2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic have highlighted the need to embrace the internet. You can teach and learn a lot without leaving your couch or desk. Seminars and marketing sessions are now online, and the trend is bound to continue for years to come.

Ideas Making it Easier to Hold Webinars

As the trend picks pace, you have to learn and adapt faster. New ideas emerge, making it easier to use webinars and other online tools to promote your brand. It is right that 2020 was a year to try out these ideas, gadgets, and platforms. 2021 is the year to maximize the potential that these gadgets offer.

As more people embrace webinars for marketing, new trends have emerged. Here is the short list of trends you should watch regarding webinars and marketing in 2021.

Webinars cannot lecture

Webinars are the closest you will be to having an audience. The days of large gatherings are gone. Even when such gatherings happen, you will be forced to blend with other participants following the discussion online. For this reason, you cannot be the sole speaker or the activity cannot be one way. It is time to embrace audience participation in webinars.

The audience will ask questions, review documents, and contribute to debates. Unlike a physical seminar, where you control their concentration, a webinar requires you to work harder. A lecture is not one of the ways to capture their attention. Participants will mute their cameras and leave you to lecture on idle computers or gadgets.

Prepare to engage and facilitate such engagements during the webinar. It begins by preparing adequately for the presentation. Participants will pay more attention if you are enthusiastic and appear to have a good grip of the topic of discussion. Next, design the materials in an engaging way such that they capture the imagination of participants in the same way you would when making a physical presentation.

Share materials like files or videos as though you are in a physical room. Invite participants to check particular pages or share a view of your screen so that everyone is on the same page. Luckily, you have advanced technology to help you achieve all these expectations.

Talk to participants via email

The world has yet to discover a better way to reach people than email. Use it before, during, and after webinars to mobilize for the event and build momentum.

Emails are so effective that even social media platforms cannot compete. This could be attributed to emails being considered formal and serious communication. An email is more powerful than a WhatsApp or Facebook message. On mobilization, it is cheaper and sets a serious tone for participants.

Emails will also help you to send materials to participants. As indicated in the point about, you cannot lecture people during a marketing webinar. You need to engage them by sending materials such as videos, manuals, and brochures with more details about your presentation. Email is the best option.

Follow up on your participants using emails at the end of the webinar. Send a recording of the conversation or presentation, include downloadable materials, and ask for feedback about the meeting using the email. It is an excellent opportunity to begin your email marketing journey if you have not started.

Read next: Invitation Branding is a Function that Will Surely Delight You. How to Brand Your Emails?

Automated Webinars

The traditional idea of a webinar is where people log in at a particular time, follow a discussion, and leave when the session is over. However, marketing is happening in an environment where it is impossible to capture everyone at the same time. Nothing might get done if you have to wait for everyone to log in to get starting.

Luckily for marketers, you have a chance to automate the webinar so that it looks live and engaging regardless of the time a participant logs in to follow. The solution is to automate the sessions. While it might not convert as easily and naturally as a live session would, you still have the chance to make decent sales through the recorded or automated webinars.

The advantages of automated webinars include the ability to reach more people. You will have a live session with twenty participants and later accommodate a hundred more who join the webinar after you have concluded. It is a way of accommodating different schedules and still achieving the same goal. In addition, you enhance the experience by being available on social media or such live communication channels to answer questions arising from your presentation.

The rise of coaching

The internet is full of invitations to coaching sessions. The topics range from business to fitness, health, entrepreneurship, and spirituality. In fact, MarketResearch.com predicts a 7% growth over the next year. However, as a marketing webinar host, you have the uphill task of finding your space in this coaching mere.

Are people demanding coaching services, or are coaching offering them through crafty webinars? If people want the sessions, how do you make your marketing unique to capture the attention of participants? On the contrary, you have to make your session appear different from ordinary coaching sessions.

The idea is to borrow the concept used by coaches to maintain their audience’s attention. Keep the session close and personal. Let the participants trust in your word such that they allow you to hold the session. You must be confident and engaging to deliver the best marketing webinar.

Advancement in Technology

A webinar is different from a conference call. Some of the common tools like Zoom were not designed for webinars. Rather, they were to serve a few people in boardrooms across the states. Their features can tell you.

The future of webinar technology is just starting. New tools and gadgets will emerge to enhance the experience. Embrace such technology and recommend it to your participants. It is this technology that will define your overall webinar experience.

It is likely that you will participate in more webinars and online sessions in 2021 than you have ever done in the years before. This is a new trend that everyone has to embrace. It is also worth watching what the future holds for marketing webinars in this era of the pandemic and what trends will survive past these uncertain times.

Now you can host webinars for free with MyOwnConferece.