The methods companies are using to reach their audiences have changed significantly in 2020. New technologies and innovations in audio visual (AV) solutions have only accelerated those changes.
Many businesses are now turning to the benefits of streaming media solutions.
Streaming media solutions are technologies that allow you to host digital events online for a global audience. These events include anything from webinars, webcasts, virtual trade shows and many others.
These modern video solutions can either be uploaded as pre-recorded content or broadcast live, and make it significantly easier for your to communicate, educate, and provide information to your company’s audience
In this blog, we’re going to take a look specifically at online webinars and how your company can improve engagement and generate perfect sales leads.
Webinars are the future of audience engagement
Webinars are a fantastic way for your organization to present important information and content to your audience. Not only are they easy to plan, organize and host, they’re also a cost-effective way to deliver messages that educate potential customers and improve loyalty for existing ones.
Webinars can help you generate sales leads, empower you to become a thought leader within your industry by delivering insightful content, enable you to reach a wider audience and give you a platform that delivers increased value to your potential customers.
Improving webinar engagement metrics
The content in your webinar is important, it’s what drives registrations and great attendance rates. Content alone, however, is not enough. To turn these attendees into leads, you need to engage your audience throughout the webinar and encourage interaction.
Ensuring your webinar attendees are engaged will result in two things. Firstly, it means they will stay until the end of your webinar. That’s highly important if you want them to remember and learn from your brand. Secondly, it will allow you to make a connection with that attendee, increasing the likelihood that they will purchase your product or service.
So, how exactly can you keep your audience engaged during a webinar? Genesis Integration has listed five tips here:
1 - Ensure your content is valuable
This may sound like the most obvious point on our list, but we’ve put it first for a reason. Any successful webinar starts by planning out content that is truly valuable to your target audience. That could be content that answers a question, solves an issue for your audience or even just makes their life easier.
Your webinar content should hit the fine balance of not only being valuable to your audience, but also interesting. It shouldn’t be a sales pitch of your products or services. The better you strike this balance, the more engaged your audience will be with your webinar.
2 - Make your webinar interactive with poll questions
Including multiple choice poll questions throughout your webinar that relate to the content you are presenting will give you valuable insight into the challenges your audience is facing and their opinions on specific topics.
Webinar platforms allow you to view and share these results as they come through. This is a fantastic way to improve interaction with your audience throughout your webinar, and provide them with information that shows them what their peers have experienced on the topic.
3 - Ask for direct feedback
You can break up your content every ten minutes or so by asking your audience for some direct feedback on the webinar. This not only helps you to improve future webinars, but it empowers your attendees to share their opinion and feel included. When attendees feel valued, they’re more likely to watch your webinar until the end.
Questions you could ask include:
- Did you find the previous topic helpful?
- On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate this webinar so far?
- Is there anything you would like the speaker to elaborate on?
- Do you have any questions?
4 - Send follow up material to your attendees
To extend learning and engagement beyond the hour you spend presenting your webinar, offer some follow-up support material for your audience to read. Perhaps you have detailed blogs on your chosen subject, maybe you have an ebook, or perhaps you just want to share some select slides from the webinar? You can even create a handout with all of the essential content related to the specific topic.
By sending more content to your webinar attendees and offering them value well after the webinar has finished, you will increase the likelihood that they will be engaged with your brand.
5 - Include a call-to-action
Creating a webinar is all about achieving your end goal, but what exactly is it that you want your audience to do once they have finished watching your webinar? It’s important that your webinar is designed to move this goal forward.
Encourage attendees to take action and further engage with your brand by including a clear call-to-action once your webinar is over. This could be anything from filling in a survey, signing up for a product, downloading an asset on your webinar topic or subscribing to weekly emails. This will move your audience one step further down the marketing funnel.
Need further help planning, organizing and supporting the technical side of your webinar strategy? Contact Genesis Integration today. Our team of AV experts would be more than happy to answer any questions that you may have.
