Webinars are a great marketing strategy—particularly for those who want to position themselves as thought leaders or experts in a field. Making a webinar is a great way to get the word out about your services while positioning yourself as an expert, and it can help you build a powerful list of highly interested prospects to market to.
However, there are a few key mistakes to avoid if you want to get the most out of your webinar efforts. These include:
Taking too much time. Bear in mind that your audience is busy. They have many competing obligations and the fact that they took the time to watch your webinar says they’re very interested in the topic. Always keep to your schedule—don’t start late or go
longer than advertised. If you finish early, end the webinar. Don’t try to stretch the length to an hour if you only have a half hour’s worth of material.
Sometimes the topic is in-depth enough to warrant a longer presentation—but sometimes it’s not, and audiences appreciate shorter, more concise presentations that offer the information in an easy-to- understand format.
Keeping your conversations one-way. Webinars should be interactive. Your audience is coming as much to ask questions as it is to hear you talk. Be sure to build in opportunities for people to ask questions, submit examples for critique (if that makes sense for your
topic), and allow a chat function. If it seems too much to field questions or manage the chat function while you’re delivering your talk—and for many people it is—have someone help you out by managing that and fielding questions for you to answer.
Promoting only once. It will take more than a single email blast or mention on your Twitter feed to get a good audience for your webinar. The best strategy is to reach out as often as you can on every platform you have—including email, newsletters, social media, blog posts, and more.
Haphazard marketing. Blasting about your webinar often on every channel is a good idea—but it’s also not enough. It’s crucial to build a strategy that funnels visitors through the steps to get them to sign up. This includes outreach to your targeted audience, leading to a hard-working and effective landing page that sells your webinar effectively; and then a sign-up form that encourages them to take the leap. Once there, you’ll also need to periodically send outreach messages to those who’ve signed up so they remember to attend.
Making your webinar too promotional. People aren’t signing up to hear a sales pitch.
They want good information on the chosen topic that they can use to accomplish their goals. Avoid any mention of trying to sell in the webinar audiences can tell when you’re giving a sales pitch. Make it all about the information and leave the selling for later.
Webinars can be an extremely powerful tool for audience outreach and building a strong reputation as an expert. Avoid these pitfalls, and you should be able to get the most out of every webinar you film.
