Webinars are an excellent tactic to nurture your leads. What are webinars exactly? Glad you asked! Webinars are seminars or lessons taught online, usually with a live audience.

Why are they so good at converting viewers into buyers? Webinars allow you to engage your audience in a more personal way. They can put a face to your business and let them communicate with you on a more intimate level.

The goal of a webinar is to educate your audience on a certain subject. If you do it right, then you can increase your industry authority and earn your viewers’ trust, showing them that you are the right person or business to help solve their problems.

 

Can Your Small Business Make Money From Webinars?

Yes, your business can make money from webinars. There are two ways to do this:

  • Offer a free webinar and then pitch a paid product at the end
  • Pay to attend the webinar (but make sure the content isn’t offered elsewhere for free, or bring on an exclusive guest speaker!)

Many factors determine how well your webinars perform. Let’s take a quick look at what can make or break your webinar.

  • Overall promotion campaign (How many people signed up?)
  • Conversion rate (How many people completed the CTA?)
  • Content of the webinar (Was it what your audience was expecting?)

Today we’re going to focus on how to create a webinar, especially if you are a small business with a low budget.

 

How to Create a Webinar

Define the Purpose of Your Webinar

When you decide you want to host a webinar, you’ll need to determine its purpose in the content marketing funnel. This will help you choose a webinar format, which I’ll discuss later in this post.

If you are looking to increase your awareness, then you may choose a webinar format to help move then down the funnel and get them to engage with you.

Webinars are also great for people who have already gained some awareness of your brand. They are probably looking to engage with you more to see if you offer the solutions to their problems. A webinar can be the final push they need to sign-up with you.

At this point, you should consider what topics they need to learn from you to earn their trust in your brand.

 

How to Choose a Webinar Topic

A webinar topic that your audience isn’t interested in, is going to be a dealbreaker. People will not invest their precious time into learning about a subject that doesn’t appeal to them.

So how can you choose a topic for your webinar that matches their needs? Consider the following questions:

  • What content has already performed well with your audience?
  • What are other webinars in your industry? Find any gaps and do webinars on those subjects.
  • What are the most frequently asked questions from your audience?
  • What would you enjoy teaching about for 30-45 minutes?
  • Would your audience consider the topic to be educational and informative (and maybe even a bit exciting)?

 

Choose a Webinar Format

When people think webinars, they think PowerPoint presentations with one person teaching the subject. But there are so many more options than that! Here are a few other ways you can deliver your webinar:

  • Interview: You can bring on a guest expert and interview them. Get your audience involved by asking them to send their questions before the webinar starts. This can get them excited about attending and finally getting answers to their questions.
  • Group Panel: This is similar to the interview webinar format, except that it involves multiple guest speakers. They would all discuss the same topic, and a moderator can help field questions from the audience.
  • Sales: If you’re looking to make a sale at the end of your webinar, then you want this format. Start by teaching a valuable subject for the two thirds, something that makes your audience know that you understand their pain points, and then have actionable solutions to their problems. In the end, you can pitch your product and hopefully even make a sale. Because you’re asking them to sign up via email (most of the time), you’ll end up with a list of leads at the end, so you can follow up and nurture them afterward.
  • Q&A: You can have live stream events on Instagram, and people can come and ask you questions. It’s a great way to show off your expertise and increase your know-like-trust factor since you’re engaging directly with your audience.

 

Tools You Need for Webinar Production:

You don’t need a ton of fancy equipment to produce a webinar. Although you want good quality visuals and audio, your audience is more interested in learning from you above all else. Here are a few tools that we recommend to produce your webinar:

Video:

  • Zoom (Free & paid versions)
  • ClickMeeting (Paid - Affordable Prices)
  • GoToWebinar (Paid - Premium Prices)

Visuals:

  • Google Slides (Free)
  • Canva (Free & paid versions)
  • PowerPoint Slides (Paid)

Equipment:

You could use the equipment that comes with your laptop or computer. Test it out to see if you are happy with the quality of it. If not, then consider upgrading:

  • External laptop webcams
  • Studio microphones or headphones with a microphone attached

 

How Long Should a Webinar Last?

In general, most webinars are about an hour long. This gives you enough time to present and possibly pitch your product while making the viewer feel like they are going to learn something valuable in that time frame.

One hour doesn’t always work with every brand. I’ve seen webinars last from 30 minutes to almost 2 hours. It’ll depend on your subject matter and how engaged your audience is with your brand.

It also depends on the structure of your webinar. You could have a 30-minute presentation and then take questions for another 30 minutes or longer. If it’s not a live webinar, then you might decide to only present for those 30 minutes.

Pro Tip: Incentivize people to show up live by offering a special surprise at the end. It can be discount codes on your new product or a free month of your services in a giveaway. It’s a great way to surprise and delight your audience.

 

Pick a Date & Time

Picking the right date and time ultimately depends on your audience. You’ll have to do some market research to figure out what works best for you.

If you’re looking for scientific evidence, higher attendance happens on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10 am or 11 am PST.

 

How to Repurpose Your Webinar

Pro Tip: Record the webinar and offer it as a replay to attendees who didn’t show up.

Webinars have a 44% attendance rate, which is not bad, but certainly leaves a lot of people who signed up and didn’t attend.

Recording your webinar and sending it to people who didn’t attend can lead them back into your funnel. You can also repurpose your webinar by selling it as an online masterclass on your website.

Another method is taking small tidbits from the webinar or even questions asked during the meeting and sharing them as exciting social posts.

 

Wrap-Up

There you have it! Producing webinars for your small business is an affordable way to grow your business and nurture your audience.

By providing educational and informative webinars, you can convince your audience that you are trustworthy, knowledgeable, and can help them with their problems.

Looking for some examples of great webinars? Check out some great ones from Zeta Global on topics such as Machine Learning, Marketing Best Practices, Win-Back Campaigns, and more!

Have you made webinars for your content marketing strategy? Let us know your experience in the comments! We would love to hear your success stories.