What is a webinar?

A webinar is a virtual meeting that connects its participants anywhere in the world over the internet. They can be used to hold presentations, workshops or lectures. Webinars are also referred to as “web conferences.”

For example, there could be 100 people on one conference call, or 10 people in a web conference sharing some documents such as PowerPoint® presentation.

 Webinars have powerful potential for increasing a company’s sales. They can also be used to help the company improve its relationship with its customers.  People often haven’t approached this form of communication with their customers. Webinars have the ability to bring the company to the customer instead of having them go to the company.

To help you, here’s a list of five tips to increase your sales while using webinars:   1. Talk about a topic you know well. It’s important to talk about the topics you know best. For example, if you are a sales consultant, you can hold a webinar based on “How to Increase Your Sales Performance”. Or if you are a web designer, you could show your attendees how to use web design to attract more visitors to your website.   2. Deliver useful information (not a sales pitch). Many people are using webinars only to pitch their products. This should be avoided, webinars are used to deliver valuable facts, insights, and information. Delivering this type of content will help you build a good relationship with your audience. The goal is to keep them coming back for the information you’re providing. It’s much better than tricking them into listening to your sales pitch and have them running away.   3. Mention your product or service. We just covered why not to pitch during an instructional webinar. This is different. Let your audience know that what you’re teaching is relevant to your business. If you’re doing a webinar on marketing networking, for example, it’s a good idea to let your audience know you wrote a book about the very same topic. This is to be done in moderation – the point is to establish yourself, not sell your products.   4. Use this opportunity to gain a new audience. Try to keep the conversation going with the attendees of your webinar, Ask questions, interact and make yourself easily accessible  on social platforms such as Twitter or Facebook. This way you can gain your following while perhaps gaining some valuable feedback. You already have their emails, so it’s important to keep in touch with them. You can start sending them an email thanking them for their attendance. Then, you should send updates they might be interested in, but be careful about the frequency of your emails. If your audience took interest in you and you delivered well in your webinar, there’s a chance they’ll speak well about you to their friends, family or colleagues. Spreading the word about your webinar gives a good chance to boost your next webinars attendance.  

5. Show your audience that you appreciate their participation in your webinar.

Make your audience feel special and reward them for the time they spent with you. Offering something they will appreciate like a discount, a limited time offer, or a free product/service will help them feel good about the whole experience. Remember to make it relevant to your business, because if it’s an iPad for example, there’s no reason for them to return and it doesn’t open them up to try any of your products.