If you’re looking to grow your audience while increasing your sales at the same time, you should consider hosting a webinar. Webinars can be leveraged to help you develop brand awareness, build credibility, educate your audience, and drive sales. Although webinars can take on different formats, they all use these five elements to hit their target goals.  

1. Have a Clear Message

There’s nothing like a clear message to engage an audience. Not only does clear messaging grab people’s attention, but also keeps their attention during your webinar. Artfully weaving your theme and purpose throughout your webinar helps to keep the focus and encourages audience participation. You’ll find that just as there are many ways to host a webinar, there are many ways to craft a clear message and reinforce it. Spend a good amount of time defining and refining your message to ensure you have a successful webinar. Remember, your audience is attending your event because they’re looking for value and education. Although you’re attempting to generate more leads and convert sales, you cannot skimp on your content. Content is king, and you have to provide high-quality content that solves a problem or provides a service if you’re going to convert sales, create brand recognition, and build brand loyalty.

2. Keep Your Audience Engaged

Learn about your audience through gated content and form fills to have more engaging content. It will also get you contact information and other key data that will help you better target them with personalized messaging they’ll find useful. Building a relationship with your audience is the first step. You’ll be able to understand their pain points, needs, and preferences to offer them the content that they will engage with. You can engage them during your webinar with breakout rooms, polls, links to additional resources, and Q-and-A sessions. This also gives you a clearer view of your attendees and allows you to better guide their purchasing decision.

3. Use Sales Triggers

Just because someone attends your webinar does not mean that they intend on becoming a customer and buying services or goods from you. Interest and intent are two different things, so it’s necessary to build sales triggers into your webinar to see the difference. Some common sales triggers include links to product pages, pricing pages, free trials, and QR codes to purchasing opportunities. Sales triggers like these help you discover which attendees are most receptive and willing to move further along your sales funnel.

4. Engage Before and After the Webinar

The sooner you engage with your audience after they register for your webinar, the better. This will foster better attendance and help you begin to establish a relationship with attendees. It’s a way to build your authority while also creating excitement and anticipation for the event. The pre-webinar strategy is just as important as the post-webinar strategy. After the webinar you should send a thank you email with a recording of the webinar attached. It’s a kind gesture and it helps to keep you in their mind. Remember to include relevant information, helpful links, and additional resources.

5. Leverage Engagement Data

Lastly, do not let your engagement data go to waste. Pass this critical information to your marketing team so they can take over and continue to move attendees through your sales funnel. Creating personalized automated nurturing tracks will help you generate more sales in the long run.

Webinars are great for generating engagement and building your audience. Following these tips can help you get the most out of your webinar.