Stand Out with Webinars

Have you ever thought of how many websites offer (almost) exactly the same features as your own website? By now the majority of blogs, content, affiliate websites or product-selling websites are just duplicates of many other similar websites. With the amount of competition in every sector of the internet marketing your website has to offer something extraordinary to stand out from the rest! But how can you find something which will make your conversion rate reach new heights that every internet marketer dreams of?

A really good way to stand out from the rest and convert your visitors to converting customers is by doing webinars. This concept has been around for some 15 years now, but it is still a pretty rare sight on the internet today. The concept is both simple and, if executed correctly, very effective.

The newest type of webinars is Google's very own Google Helpout, where people from the Google+ community can offer their expertise as a hangout to other members of Google+. Since it has only been around for a few month, nobody actually know the effect using Google Helpout has on the SEO of a website, but experts seem to agree that it will infact have a positive effect on a website's search engine ranking. Even if it doesn't, the service is a great way to make people aware of your product or service, as the Google+ community is massive and constantly continues to grow.

For the more standard webinar, there are a lot of providers to choose from. A popular and recommended webinar is GoToWebinar. They have an easy setup and a lot of helpful features including the option of recording the webinar which I will get back to.

If we look at the method of creating a webinar, the first thing to consider is what the topic of the webinar should be. The ideal topic of the webinar would be something that you or anyone else working on the website or in the company has an in depth knowledge about. Obviously, anything can become a topic of expertise when putting your mind to it, but the more convincing you are when speaking about something, the more authoritative you will seem to the attendees, and correspondingly, the more trustworthy your website will be perceived.

Before actually presenting the webinar, it is important to promote the event a good period time before, so your visitors will hopefully be exposed to the advertisement several times. Give them as many details as possible about the webinar. What, when, where, for how long, and maybe even give them a sneak peak so they will know what it is all about.

During the actual presentation of the webinar, it is of course recommended to mention your product or service to the attendees. However, it is important to not become too much of a salesman. Make the content of the webinar the main focus, and try to the extent possible to connect the topic of the webinar to whatever you are selling. This might seem obvious, but the more related your product or service is to the topic of the webinar, the more likely the attendees will remember it and come back to buy it.

A good way to end the webinar is by doing a Q&A session, so always make sure there is time for questions to be asked and answered. This will make the participants feel involved, and make sure that they leave with a positive feeling. When the webinar is over it is time to take advantage of this positive feeling amongst the attendees by following up with them by phone or email. Send them special offers and discounts, and in general make them feel like they are important to you. The crucial part of the follow up is doing it as quickly as possible after the webinar to take maximum advantage of the good feeling you have left in the attendees.

If successful, make sure to put the recording of the webinar on your website or on youtube to give new visitors the feeling that you connect with them. Next time you host a webinar, make the video a part of the promotion to get even more attendees resulting in even higher conversion rates.