What is Webinar?

Webinars are the engines of sales in online business. In this article, we will not only answer the question “what is a webinar?”, but also tell you about the important nuances of using this format.

What is a webinar and why should I use it

Webinar is one of the most popular and affordable ways to organize online training, product presentations, advanced training, online meetings or sales of goods and services, including informational ones. This format is now used everywhere, as it is convenient to organize, the number of visitors is unlimited, and the costs of holding pay off well. This term usually means an online seminar or video broadcast, where one or more speakers can talk about themselves, share useful information and, most importantly, promote their paid products and services.

Webinar structure

If you plan to advertise or sell something through a webinar, then it is better to stick to a certain scheme for dividing this format into blocks. This is a proven option, often used in practice.

Introduction. Duration: 10–15 min. Presentation part. At the start, the host of the webinar attracts the public, captures attention. For this, absolutely all the tricks and ways to interest are suitable, from jokes to ballet in sweatpants. The main thing is to capture the attention of the public, not to let it go away, intriguing with what will happen next. At the very beginning there is a self-presentation of the author. The first 15 minutes - they will be your calling card, the success of the webinar will depend on them.

The main part. Duration: 20–45 min. Information part. This will be your core of the presentation, the expert part. You share useful information with the audience, reveal any secrets. You show that you know about the client's problems. Also talk about the fact that you know many options for solving the problem. Share advice and knowledge, demonstrate your competence and expertise. Tell stories from your practice and life. And all these 20-40 minutes prepare your audience for the climax, smoothly leading to the result that you need.

Conclusion. Duration 10–20 min. Advertising part. Climax. The selling part, which should not be overloaded with valuable advice and empty promises. Maximum useful information about the proposed product, specifics about its properties, strong emphasis on the usefulness of the product. Convincing and logical arguments in favor of purchasing a product or service. Using discounts and other bonuses to stimulate purchases.

Webinar types

What tasks do you set during the webinar? What is your goal? The answers to these questions will help you decide which format is right for you. The following stand out:

• Presentation. You are a professional and you plan to sell a new product that has recently entered the market. You need a presentation to inform and stir up interest in a new product. In it, you will reveal all the main advantages of your product, inspire the public to purchase it, sharing several valuable properties. You will demonstrate all the advantages and benefits of your product, talk about all its advantages, and also be able to answer questions from your audience. When participants have the opportunity to clarify some points related to the characteristics of the advertised product, this always works more effectively than ordinary one-sided advertising without instant feedback. You can track all the most important questions and wishes of your client, find out opinions and objections about your offer, and, most importantly, make direct sales.
• Meeting. This format assumes that you have relevant, useful and important information, and you want to share it with your audience: with the target audience or with colleagues. It could be a meeting of offices from different cities.
• Master class. You provide online training for your clients. You have specific goals: your students improve their skills in any professional area or learn a new valuable skill necessary for personal growth. The master class should be capacious, informative and, of course, interesting and dynamic. The topic should always be cutting-edge, you teach something important or exclusive.
• Lecture. You share knowledge on a certain topic online, you have the opportunity to see questions and comments of participants, and respond to their messages in the chat. This form of study is indispensable for distance learning, where, on the one hand, the lecturer can use all the possibilities of modern technologies to diversify his oral story, and on the other hand, a certain anonymity of the audience makes it easy to ask questions to the lecturer and discuss the topic. It is also a convenient format for promoting your products and services: first you talk about a trend, situation or problem in a lecture format, then you advertise your product.
• Training. An excellent format for conducting all kinds of online events for personal growth, mastering new skills, and so on. At special online trainings, you can teach the audience about new products, new rules, or some important changes, for example, in a special computer program. The main emphasis is on practice, on working out and training new skills online. Product training is used to increase customer loyalty as well as to drive sales. If we are talking about dealers and franchisees, then the main goal will be training in order to improve the quality and quantity of sales in the field.

Often, after master classes or online trainings, certificates of participation are sent to all participants. Certificate webinars are becoming more and more popular, as the participant not only has invaluable new skills, but also the actual confirmation of participation in the training. This always attracts people and automatically elevates the status of the online event itself.

In terms of access, webinars can be both paid and free, open and closed.

Free webinars. Do you want to warm up the audience's interest in your product or service? Do you want to find new clients? Do you want to share the news with your regular subscribers? Then the free webinar format is for you. A free webinar will help you present your paid online products, increase your brand awareness and increase the number of new customers. Most often, this format is used as a platform for the presentation of commercial products.

Paid webinars. And if you plan to use webinars as a way to earn money, you have high-quality content that is useful for the target audience, then you can start preparing a paid webinar. Visitors to such a webinar pay for participation in it, and in return receive exclusive or necessary knowledge, new skills. It is important that the paid webinar is well-organized and of high quality. All key points must be thought out in advance, and if there is no experience in this area yet, you can contact the specialists of OnlineExpo. OnlineExpo helps organize hundreds of different paid webinars every year.

Open webinar is an online event in which anyone can participate. To do this, any potential guest of such an event needs to register, if necessary, pay in advance for participation and remember to connect to the broadcast on time. The desire to participate is the only prerequisite for registering for an open webinar.

Closed webinar is an event in which you can take part only after receiving a special invitation from the organizer. The initiative comes solely from him, he chooses who will need to send invitations.

Also, webinars can be divided into selling, image and training. In this case, the sign of separation is the final goal.

A sales webinar. If your goal is to sell your product to your listeners, then you are preparing a webinar as a sales webinar.

Image webinar. To form the image of the organizer or some brand, you are preparing an image webinar.

Educational webinar. If you need to teach the participants of an online event something new, then you use all the rules for creating a training webinar.

Steps of creating and running a webinar

1. First, you need to choose and precisely formulate the topic of the webinar. The more relevant the chosen topic is, the more participants will attend your webinar.
2. The choice of name will be a very important point. The title of the webinar should attract attention, instantly interest your target audience.
3. You need to advertise your webinar on all kinds of Internet sites where your target audience is.
4. Before holding a webinar, it is best to check all the information, downloads, presentations, diagrams several times, be sure to conduct a test webinar.
5. Before starting, be sure to check the entire technical part.
6. An important stage of preparation is sending out reminders about holding an online event. You need to be regularly reminded of the upcoming event. At this point, you need to be creative: in each mailing list there can be something new and useful. We stir up interest, intrigue and promise.
7. After the preparation process, we conduct the webinar itself. Most often, webinars are held online in real time, then the organizer has the opportunity to communicate with the audience “live”. Along with this option, use the recording of the webinar.
8. After the webinar, you need to analyze the feedback received from the participants.

Webinar Platform

You can schedule a webinar for any number of participants. Separately, if we are talking about several dozen listeners or more, then it is recommended to use the capabilities of a specialized platform. The OnlineExpo platform is well suited for webinars and provides the following features:

• creating and using convenient registration forms;
• the ability to create a spectacular branded landing;
• the ability to select the interface language;
• choice of access levels, choice of paid access levels;
• the ability to use convenient payment acceptance;
• conducting both live broadcasts and broadcasting of pre-prepared video materials;
• using a platform to create professional webinar content;
• creating speaker announcements;
• possibility of simultaneous presentation of several speakers (use of schedule, hashtags, etc.);
• using a chatbot;
• create a presentation with access to it at any time without additional applications and sites;
• creation of presentation and promotional materials in convenient formats: PDF, PPTX, JPG, etc.;
• using online surveys;
• communication of webinar participants in chats;
• the ability to exchange business cards;
• collection and analysis of statistical data;
• connecting success metrics;
• using feedback using special forms on the site.

Webinars are confidently conquering the space of the information business. This is a convenient format for holding online meetings and a promising way to make money in the online field. The webinar has great potential as a platform for business. You can learn more about holding a webinar by ordering a free consultation on our website.

We also recommend reading our article about choosing a name for an online event.