A webinar has been a popular tool not just for marketers and sellers but also for standard Internet users for several years. As a result, more and more students, teachers, and even parents participate in such online meetings.
As technology developed, this type of online communication became more popular. But due to the Covid-19 pandemic, more people started working from home and doing distance learning, making webinars so exciting way of a virtual meeting. So what is the meaning of webinars, and why are they essential to business? Let's start discussing this topic!
Webinar definition
A webinar is an event organized by a company and broadcast to a selected group of people via their devices that have access to the Internet. It allows you to arrange a virtual meeting without the need to look for a suitable physical place. Webinars are usually business-oriented and are designed to build authority and relationships. Teams can also use Webinars for internal discussions.
Typically, webinars contain audio and visual elements. Through them, the speaker can provide the audience with, for example, presentations, surveys, Q&A sections to most effectively deliver a training, lecture, or simply conduct a meeting with clients. In addition, the audience can ask the speaker or webinar host in real time via chat or microphone.
Webinars can be live or pre-recorded. As a result, the audience doesn't have to participate in the meeting physically. In that way, your clients benefit from participation without leaving their homes. Instead, they can simply watch your webinar on their desktop, laptop, or mobile device.
Why are webinars important for your business?
Webinars are used in every public sector, and every field. The only limit is your imagination and creativity. They are essential for your company as they can:
#1. Improve your sales
Do you want to organize a sales meeting to present your offer? Feel free to use webinars. Invite regular or potential customers to see the new offer. To increase interest in the webinar, you can offer participants a discount on the product or a small one for free. Sales webinars are a much better alternative to standard presentations. With their help, you can present the product with the smallest detail. However, what makes a webinar different from a product presentation is the ability to answer all your prospects' questions. They will also express their opinions on a specific product or tool, which will give the organizer valuable feedback to improve the presented work.
#2. Increase brand recognition
Or maybe you want to increase your brand recognition? The webinars will also help you with this. Let’s suppose you run social media channels and want to raise awareness among the audience about the products and services. In that case, all you need to do is promote a webinar on social media and invite everyone to it. Organize a webinar about what media users want to hear about your industry. Give your observers excellent and valuable knowledge, and they will remember you for a long time and will come back to you.
#3. Build a contact list
Companies often conduct webinars for the primary purpose of expanding their contact list. In this case, it is enough for participants to register for the webinar with their e-mail addresses.
Webinars generating leads rely on attracting a potential customer with promotion, including free training, drawing a valuable product, and attractive discounts for a specific service.
The main goal of this type of webinar for leads is to gain knowledge and for companies is to gain new audiences by delivering value instead of focusing on sales. And when they get to know you better, they will want to become your clients themselves.
#4. Make you look like a specialist in your field
Webinars are very beneficial because both participants and the meeting host can stay at home and participate in the webinar. They are a great solution both when it comes to a cycle of quick tutoring for smaller groups and recipients’ interest in a specific topic. Webinars allow you to conduct training or meetings while away from the office. Recipients from your country and the world can use your knowledge and experience. By this, you will create your brand’s image as a specialist in the field. What’s more, you have time to answer questions so your audience can understand the topic even more.
#5. Allow you to be in touch with your customers
Of course, webinars maintain relationships with customers, and at the same time, efficiently solve problems, motivate, engage and build long-term relationships. They will help the organizer provide the necessary product knowledge to the interested parties and make it possible for them to ask important questions about a specific product, tool, or service. You can create webinars for clients or contractors in mind, for example, to explain the company's offer in detail. Business meetings are often related to travel several hundred kilometers one way and costs for accommodation and meals. Here, this problem will be solved in one click.
What features should webinar tools have?
There are thousands of webinars’ software out there. So if you are looking for the best one, just be ensure it has features like:
- Microphone - This is one of the basic tools used during a webinar. Thanks to the microphone, your audience can hear you and speak when needed. You can turn on the microphone function when you want to let the audience talk.
- Chat - Another primary feature is chat. Thanks to it, webinar participants can ask questions without disturbing the meeting. And the speaker can see if everything is understandable to the audience. You can also moderate chat and gain control over it and translate messages.
- Screen sharing - Sharing your screen view with your audience is also essential. You can also present used documents or documents that you don't want to save in the webinar storage space.
- Whiteboard - The use of whiteboards is welcomed in webinars too. You will be able to draw on presentations and videos too!
- Tests, polls, and surveys - If you want to create a poll for webinar participants, the appropriate function is also needed. By this feature, you can include graphics in the surveys questions.
- Virtual backgrounds - In turn, this function will allow you to set a virtual background during the meeting and adjust parameters and effects.
- Interview AV mode - Thanks to this feature, the meeting interface will be adapted to conducting Audio and Video interviews and online consultations.
- Registration forms - Creating your own registration forms is possible if your platform provides this function. Add different fields and customize the registration form by this function also.
- Marketing automation - This feature is also handy as it allows you to add webinar attendees to your marketing campaigns automatically.
- Presenter profiles - To know more about presenters, it would be a good idea to have a function that creates their profiles and assigns them to webinars.
- Email invitations - Another necessary function is inviting participants via email, allowing you to customize the invitation to recipients.
- Evergreen webinars - This feature will allow you to schedule an evergreen webinar and set it up at the right time.
- Reports - The appropriate platform should also generate advanced reports to analyze your webinars.
LiveWebinar does it like a pro
Now you know what you need to consider when choosing a webinar platform. To help you even more, we want to present you LiveWebinar - an excellent way to polish your webinars and online meetings.
We highly recommend it as webinar software. If you create an account in LiveWebinar - one of the most reliable webinar platforms out there - you can easily host a webinar event. By using this platform, you can host events for up to 1500 participants at one time and provide your organization with the customizable webinar software.
Among its features are free webinars, on-demand webinars, evergreen webinars, and online meetings. We also offer all mentioned above features and many, many others that include: live audience capabilities, presenter video capabilities, multimedia content, and high-quality leads for SaaS companies using our tool. All features you can find here. The free plan is the most basic, but there are three other plans as well. Your choice is up to you.
Over to you
If you have never attended a webinar, it's like opening a surprise box - you will have no idea what's inside until you go through it. Because of this, they attract crowds in front of computers, laptops, and phones.
But creating a webinar from scratch can be time consuming, and if you are unfamiliar with webinars, you need the right tools to build it. Using LiveWebinar will ensure that you get professional features that will create an impression on your audience!