Webinar Recap: “Driving Business Growth Through Marketing” from Part 1 of the free webinar series, “Accelerating Your Business Growth”

Part 1 of our free webinar series, “Accelerating Your Business Growth” entitled “Driving Business Growth Through Marketing”, presented by AnyMeeting together with Comcast Business and SCORE, featured speaker Bob Paino, a SCORE mentor and former partner in a mid-size boutique advertising agency in New York City for over 37 years specializing in travel, consumer products and business-to-business accounts.

Bob’s rich and engaging presentation is designed to help small business owners and marketers:

• Maximize customer reach and retention with tools and tips on social media, online marketing, public relations, advertising, event marketing and more.
• Learn how to create “raving fans” and prepare your business and team to execute for growth.

Get insights and actionable advice as Bob engages the audience in live Q&A.

Whether you are just starting your business, looking to accelerate your growth or simply want to gain an edge to get your business to the next level, you won’t want to miss out.

Watch the full webinar recording here.

Want to view and download the presentation from the webinar complete with Bob’s resources? Get it from Slideshare.

Be sure to check out the other webinars from this series and sign up for the latest webinar today!

Increase Lead Generation and Customer Engagement with AnyMeeting and Zapier

Use of webinars by marketers continues to rise. According to polling by Percolate, 20% of US marketing executives said their companies conducted webinars last year.

Another survey from Demand Gen Report found that 62% of US B2B marketers were using webinars as part of lead nurture campaigns in 2014. More than half of respondents also considered webinars effective for this purpose. Only white papers were more widely used, and they were slightly less likely to be rated effective. Chief Marketer also reported that 44% of US B2B marketers used webinars for lead gen last year, up from 29% in 2013.

Plus, the marketing technology ecosystem has exploded.  According to ChiefMarTec there are more than 1,800 vendors represented across 43 categories.To make it easier for marketers and small business owners to increase lead generation and customer engagement, AnyMeeting announced integration with popular business apps including Salesforce, HubSpot, Constant Contact, Eventbrite, LinkedIn, LeadPages and over 500 others through an integration with Zapier. See all of the available Zaps here: https://zapier.com/zapbook/anymeeting

Connect webinar registrants to your email marketing lists or CRM, save attendees to a spreadsheet, even schedule meetings automatically from any Zapier connected app. Zapier is a service that interconnects business apps by enabling users to specify triggers and actions between apps using a simple point-and-click interface.

AnyMeeting users can use prepackaged “shared Zaps” — automations created using defined triggers and actions between apps — or by creating their own Zaps. The prepackaged Zaps available today from AnyMeeting include:

• Salesforce — Automatically create a Salesforce lead when someone registers for a webinar.
• Constant Contact — Add a webinar registrant from a Constant Contact signup form to AnyMeeting.
• Eventbrite — Use Eventbrite to register attendees for your AnyMeeting webinars.

Customized integrations and automations can also be created as needed. Three AnyMeeting triggers are currently available including “Created a Webinar,” “New Webinar Registration,” and “New Attendee.” When these events occur in AnyMeeting, Zapier can trigger actions in other apps. Likewise, actions can be performed in AnyMeeting based on triggers in other apps. Currently, these actions include “Schedule a Meeting,” “Schedule a Webinar,” and “New Webinar Registration.” By combining these simple actions and triggers, users are able to create powerful automated tasks to improve efficiency.

The integration feature is now available to AnyMeeting subscribers on Meeting Pro and Webinar Pro plans. To kick off usage of the feature, AnyMeeting is launching a contest that will award an Apple Watch to one subscriber selected from among all who integrate AnyMeeting with other apps via Zapier by December 1st.

Get started today by logging in to your AnyMeeting Account and choosing the “Integrations” tab.

40 Tips for Webinar Success

Small businesses and non-profits are looking to grow their customer/constituent base, deepen their relationships with supporters and prospects, and influence people to take action.

Online events such as webinars present an ideal opportunity because they allow you to share your presentation, video, and screen and provide audio commentary. You can interact with your audience and enable attendees to connect and at-tend your event from anywhere in the world. With this in mind, we have compiled 40 tips that address each stage of the webinar process and help ensure success.

You can review and download the Free eBook here.

40 Tips for Webinar Success from AnyMeeting, Inc.

Or review them all below:

Planning and Preparing

1. Determine what they want: Poll your audience and find out what they’d like to hear about. Discovering where your clientele already understands your expertise to lie will help you to craft a webinar that plays to their perceptions of existing strengths. Especially if you work in a team environment, don’t plan your webinar topics without the input of the sales and marketing staff. “How To Plan Webinars That Work,” James O’Brien.
2. Consider working with a partner: Sometimes the process of getting sufficient numbers of people to your broadcast can be a daunting one. Whatever your situation may be, the easiest way to get the viewers you need is by partnering with an individual or organization that already has a relationship with your target audience. “A Little Known Secret to Webinar Success,” Eric Brown.
3. Decide who will present: From the start of your webinar planning, you need to think about what format your online experience might take. Will it be just you, as the expert, explaining a principle, or are you thinking that it would be best to bring in additional presenters — people who can broaden the field of knowledge? Note that you’ll need to administrate a group if it’s the latter. So, plan and build all the slides and audio material from every presenter into a complete package, early on. “How to Plan Webinars that Work,” James O’Brien.
4. Pick an interesting topic: Create a solid theme and topic that will be interesting to attendees, and drive the message home. “First Time Producing a Webinar?” Lauren Tuculescu.
5. Put together a solid slide presentation: In addition to creating a wonderful talk, spend as much as 20 hours building a simple and interesting slide deck to accompany it. Make sure they work well together. “10 Tips for Effective and Engaging Webinars,” Mark Di Vincenzo.
6. Your slides should be visually appealing: While it is important that you provide engaging and relevant content through your narrative during the presentation in addition to the slides, be sure to have an interesting and visually appealing slide presentation. “Creating a Professional Webinar,” Jennifer Gregory.
7. Identify a problem and a solution: Throughout your presentation, you should be hitting on hot buttons that identify common problems or frustrations. Grab their attention by making them feel like you’re talking directly to them, describing what they thought were unique challenges. Once they’re on the hook, offer up a solution: your products or services! “How To Sell With Webinars,” Angela Stringfellow.
8. Give yourself enough promotional lead time: You’ll need some time to attract an audience to your webinar. The industry-recommended standard is about two to three weeks. Any longer than that and you’ll run the risk of having participants forget about the event. Any shorter and you may not be able to attract a large enough audience. “6 Tips for Hosting Your First Webinar,” Kate McFarlin.
9. Don’t forget to send out reminders: Two days before the webinar, email a reminder with the specifics: date, time, URL, pass code and audio dial-in number. Note if the participants must download specific software or use a certain browser. Include a contact phone number in case of technical difficulties. Prevent last-minute chaos by familiariz- ing yourself with the webinar system well before the event. Plan to log on early the day of the webinar to make sure everything is working well. “9 Tips for Better Webinars,” Julie Bawden-Davis.
10. Make sure everyone has what they need: When working with a large online group, providing the attendees with necessary documents prior to the meeting is essential, unless breaking or bad news — like corporate down- sizing or mergers — is being shared. If it’s simply a sales plan or projections, send the slide presentation or accompanying files ahead of time. This will help attendees come prepared, with questions already formulated, which will help with interaction. “Five Ways to Prevent Boring Webinars,” Angela Stringfellow.

Marketing and Promoting

1. Remember what you want: Before you start marketing your online presentation, make sure you know why you’re doing it, what you’re trying to accomplish, and what you hope attendees will get out of it. “10 Tips for Effective and Engaging Webinars,” Mark Di Vincenzo.
2. Choose your audience wisely: Invite the right people. If 100 people attend your webinar, but very few of them are the target audience, then your webinar will not achieve the goal you set. “How to Use Webinars for Lead Generation,” Jennifer Gregory.
3. Decide how your landing page will look: Start by considering what is important to your audience. What are they looking to learn? What secrets might they miss if they don’t attend your event? The landing page is where people are sent when they want to find out more. That page has to do a lot of work for you. It has to have the basic details of what the webinar is, and when it is going to take place. A picture of somebody is a very good way to gain interest. Have a very clear set of bullet points on the value and/or benefit to the attendees. “How to Put On a Killer Webinar,” Ken Molay
4. Find those with a common interest: Think about the individuals or groups that already have relationships with the people you want to reach and come up with ways to partner where everyone can walk away a winner. “A Little Known Secret to Webinar Success,” Eric Brown.
5. Flap your wings and Tweet: Although Twitter restricts posts to just 140 characters at a time, it can still be effective for tweeting links to your seminar’s Web page. To take full advantage of Twitter, learn to exploit the power of hashtags. Twitter hashtags are code words (preceded by the “#” symbol) that designate your posts for keyword searches. For instance, if you include the hashtag “#webinar,” in your tweet, anyone searching for that hashtag will see search results that include your tweet. “Using Social Media to Promote Your Webinar,” Robert Hadley.
6. You’ve got mail: Email is still effective, as long as it does not appear annoying or “spammy.” Having a special guest speaker for your upcoming webinar is a great way to encourage registrations. An influen- tial speaker will generate buzz, enticing and exciting potential attendees. If chosen appropriately, this guest speaker aspect is a promotion in itself. “Using Webinars to Promote Your Business on a Tight Budget,” Lauren Tuculescu.
7. Decide who will facilitate your event: A webinar facilitator can be of assistance in terms of advising you on ways that you can have a high marketing reach by reaching out to groups, organizations and other contacts to draw individuals into the webinar, “5 Tips for Using a Webinar Facilitator to Generate Leads and Customers,” Heather Butts.
8. Enlist the help of your colleagues: If you have brand ambassadors — key employees who can spread your message — make sure they post the webinar link in their status updates and share it in any relevant groups they belong to. Different groups have different rules about promotions, so it’s a good idea to either consult the rules or email the moderator for guidance. “Using Social Media to Promote Your Webinar,” Robert Hadley.
9. Select the right ticket price for your audience: Before deciding on the price for your webinar, spend some time researching what other people are charging for similar webinars in your industry. “Tips to Monetize your Webinar,” Jennifer Gregory.
10. Use registration as a marketing tool: As part of the registration process, have one required registration question for future marketing purposes (example: How did you find out about this webinar?). “7 Tips for a Successful, Pitfall-Free, Lead Generating Webinar,” Heather Butts.

Presenting and Engaging

1. Testing, Testing, 1,2,3: Before starting any online event, it is always a good idea to test out your equipment and make sure it runs properly a day or two before you go live. “Everything is Working Correctly Right? Are you Sure?” Bob Menzies.
2. Three words – practice, practice, practice: One of the secrets to keeping the audience’s attention is to appear confident, knowledgeable and professional. You should also make a conscious effort to eliminate annoying speech habits, such as the dreaded “um” and “eh” disease. “The Secrets of Engaging Webinars,” Jennifer Gregory.
3. Eliminate distractions: Before the webinar begins make sure that you eliminate all distractions that will be audible or visible to your audience, such as unnecessary computer programs running on the screen and personal items in the background. Make sure that you keep kids, dogs and co-workers out of the room where you are hosting the presentation. “Common Webinar Mistakes and How to Avoid Them,” Jennifer Gregory.
4. Look like you know what you’re doing: If you are using video, be sure to dress professionally, just as you would if you were in the front of a conference room. Check that everything visible on the webinar presents the image that you are aiming for. “Creating a Professional Webinar,” Jennifer Gregory.
5. Don’t forget to hit record: Be sure to record the webinar and edit the recording after the presentation. “How to Use Webinars to Generate More Sales,” Tom Treanor.
6. Make sure everything is set: At the start of the meeting, make sure that all participants can see the screen or slide and that the audio is working properly. Quickly review how to use features such as chat. Lay the ground rules for asking questions and completing any polls. “9 Tips for Better Webinars,” Julie Bawden-Davis.
7. There’s a poll for that: Starting at the beginning and throughout the online presentation, encourage interaction with attendees through on-line polls, quizzes and by opening up the floor for questions. Offer incentives for participation, such as raffle prizes. “8 More Tips for Effective and Engaging Webinars,” Julie Bawden-Davis.
8. Your body language says it all: Make sure your body language is good – posture, smile, and use of your hands while speaking. Don’t pace or have other distracting movements. Also, make sure your tone is the right volume and pace. You want your audience to hear you and be able to understand what you are saying, especially when dealing with video conferencing technology. “Tips and Guidelines for an Effective Video Presentation,” Anna Brown.
9. The results are in: Conduct polls and share the results as soon as they’re in. Polls are a great way to involve everyone in the online meeting, and they can be used to transition into or out of a topic. “10 Tips for Effective and Engaging Webinars,” Mark Di Vincenzo.
10. Failure is not an option, but it happens: If audio fails for more than 30 seconds, have a slide available to alert the audience as to what is going on – but don’t apologize excessively – technical issues can happen. “7 Tips for a Successful, Pitfall-Free, Lead Generating Webinar,” Heather Butts.

Following up and Converting

1. Share the recording: After the webinar, post the recorded version on your website for people who were unable to attend and for attendees to re-watch. You can also send links to the webinar to potential new customers to share the information presented and build interest in future webinars. Be sure to encourage attendees to share the link with co-workers and other professional contacts. “My Webinar is Over, Now What?” Jennifer Gregory.
2. Remember to thank your attendees: Webinar attendees want something in return for their attention and participation. So after the webinar ends, email a thank-you note to attendees, and include some tips related to the topic. “10 Tips for Effective and Engaging Webinars,” Mark Di Vincenzo.
3. More follow up may be necessary: You’ll want to set up a series, maybe 2-3 emails, that include not only the recording but also any other content that would help your attendees better understand the material that was presented and make that decision to buy your product or sign up to your service. “Post-Webinar Email Funnel,” Jay Moore.
4. Follow up and/or respond quickly: If somebody has questions or says “I would like more information,” during the webinar and you get back to them that same afternoon, that is very powerful. “How To Put On A Killer Webinar,” Ken Molay.
5. Decide who will handle answers to questions:   Assign someone to coordinate the questions and answers that are raised during the meeting and to get them to the participants as soon as possible. There is nothing more frustrating than being told that the answers to the questions presented will be emailed shortly, then nothing comes. Following through with requests and sometimes demands, will build trust among the participants and they will be more willing to participate again. “5 Ways to Prevent Boring Webinars,” Angela Stringfellow.
6. Post webinar presents marketing opportunities: Always follow up after the webinar. Decide how you are going to use your webinar recording for marketing purposes. “7 More Tips for a Successful, Pitfall-Free, Lead Generating Webinar,” Heather Butts.
7. Find out who attended your presentation: Once the webinar is over, you’ll want to go over the registration/ attendee rates. How many people registered and how many people actually attended? From there it is imperative that you follow up with the individuals that registered but did not attend, ideally with a recording of the webinar very soon after the live event. “5 Tips for Using a Webinar Facilitator to Generate Leads and Customers,” Heather Butts.
8. Reach out to your prospects: Your post-webinar emails should encourage prospects to start a trial of your product or service. These emails and calls to action can consistently generate new orders that likely would have slipped through the cracks without proper follow up. “Post-Webinar Email Funnel,” Jay Moore.
9. Survey says: An important step of following up is to send a survey to all attendees with specific questions about your webinar. “My Webinar is Over, Now What?” Jennifer Gregory.
10. Take time to reflect on your performance: After the webinar is over, take some time to recap what worked and what didn’t work to help improve for next time. “Tips to Monetize Your Webinars,” Jennifer Gregory.

Implement these 40 tips to help get more out of your online events and webinars, andbe sure to use a reliable webinar service that is built for small business, like AnyMeeting. To learn more about AnyMeeting and select a plan that’s right for you, visit http://www.anymeeting.com.

AnyMeeting Launches Integration With Over 400 Business Apps via Zapier

With a Few Clicks, Marketers Can Now Connect Meeting and Webinar Engagement Data With Records in Their Marketing and CRM Platforms

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA–(Marketwired – Oct 20, 2015) – AnyMeeting, a leading provider of webinar and web conferencing software for small business, today announced integration with popular business apps including Salesforce, HubSpot, Constant Contact, Eventbrite, LinkedIn, LeadPages and over 400 others through an integration with Zapier. Zapier is a service that interconnects business apps by enabling users to specify triggers and actions between apps using a simple point-and-click interface.

Said Costin Tuculescu, CEO & founder of AnyMeeting, “As we increase our strategic focus on specific high-value use cases, helping the SMB marketing professional capture and leverage engagement data is critical. This is an important first step in helping marketers get actionable webinar and meeting data into the places their marketing and sales teams can best take advantage of it.”

Customers can now connect AnyMeeting to leading marketing automation, email marketing and CRM platforms using one of many prepackaged “shared Zaps” — automations created using defined triggers and actions between apps — or by creating their own Zaps. The prepackaged Zaps available today from AnyMeeting include:

• Salesforce — Automatically create a Salesforce lead when someone registers for a webinar.
• Constant Contact — Add a webinar registrant from a Constant Contact signup form to AnyMeeting.
• Eventbrite — Use Eventbrite to register attendees for your AnyMeeting webinars.

A more complete set of prepackaged AnyMeeting Zaps is available on the Zapier website.

Customized integrations and automations can also be created as needed. Three AnyMeeting triggers are currently available including “Created a Webinar,” “New Webinar Registration,” and “New Attendee.” When these events occur in AnyMeeting, Zapier can trigger actions in other apps. Likewise, actions can be performed in AnyMeeting based on triggers in other apps. Currently, these actions include “Schedule a Meeting,” “Schedule a Webinar,” and “New Webinar Registration.” By combining these simple actions and triggers, users are able to create powerful automated tasks to improve efficiency.

The integration feature is now available to AnyMeeting subscribers on Meeting Pro and Webinar Pro plans. To kick off usage of the feature, AnyMeeting is launching a contest that will award an Apple Watch to one subscriber selected from among all who integrate AnyMeeting with other apps via Zapier by December 1st.

About AnyMeeting

AnyMeeting pioneered the small business web conferencing market in 2011 with a completely free, full-featured and easy-to-use webinar and web conferencing service tailored for small business. Since then, it has grown to more than 800,000 registered users of both its free service and its Meeting Pro and Webinar Pro subscription services. AnyMeeting offers a complete webinar and web conferencing service built on the company’s proven Software as a Service platform. Customers are able to invite up to 1,000 attendees per meeting with no time limits, and enjoy a full range of features including integrated video conferencing, phone conferencing, screen sharing, presentation sharing, recording and social media integration. For more information, please visit www.AnyMeeting.com.

Winning Webinar Strategies for Small Business

If you’re looking to grow your small business with digital marketing – this webinar is for you!

Watch this webinar featuring John Jantsch, Founder of Duct Tape Marketing, who discusses the many ways you can use webinars to help grow your business. John is followed by Nicole Kroese, VP of Marketing at Likeable Local, who shares tips on how to use social media to build your webinar audiences and expand your relationship with registrants afterward.

You’ll get insight into:

• Best practices in using webinars to grow your small business
• How to use social media to increase awareness—and market your webinars
• How to build an audience for your webinars
• Driving value and results after your webinar

Watch the entire webinar now!

You can also get the full presentation – available on SlideShare:

Winning Webinar Strategies for Growing Your Small Business from AnyMeeting, Inc.

To check out additional webinars and sign up for our next session – check the schedule here.

10 Ways Webinars Could Be Building Your Small Business

This is a guest post by John Jantsch – Duct Tape Marketing

Small business owners have a lot on their plate. You know running a business is no easy feat. Because of all the time constraints being put on you, it is easy to relegate marketing to the back burner.

Sure, you write blog posts and create content whenever you get a few free hours or need a break from the business side of things. Bigger marketing tools, such as webinars, though, are for a time in the future when you’ve grown a lot and can better justify taking the time and effort necessary to host a webinar that is valuable to your customers.

If done right, however, webinars can be an integral part of your content marketing strategy for many reasons. They can also be used in multiple ways. The effort you put into a webinar can result in not only great leads, but can also be the foundation of multiple pieces of content. Here are 10 reasons to hold webinars as part of your small business marketing plan.

1. Networking. One of the best ways webinars can help you is through networking. Unless you do all your webinars yourself, you will likely need some help. Finding someone to host a guest webinar for you is a great way to expand your network, and when you give them a little bit of publicity, they might reciprocate by asking you to help out on one of their webinars.  
2. Contacts. Webinars is one of the best content marketing tools if you want to gather a list of potential clients. Most webinars have you sign up ahead of time. Once the viewer has registered, you have all of their contact information. So even offering a free webinar can ultimately make you money in future sales.  
3. Prestige. Even the word webinar sounds fancy. Everybody has a blog and a Twitter handle, but not everybody offers webinars. Seeing them listed on a site or having them pull up in a Google search can add a little prestige to a website that just might make the product you are selling seem a little bit more legitimate and trustworthy.
4. Multi–Purpose. When you create a webinar, you can multi-purpose it as a blog as well. All you have to do is add a line or a paragraph about the webinar and then insert the webinar, or a link to it, in the post. That way, you get two content marketing posts for the price (and time) of one.
5. Communication. Hosting a webinar is a great way to communicate with your target audience. Webinars are interactive, so not only do you get a list of contacts by hosting a webinar, you get to hear, and answer, real customer questions.
6. Research. The interactive component of a webinar has another important consequence. The questions that people ask during webinars show just what their concerns are. Answering those questions during the webinar helps foster communication, but examining those questions in more depth at the end of the webinar gives you valuable research into future webinar and social media topics as well as what people are looking for in your service.
7. Money. While a lot of people host webinars for free, you can charge for them as well. Even if only one out of four of your webinars are for profit, this is one of the only content marketing strategies that can actually make you money by their very existence.
8. Social Media. Hosting a webinar does not have to be done strictly on top of your other social media campaigns. You can Tweet about the webinar and use your other social media outlets to promote it.
9. Accreditation. If your webinar is geared towards professionals who need accreditation hours (e.g., lawyers), you can go through the process to set your webinars up with credits, which will make them much more likely to sit down and pay attention to what you are teaching.
10. Repurposing. Once you have a few webinars under your belt, you can update what you already have with new information instead of starting from scratch.  

Plus, here is a bonus for you. In addition to all of the above, webinars are just a really good way to build up brand recognition.

Creating Webinars

While thinking about creating a webinar can be daunting, it does not have to be. There are many tutorials, and even webinars, that can walk you through the steps. If you just are not good with that type of thing or simply do not have time, you can still take advantage of these great marketing tools. Think about using a marketing service that could help you create them. You’ve got to spend money to make money, after all, and the small cost of marketing can make you a lot of money with the new business it will supply you.

Sign up for a free 14-day trial with AnyMeeting’s Webinar Pro and get started with your first webinar today.

Kwela Leadership and Talent Management “Winning Webinar Strategy”

 

Kwela Leadership and Talent Management is a Vancouver-based consulting company that specializes in leadership development, team building, organizational development and training for businesses of all sizes.

Who is the target audience for your marketing webinars?

Both current clients and new client prospects.

What goals were are you looking to accomplish with your webinars?

The primary objective of these informational webinars is to deepen Kwela’s relationship with its current clients, in what is a strongly relationship-driven business.  A secondary objective is to engage with new prospect by providing information relevant to the services Kwela provides, without a hard sell.

How do you attract people to your webinars?

Kwela encourages its staff to reach out personally to each of its clients when inviting them to these information sessions.  It also promotes them via its website to attract new client prospects.

What content are you typically presenting in your marketing webinars?

Informational webinars on topics important to its clients and prospects, without any hard selling.  Past sessions include:

– Performance management best practices

– How to build a high performing team

– Selecting and hiring great talent

The sessions are generally about one hour or less with Q&A breaks at key points throughout the presentations.

What are your personal tips for conducting effective marketing webinars?

* “There is no substitute for preparation.”  Kwela distributes a “webinar best practices” guide to each of its presenters and encourages practicing in advance with presenters and an acting attendee.

* Avoid hard selling.  Kwela focuses on providing value to the audience to help build relationships and trust.

* Keep the content simple, without too much content on each slide.

* Don’t leave audience engagement and Q&A to the end of the presentation.  Take moments out within the presentation to solicit and address questions from the audience.

* Understand that your audience can get distracted, so lead with what’s in it for them, as well as with assurances that the presentation will be brief, rich, and sensitive to their time.

What has been the biggest surprise or learning you’d like to share with others?

The biggest surprise has been how challenging it can be to engage with audiences remotely versus in person.  It requires practice to overcome the limits of online versus in-person presentations.

Like their webinar strategy? Vote Now!

PROergonomics “Winning Webinar Strategy”

The mission of PROergonomics is to provide solutions to advance clients’ ergonomic strategies to help reduce injury risk and improve workplace design.

Who is the target audience for your marketing webinars?

Company HR and/or health & safety managers

What goals were are you looking to accomplish with your webinars?

“It’s a great way to drive traffic to our website, generate interest in our business, educate our clients about what we can do to help them, and it’s also a great offer on a cold call if the client isn’t interested in a meeting.  This way, we still get them connected to us so that we can open up that conversation again later.”

How do you attract people to your webinars?

The webinar events complement PROergonomics’ prospecting activities including cold calling and tradeshows.  The company also sends e-newsletters each month, which include articles about the webinar topics, and promotes upcoming and past webinars on its website.

What content are you typically presenting in your marketing webinars/

Informational topics of direct interest to HR and health & safety managers.  Titles of recent events include:

* What Makes a Product “Ergonomic”?

* Developing an Onsite Stretching Program

* Addressing the Millennial Workforce Through Ergonomics”

Content includes PowerPoint presentations as well as chat-based Q&A to engage the audience, which range in size from 30-40 people.

What are your personal tips for conducting effective marketing webinars?

* Keep presentations informational and not too “salesy.”

* Provide enough information to catch the audience’s attention and get them reflecting on the topic, but leave them wanting more, which will help drive follow-up engagement.

* Keep events to an hour or less to be respectful of the time demands of your audience.

* Ask questions of your audience, which can be managed through chat, to further engage them.

What has been the biggest surprise or learning you’d like to share with others?

The importance of making an offer to all participants – ideally one that is closely tied to the topic of your presentation, such as a 30-minute free consultation related to the topic area.  Then follow up with each participant to further drive participation in that offer.
Like their Winning Webinar Strategy? Vote Now!

Winning Webinar Strategies – Vote for your favorite

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After collecting numerous submissions for our Winning Webinar Strategies promotion, we’re excited to announce the finalists!

Thank you to everyone who submitted their webinar strategies. We’re excited to hear so many of you are producing impactful webinar programs that are making a real difference in your business and the community. Keep it up!

Now, to help us select a winner – vote for your favorite! Follow the links to review their winning webinar strategies then come back here and vote!

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Here are the finalists for this season’s Winning Webinar Strategies promotion:

Liz Parker, 121 Temps Winning Webinar Strategy

Top webinar tips from Liz:

• Less on the screen, just have a heading – too many points on the screen and people read rather than listen.
• Ask a question for each screen and get feedback in the chat box
• Start the session with some housekeeping and expectations.
• Housekeeping, turn off all distractions (including any additional tabs or social media sites, phones and even put the dogs away.
• Expectations – come as a student with an open mind and ask lots of questions
• Don’t read your presentation verbatim, just make key points on a page to remind you what you want to cover.  Use lots of case studies or examples to emphasize your key points.
• Don’t try and cover too much in one session especially if you are recording it as people won’t sit through 1 hour to try and get some nuggets of gold.”

Read the 121 Temps full webinar strategy here (then come back and vote below!)

Nic Tsangarakis, Kwela Leadership and Talent Management Winning Webinar Strategy

Top webinar tips from Nic:

• “There is no substitute for preparation.”  Kwela distributes a “webinar best practices” guide to each of its presenters and encourages practicing in advance with presenters and an acting attendee.
• Avoid hard selling.  Kwela focuses on providing value to the audience to help build relationships and trust.
• Keep the content simple, without too much content on each slide.
• Don’t leave audience engagement and Q&A to the end of the presentation.  Take moments out within the presentation to solicit and address questions from the audience.
• Understand that your audience can get distracted, so lead with what’s in it for them, as well as with assurances that the presentation will be brief, rich, and sensitive to their time.

Read the Kwela full webinar strategy here (then come back and vote below!)

Jennifer McGillis, PROergonomics Winning Webinar Strategy

Top webinar tips from Jennifer:

• Keep presentations informational and not too “salesy.”
• Provide enough information to catch the audience’s attention and get them reflecting on the topic, but leave them wanting more, which will help drive follow-up engagement.
• Keep events to an hour or less to be respectful of the time demands of your audience.
• Ask questions of your audience, which can be managed through chat, to further engage them.

Read the PROergonomics full webinar strategy here (then come back and vote below!)

Review their programs and then tell us below which one you feel others can best learn from!

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121 Temps “Winning Webinar Strategy”

121 Temps, an Australian company launched by Liz Parker in 2007, helps women who want to work from home.  They help former teachers, paralegals, project managers, salespeople, personal assistants and others re-enter the workforce by establishing and promoting work-from-home businesses.

Who is the target audience for your marketing webinars?

Women with interest in building work-from-home businesses as well as companies seeking the talents of these work-from-home professionals.

What goals were are you looking to accomplish with your webinars?

121 Temps uses webinars to attract women who are thinking about working as “virtual assistants,” to train virtual assistants and virtual receptionists, and to promote 121 Temps through thought leadership opportunities with related organizations like the Australian Businesswomens’ Network and government sponsored small business festivals.

How do you attract people to your webinars?

121 Temps uses a variety of sources to build their webinar audiences, including:

• Joint speaking opportunities with related organizations like the Australian Businesswomens’ Network and AAVIP (Australian Association for Virtual Industry Professionals)
• Email invitations to their contact list developed over their 9-year history
• Outreach to people and groups via social media, especially Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter
• Advertising on Facebook

What content are you typically presenting in your marketing webinars?

The informational sessions span a wide range of topics depending on the goal and audience, but here is one example on creating “a one-page easy plan for your business”:

https://www.anymeeting.com/WebConference-beta/RecordingDefault.aspx?c_psrid=EF51DE848347

What are your personal tips for conducting effective marketing webinars?

“5 Lessons I have learned and how I have changed my tactics over the years:

1. Less on the screen, just have a heading – too many points on the screen and people read rather than listen.
2. Ask a question for each screen and get feedback in the chat box
3. Start the session with some housekeeping and expectations
   1. Housekeeping, turn off all distractions (including any additional tabs or social media sites, phones and even put the dogs away.
   2. Expectations – come as a student with an open mind and ask lots of questions
4. Don’t read your presentation verbatim, just make key points on a page to remind you what you want to cover.  Use lots of case studies or examples to emphasize your key points.
5. Don’t try and cover too much in one session especially if you are recording it as people won’t sit through 1 hour to try and get some nuggets of gold.”

 

What has been the biggest surprise or learning you’d like to share with others?

Liz has been most surprised by how comfortable she has become presenting to large groups in a webinar environment.  “It was a bit scary at first, and it was hard to tell if the presentations were going well.”  But by changing her style and adding more questions, Liz became very comfortable.  It takes practice, though.  “It took two years” before I was completely comfortable.

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