Building Your Business Using Webinars

We live in a world dominated by the Internet. We rely on it for news, entertainment, engaging in commerce, socializing, looking up information, and so much more. The advent of mobile technology and widespread wireless network access has only increased the Internet’s ubiquity and importance.

So it only stands to reason that if you have a business and you want to increase its visibility and customer base, you need to go online. But even that simple decision opens up a host of other potential decisions, specifically which approaches you should take in this endeavor to build up your brand.

There’s a lot of lip service given to things like websites, social media, email blasts, and SMS texting, but have you considered the idea of webinars? Here’s what you need to know about them.

Presenting: The Webinar

The term is a portmanteau of the words “web” and “seminar”, according to “More Proof Webinars Drive Audience Participation”. In essence, it’s a seminar, workshop, lecture, or other such presentation, conducted over the Internet.

Webinars are distinguished from webcasts by the fact that the former allows two-way participation, including the ability for the audience to ask questions. On the other hand, a webcast is more like a broadcast that, rather than using radio or television as the medium, you use the Internet.

How To Build Your Business With Webinars

Here are three different ways that you can use webinars to increase your company’s profile and brand recognition.

Product Demonstrations. Use a webinar to highlight a featured product or service that you really want to push. You can conduct a walkthrough by means of the webinar, and demystify the product for the benefit of the audience. The more information a potential customer has, the more likely they’ll commit to buying it.

Generating Leads. Figure out what your target market is, and create webinars that offer content that’s relevant to them. For instance, if you own your own accounting firm and you want to get people intrigued, you could present a webinar about the advantages of having an outsourced, third-party company (like yours for example!) handling a small business’ accounting chores, rather than the latter going through the expense of hiring staff for the job.

Since webinars allow two-way conversation, interested parties could ask you for more details, and that’s where your actual lead generation comes in.

Creating A Brand/Identity. Webinars are a visual medium, and people are visually-oriented creatures. Thus, images create a lasting impression. Webinars where your business is prominently featured (whether you’re hosting the webinar or just one of many speakers) helps to build brand recognition with the audience. If your webinars consistently conform to a certain tone and image that’s characteristic of your business, matching the look and feel of your website, for instance, then those images are burned into the viewers’ heads and they come to recognize your brand and trust it. Once you get the audience’s trust, you’re on your way to converting them into customers.

By employing any or all of the above methods, you can increase your business’ recognition while getting familiar with an increasingly popular method of marketing. It’s a win all around. Now, get those cameras rolling!