Creating a Winning Services Webinar Program
Webinars consist of visual elements delivered from your computer (such as an MS Powerpoint presentation) and most-often a teleseminar delivered through a phone bridge or through the computer speakers. Usually, attendees are in “listen-only” mode and can interact via text to respond to surveyor polling questions and pose questions to the presenter(s).
These one-to-many, online events can be designed to accomplish a diverse set of marketing objectives. In order to build a successful Webinar Program (with a series of events and recordings) for a services organization, you must first understand the various objectives you can accomplish with Webinars. Then, it’s up to you to select the right “tool (WebinarJ for the job” to reach your goals.
Kinds of Marketing Webinars Available to Services Firms
Different types of marketing Webinars can be used to match the broad objectives of the company while capturing prospects at various stages of the services buying cycle, and then moving them to a sale.
Webinars can facilitate sales. For example, post-client Webinars can be used to deepen client relationships, by providing education and updates in your market or helping you re-sell clients on additional products or services.
Further research offers two, important insights – ones that can make the difference between success and failure with your services Webinar program.
1. Today, we live in a Permission Marketing culture. That means that buyers of services are more in charge of the buying process than ever before. They want to control what information they consume, when and how they consume it, and which firms to engage.
Webinars are a great way to get “permission” from potential prospects to assertively market and sell to them.
2. Most of your prospective buyers will tend to be Earlier in the Buying Process. But most providers of services have not recognized this, and, therefore, they don’t have a marketing strategy both to engage the majority of potential, early-stage buyers and to nurture those buyers to be clients.
Webinars are also an incredibly powerful tool to move buyers from early in the buying process toward the sale (with your firm).
Those firms that can do both will have a competitive advantage and tend to get a higher ROl on their Webinar investments and overall marketing efforts.
Here are some common types of Webinars at different stages of the buying process that you can call on, depending upon your marketing objectives.
• Positioning or Awareness Webinars
These Webinars are often used by firms to announce a new services offering or by existing companies looking to launch into a new market.
These Webinars can generate new leads or help qualify current leads by identifying a level of interest. They set the stage for later marketing to move the audience into the ‘serious evaluation’ stage.
• Educational Webinars
These Webinars are designed to teach prospects new information or help them better understand a specific set of problems and/or solutions.
For example, many services firms educate purchasing influencers about a problem or issue accompanied by a short introduction to their services. In this way they kindle the sales conversation with the target organization or buying unit.
• “Service Sampling” or Demonstration Webinars
These Webinars are designed to get the host company into serious consideration for greater complexity or higher-cost sales, or drive prospects to decisions for a simpler sales process.
In a services sale, this often means demonstrating the outcome ofusing a service such as the Return-on Investment or Total Cost of Ownership calculation. In a financial services sale, for example, one can demonstrate how a sample portfolio performs over time.
• Webinars Designed To Convert Prospects to Clients
These events are characterized by a call to action at the end of the Webinar which can ask for the order, move the prospect to request a proposal, or buy a smaller services engagement such as an initial strategy or planning phase. These initial engagements could be priced at $995 for individuals and $9,995 for corporations. Marketing Webinars are very appropriate to pitch these initial offerings. (Note if you are selling back to existing clients/relationships, you may be able to sell services at higher price-points through Webinars.)
Five Simple Strategy Steps to Webinar Success, Regardless of the
Type of Webinar Chosen
To summarize, a simple and effective way of building a successful Webinar program for a services organization is to act on the following five steps, investigated in more detail throughout this White Paper.
1. Decide What Types of Webinar(s) to Do
2. Execute Your Webinar Marketing Plan
3. Hold Live Webinars and Market Your Recordings
4. Convert Webinar Leads to Meetings/Clients
5. Repeat What Works Best and Improve Where Possible
Now, like many things in life, bigger is generally better when it comes to Webinars. Essentially, it takes the same effort and cost to deliver a Webinar with 10 attendees or 100.
So the next section will cover how you can gain more registrants and leads from your services Webinar program.
Continued tomorrow in Part 3: Services Webinar Marketing Plan for More Registrants and Leads
A Quantum Leap Marketing White Paper
A Companion to the Cutting Edge Marketing Webinar Series
Bob Hanson is the President of lead generation and conversion consultancy Quantum Leap Marketing and creator of the Must-See Webinars TMsuccess system. He has also published a recent guide to online lead generation, the “What’s Working Now in B-to-BLead Generation Guide: Success with New Media: Webinars and Goog/e Ads.”