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Webinars are the modern day radio and television mediums. The wide reach of the Internet and the easy availability of video conferencing tools have made it a cake walk for anyone to host their own webinar.
For businesses, webinars act as an ally in lead generation. They offer an effective way to pull interested prospects with a specific demand or need. The pull-factor, that is the voluntary participation of the audience for the webinar makes them hot prospects for a business. Once they are brought into the sales funnel, it is easy to convert them into paying customers.
According to the Branded Solopreneur, at least 20% to 40% of webinar attendees make a purchase.
There are three main stages in the sales funnel where the maximum traction with the prospect is created. It is here the make or break decision to DO IT or DITCH IT is made. Those three stages are:
1. Awareness – The stage where awareness about the product or service offering is created by imparting knowledge.
2. Evaluation – The prospect shows an interest in the product and considers options for buying the product/service.
3. Conversion – The final decision-making point where the prospect is converted into a paying customer.
Webinars come into play during the evaluation stage. They act as a direct source of the business to interact and resolve any queries the prospect might have developed during the awareness stage.
Not just resolving queries, but there is also a long list of other benefits that webinars can bring to your business. Some such benefits include:
And, most importantly, they can lead to higher conversions too.
Takes these wonderful webinars for instance. I signed up for them recently and this was one of the best productive times I have had in the recent past.
There are several other popular webinars out there too. Perhaps it is a better option to create a webinar and become a part of the list than spend time watching them all.
Here are some webinar tools that I tried and found to be excellent choices in hosting webinars that can supercharge your sales funnel.
Several marketers I personally know consider GoToWebinar as a go-to webinar tool to bump their marketing results. GoToWebinar does an excellent job of turning your presentations into conversational topics which could pave to more sales.
Features that impressed me:
Zoom is a powerful virtua meeting and collaboration tool. In fact, it is my default tool to host interdepartmental meetings. The webinar tool can double up as your virtual collaboration tool as well as a platform from where you can address thousands of webinar attendees. Zoom is so good that Gartner even named it Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Meeting Solutions for 2018.
Here is what makes Zoom awesome:
EverWebinar makes a difference as a webinar tool with its smart scheduling system. As a marketer, this is a feature to die for. The scheduling system ensures that you schedule webinars on the right day at the right time that best suits your target audience. Time-zone detection, holiday blocking makes its convenient to host webinars that will have maximum participation. There are still many more features that EverWebinar is offering.
EverWebinar features that caught my attention:
Some webinars can be boring. Some, even difficult to host. I have been through both. I tried WebinarJam and found that it takes away the difficulty in hosting and conducting a webinar. It makes collaboration between the presenters and viewers easier with an intuitive interface. It also breeds community participation through smart chat features and controllable communications that attains the ultimate goal of any webinar – spread the message.
Features that impressed me:
If you are a heavy user of Gmail, you know how fluidic Hangouts in day-to-day communication. Hangouts make it easy to carry your conversations anywhere and on any device. It is exactly this feature that makes it a perfect option for hosting webinars. In my personal experience, despite being a free tool, Google Hangouts does not cut slack in being an awesome webinar tool.
Here is why you should pick it:
Disclaimer: these are not the only webinar tools out there. There are several more you can bank on to create captivating webinars. Facebook Live, YouTube Live, MegaMeeting and ClickMeeting to name a few.
The ones that I have described above are typically used by most marketers and brands for hosting their webinars. Rest assured, they will help you increase the engagement with your prospects and turn them into paying customers.
Want to ask anything specific in relation to webinar tools or hosting a webinar? Get in touch with me! 🙂
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