Are You Using Webinars To Build Sales Leads?

Webinars are a great tool for building sales leads in the new social media marketing world. The question is, are you using them to get closer to your customers?

I know you are getting inundated with webinar promotions and I know what you are probably saying, why in the world would anyone come to my webinar? Well, if you have Fans, Followers, email lists and the like, you have a bunch of people that like you and want to get to know you better. Webinars are another way to get your prospects down the funnel to become a buyer!

Webinars should be a consistent feature to your social media marking program. Use your distributed presence on all those web 2.0 sites and your blog to promote your webinars. You have a big presence now. Use it to drive people to get more involved with your business.

Tips for Success

1. Sign up for a Webex or GoToWebinar account. You will be able to do customization of various forms and email templates that participants will see when you invite them or when they are waiting for the webinar to start. Make sure you have logos and pictures available so you can customize the webinar software for your business. It’s a nice touch and you will look more professional than the others.
2. Create a presentation that your target prospects will want to hear. Go back to your research about the most burning questions that they have. Maybe use a topic from an article or whitepaper that you have for “link bait”. Get comfortable giving that presentation. Most webinar software has a practice webinar feature that your can work with so you get familiar with the mechanics or using the software.
3. Follow the instructions for creating and sending invitations for whatever webinar service you are using. Make sure you are also familiar with all the tools and ticks like polls, answering questions, how to switch presenters and most important, how to record. Promote the webinar to all the audience you think are interested in the subject. Use your owned vehicles (blog, web 2.0 sites) and also go into other forums and blogs and make comments and invite people (be careful that you do not come off too much like you are selling; this is an informative webinar)
4. Get your audience to participate. Use polls, ask questions, get them to take action on your website. The idea is to get them involved with you and your business in a deeper way.
5. Follow up! You need to get these folks onto one of your auto-responders on your main list…not just the webinar software. That is why you want to get them to take an action on your website (sign up for something) so you can get a double optin and continue a dialogue with them.

Now go do it! You will get closer to your customers and enjoy the opporutnity to talk about what you love most…serving the market you are in.