There is no doubt about it that webinars are powerful marketing tools for any business that wants to promote itself online. However, webinars are especially useful for eCommerce sites that are looking to expand their customer base, strengthen relationships, generate more leads, and make more sales.
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Why Webinars Benefit eCommerce Sites
Webinars can fill an important gap in the online marketing strategy of any eCommerce business. What is this gap? Because most eCommerce businesses only have an online presence, they can become detached from their customers and their customers can feel detached from them. Although many customers enjoy shopping online, studies show that customers do a lot of online research and watch product demonstrations before purchasing a product.
Webinars offer eCommerce businesses a way to engage on a personal level with their potential and existing customers. This gives eCommerce businesses a way to connect with customers and build up relationships with them.
If you are eCommerce site owner, webinars give you the following 5 advantages:
- Build brand authority and trust
- Improve your search engine rankings
- Generate more leads
- Launch and promote new products
- Educate and interact with your customers
Build Brand Authority and Trust
People buy from known, trusted brands. Webinars can benefit eCommerce businesses because they give an opportunity to strengthen your brand. For example, when your customers hear, you explain in detail information about a new product and hear you answer their questions; you strengthen your brand and authority.
Webinars also give you the chance to explain your unique selling proposition (USP), i.e. what makes you stand out from your competitors.
Promote New Products
You can turn your webinar into an educational event to demonstrate and promote new products. This allows you to attract customers to your webinar with exclusive content or special offers.
You can also show your personal touch when you provide real-time demonstrations and product presentations. Your audience will benefit from the fact that they can see first-hand how to use a product and ask you any question they might have.
Improve Search Engine Rankings
One of the beauties of hosting webinars is that you can naturally increase your online digital footprint which, in turn, will boost your rankings in the search engines.
For example, you can promote your webinar through your blog and registration page. Your customers will willingly share interesting content that you post on social media sharing sites about your webinar. All of this can generate interest and help you rank better in the organic search results.
However, after the event, you can repackage your webinar video into smaller segments and upload to video sharing sites. For example, if you have recorded a 60-minute webinar presentation, you can break that up into 10 ñ 12 short 5-minute videos. These videos can be posted on your blog, your website, or uploaded to YouTube or similar sites. When you take into consideration that video marketing is now dominating the internet, you can quickly see how this can boost your rankings.
Establish Customer Loyalty
eCommerce sales are no longer about making quick one-off sales to as many customers as possible. eCommerce businesses now realize the importance of building customer loyalty to their brand and products. Only when a customer trusts a brand will they buy related products from that brand rather than shop elsewhere.
But, webinars for eCommerce sites are not just about making sales. Loyal customers appreciate receiving valuable content. During the webinar presentation, you can provide educational material, special offers, exclusive access to unique content on your website, and pre-sales information on new products.
One way you can increase the value of your webinar and expand your customer base is to offer access to your webinars for free to paying customers. Of course, any high-quality webinar presentation will be seen as valuable, but you can increase its value if non-paying customers have to pay for it, and this is a “win-win” situation when it comes to increasing your webinar’s value. Those who are willing to pay for it feel that they get their “money’s worth” because they get to participate in a webinar that provides high-quality content. However, your paying customers also view the webinar as value because they get access to content that others have to pay for.
In Conclusion
Webinars can help eCommerce sites make their business grow. They give you the opportunity to connect with your paying customers and build relationships with them. This can also give you valuable insight into their buying habits and help you keep your finger on the pulse of their needs. Webinars also give you the chance to effectively showcase new products and educate customers on how to use them.
Of course, there are many other ways to market and promote your eCommerce site, but if you regularly host webinars, you will gain a solid foothold in your niche as an industry leader.
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