Webinar 101: How To Make It A Success

Webinars are valuable tools that your company can leverage to drive leads, engage with customers, and help reinforce your business as a thought leader. Webinars can be great sales enablement tools that provide your sales team with an actionable reason to reach out to their prospects. At Army8, we’re breaking down the best practices for creating and launching webinars that will enhance your company’s standing in your industry in four simple steps.

Step 1: Planning

When you choose a topic, make sure that it is broad enough to provide strategic information for people without sounding too much like a sales pitch. We recommend covering topics that are currently trending in your industry. Don’t feel too much pressure to be the leading expert in the subject, but you need to present reliable information to assist others.

From there, you’ll need to pick a headline. You’ll want something short, catchy, and to the point. Explain what a client will get out of your webinar with as few words as possible. Then, you can move on to developing the presentation. Start with actionable suggestions, so your audience can finish the webinar feeling like they can move forward and begin applying the information you gave them today.

Remember, it’s all about how you can help your clients and prospective clients, not about selling your product. That’s just a bonus. At the same time, try to avoid dry, information-laden presentations without any levity. You need to entertain too.

With that in mind, you’ll need to pick a platform for your webinar and set up email automation with calendar entries to ensure everyone knows when and where the webinar is being held.

Step 2: Pre-Launch

Before launching your webinar, you’ll need to take steps to advertise it as widely as possible. Use all of your marketing and sales channels to promote the landing page for the event. Utilize your email newsletter, social media posts, and paid ads through YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Try contacting people you haven’t spoken to in a while and ask for their advice on the upcoming webinar, such as which topics they’d like you to focus on more.

You should also set up automated emails to send out reminders leading up to the event after someone has registered to attend to stay at the forefront of peoples’ minds.

Step 3: Launch

Don’t forget to record your event! Others may want to watch but are unable to attend when it’s first aired live. At the end of the presentation, remind everyone that you will be sending them the recording in a follow-up email. Finally, finish things off with a call-to-action like a free consultation to answer any questions they might have after the presentation with a link to your calendar where they can book an appointment and get started.

Step 4: Post Launch

Follow up and follow through. Make sure to follow up via LinkedIn or email with everyone who registered for your webinar to see if they have any follow-up questions and offer your calendar link. Send everyone the webinar video, too, thank them for their participation, and invite them to schedule some time with you. You can also post the video on your social media accounts, so people in other time zones or with outside commitments can still enjoy your content.

Webinars are actionable tools that, when used strategically, can provide great information to your clientele and help take your business to the next level.