Updated
October 21, 2021
Leverage webinars to kickstart your marketing strategy and meet your goals.
Nowadays, many of these marketing presentations are delivered via webinar. While these can prove to be very effective mediums, you need to make sure you understand what it takes to make the most of them. In this article, we’re going to discuss some of the differences between traditional and webinar presentations and also give you lots of tips specific to the latter.
When most people are worried about putting together effective marketing presentations, they’re thinking about the kind you do in person. A webinar is going to be much different. Even if it’s live and you’re allowing people to message in their questions, this is going to be a lot different than an in-person presentation.
Among other things, you won’t get the same kind of feedback you would from an actual audience. Many people simply won’t ask their questions or may save them for later. If you’ve done presentations in the past, then you may not have too much trouble making this transition. You may simply need to practice as you would when preparing for any other effective marketing presentations, just with someone viewing elsewhere so they can give you feedback.
Another big difference between traditional marketing presentations and the kind done over webinars has to do with the audience. Obviously, all effective marketing presentations rely on receptive audiences, but these are much easier to come by with the traditional route.
It involves setting appointments with potential customers – at your venue or theirs – and then putting on the presentation for them. While getting the appointment can sometimes be tricky, once you show up for the presentation, you should most likely have a captive audience. If you don’t, there are many ways to help rope them in and grab their attention early on before getting to the meat of your presentation. Unfortunately, this is much harder to do with a webinar.
First of all, you won’t really be setting appointments with people. Instead, you’ll be trying to get them to set the appointment by signing up to attend your webinar. To do this, you’re going to need to invest in ample marketing. Even once you get someone to sign up, you’ll have to remind them through email to make sure they attend. (Generally, it’s recommended to do this three times, including an email on the day of your presentation.) Give yourself lots of time for this.
The data tells us that the teams that spend two to four weeks promoting their webinar before going live tend to have the highest levels of participation.
Effective marketing presentations are built around the people actually watching them. However, the instinct most people follow is to make it solely about themselves or their product. This is something you must absolutely be sure not to do or your presentation will be lackluster.
People want to hear about themselves.
Tuning into your presentation means they’re also interested in your product or service, but keep in mind this is only relative to how it will affect them. In other words, effective marketing presentations are the ones wherein you’re talking about what your product/service can do for the people on the other side of the screen.
Many successful salespeople understand this as “benefits vs. features.” The latter is what most people talk about.
They explain to their audience about all the different bells and whistles their product/service can offer. While this can work to some degree, it certainly isn’t the hallmark of effective marketing presentations. Instead, you should be explaining the benefits of your product/service. This refers to the effect a certain feature will have on the customer.
For example, if you were selling a new model forklift, you could explain all about its engine, MPG, wheel size, etc. These would be features. On the other hand, you could explain to your audience that this new forklift can do twice as much work as competitor models in half as much time (which is because of the aforementioned features).
Along the same lines, be very clear about the types of people you’re going to be speaking to. This is another example of how effective marketing presentations are different depending on how you’re hosting them. With the traditional version, you generally have a very good idea of whom you’re speaking to because, as we mentioned already, you set up the appointment with them.
When marketing your webinar, you want to do as much as possible to get hyper-specific about the people you’ll be attracting. That could mean doing different versions of the webinar for different segments of your market. You’d just have to make sure you correctly market these different versions to their appropriate audiences.
If you’re able to understand the type of people on the other side of the screen, you’ll also have a much easier time speaking to their values and focusing on what they want. As we just covered, this will go a long way toward crafting an effective presentation.
People who give effective marketing presentations know how to get to the value of their product/service quickly. They understand that their audience will quit paying attention early on if they don’t see a compelling enough reason to keep listening.
There are many ways you can do this, but one of the best is to hit the benefits early. You don’t have to fully explain them right way, just make sure your audience has a reason to pay attention now. They should be interested in finding out more about how it’s possible that your service/product can live up to this promise.
This is even more important to do well when trying to give effective marketing presentations during webinars.
Since your audience isn’t right in front of you, nothing is really keeping them from simply getting up and walking away. They could open up another browser window, jump on their phone or just decide it’s not worth it anymore to listen to your webinar and close out the window altogether.
Just because someone has signed up for your presentation is not a promise they’ll actually attend. And just because they attend is no promise they’re actually going to pay attention or stay.
Don’t take this for granted. Effective marketing presentations work because they get the audience’s attention immediately and keep it.
Another way you can get your audience to sit up and pay attention is with an engaging story.
As humans, we naturally love stories. They can even be quite effective as sales tools.
Just be sure you give people reason to listen. Before beginning the story, give them a hint of what to expect or, once again, make a promise.
“I want to tell you about how I was able to pay off all my debt and become a millionaire in just five years” would be a great way to begin your webinar presentation. It’s certainly a compelling story, but you also told your audience exactly what they have to look forward to by sticking around.
Be careful with stories, though. If your story drags on and on, people may become bored and quit paying attention. Keep the narrative lean and tight.
Also, don’t exaggerate when making your promise. If you get to “The End” and your story was clearly didn’t live up to the hype, why should people keep listening?
One reason webinars can make for such effective marketing presentations is because you can use visuals. Slides are often very popular for this. You can display anything from photographs to charts.
However, you need to be careful not to overdo it. Think about how traditional presentations work. They generally involve visuals, too, but the presenter still needs to say plenty.
Visual after visual is going to be boring. This is especially true for graphs and charts where the viewer may have to do a lot of the work to decipher them.
Whenever you use visuals, make sure you add plenty of context through your narrative. This will keep them interesting and ensure your audience pays attention.
A call to action (CTA) is how all effective marketing presentations end. That’s because you need to literally tell people what you want them to do next.
This might seem like odd advice. You might think we’re not giving your audience enough credit.
The evidence on this subject is quite clear, though.
When you don’t end with a strong CTA, you risk people simply logging off your webinar page and returning to what they were doing. They may go to your website and look around a bit but not make a purchase like you had hoped.
They might like your webinar but not think to share it because you didn’t bring it up with a CTA.
Again, it might seem odd to get so specific with your audience, especially after you may have spent 30 or more minutes trying to sell them on your product or service. Shouldn’t they know you want them to buy?
Maybe, but why risk it? Furthermore, you want to make sure they know exactly where to go or click to make sure this happens. Effective marketing presentations that convert don’t leave anything to chance.
Now, an advantage you have over “traditional” or in-person marketing presentations is that you can record your webinar and then use it again and again. This is especially good news for people who don’t like getting up in front of people and giving presentations.
To really make the most of these effective marketing presentations, though, you may wish to consider editing them. This could entail anything from sharpening up the audio levels to simply cutting out any dead air or slips you made.
Another reason to love webinars for marketing presentations is because of how easy it is to follow up with your audience. In order to secure access to your program, you should have required that a viewer supply you with their email address. After your webinar, you can then follow up with them for any number of reasons. It might be to reiterate your CTA after a day or two. You might want to see if anyone has any questions. You could decide to offer them a special deal. Down the line, if you host another webinar, you can email your former audience members and let them know about your new one coming up. Remember: half the battle involved with effective marketing presentations is making sure people show up, so this can be a huge help.
While your budget will definitely be a factor here, it’s important that you use the best possible hardware and software for your webinars. You’ll have no shot at creating effective marketing presentations if the people on the other side of the screen can’t hear you or make out your visuals.
The good news is that these important tools are extremely affordable these days. Even quality webcams can be purchased for less than $100 to $150.
Effective marketing presentations are important for the ongoing success of your company, as either a sales tactic or simply a means to increase your company’s mindshare.
Whatever reason you have in mind, if you’re going to be doing these presentations through a webinar, make sure you use the above advice to do so. BigMarker would be happy to help. Check out our website or send us a message to get in touch.
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