the number of attendees is limited and ranges from the smaller-meeting attendees to a few hundred only max.”
Nonetheless, in practice, you could find a webinar more effective in engaging and converting members of your target audience. Here are several reasons why…
The interactive component
What mainly distinguishes a webinar from a webcast is that the former is geared by interactivity between the host and attendees. A webcast, in contrast, acts as a one-way flow of information from host to viewers, in much the same fashion as a TV show.
When you host a webinar, the array of tools at your disposal can include polls, Q&A sessions and file sharing — though exactly what you do get will depend on your choice of webinar platform.
Webinars are delightfully affordable
A webinar — as the term itself practically gives away — is very much a seminar held online. This alone helps to explain why webinars are cost-effective to both deliver and participate in.
As people would attend remotely, you don’t need to worry about booking a room or venue large enough to accommodate in-person guests. Instead, everyone can participate from spaces they already have — and none of you would need to spend money on travel in order to attend.
Webinars are a source of expert opinion
You might have spent many years in your chosen field of work, giving you a breadth of knowledge that viewers of the webinar would be able to benefit from.
However, you don’t have to be the only expert at your online event. TechFunnel points out: “Most of the webinars have multiple experts.” Once you have added several to the list of your webinar’s guest speakers, you can look forward to them answering questions put forward by the audience.
You can sell without, well, selling
It is unlikely that anyone who registers to attend your webinar will do so simply to see advertising. Instead, they will sign up because they want to see content that is genuinely useful and informative to them. This opens up a valuable opportunity for you as a business owner.
Whatever you have expertise in, you can share parts of your specialist knowledge with the webinar attendees — and, in the process, present yourself as more of a teacher than a marketer. Any mention of products or services from your company can be made subtly as the event unfolds.
When you particularly prioritise the use of a high-quality webinar platform for driving customer engagement with webinars, you can expect customers to remember your brand positively for a while to come. Hence, a webinar does not have to convert customers immediately to be effective.
Webinars can be used for training purposes
In a study mentioned by Information Age, 70% of trainers expressed the view that webinars were at least as effective as self-paced training. Meanwhile, 57% reckoned that webinars delivered high value in training new employees.
With new recruits probably tending to join your team on a remote — rather than in-person — basis in the post-lockdown landscape, using webinars to train these people makes a lot of sense. You wouldn’t need to leave the office, while they wouldn’t need to leave their homes — meaning savings in travel time and costs for both parties.
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