Webinars are very effective ways to grow your online business, develop brand, increase your ROI, and connect with a target audience to build long-term relationships. Many companies and webmasters are now using webinars to do just that and finding them to be a successful method of promotion. Creating a webinar takes time, planning, and knowledge but it does not stop there.
After you have hosted your webinar, there are several critical steps you need to take to drive people back to your product or service. If you neglect to take these steps, then you will almost certainly miss valuable business, as studies show that post webinar follow up is key for increasing sales.
Table of Contents
Send A Follow Up Email
The follow up email is the single most important thing you can do after your webinar. People often sit through an engaging webinar, convinced to buy the product, but then they forget to make the purchase. A couple of days after your webinar, send a concise, yet informative email to all webinar participants to remind them about your product or service. Include a link to your website or product where they can find more information. People usually like to know product specifics and read customer reviews before making an online purchase or visiting a store, which is why the link is critical.
Attach A Survey
Consider attaching a survey to the post-email, for your as well as the recipient’s benefit. You benefit by collecting feedback on the webinar itself, as well as information on how likely they are to purchase your product or service. The recipient benefits by thinking more about the product and potentially being driven to purchase it. In addition to standard survey questions, such as how to improve the webinar, ask about how well the recipient likes the product and how likely they are to purchase it in the near future.
Share A Recording
Make sure to use a webinar software that enables you to record your webinar as it is presented. You might be surprised by how many people ask for a recording of the webinar or copy of the slides afterwards. People may have been unable to tune-in to the live webinar or may want to share it with someone. It is highly beneficial to keep a copy of the recording to meet such requests. You might even want to embed the webinar recording in the mass email you send out after the webinar. Remember to review and edit the recording (as necessary) before distributing it. Consider posting it to your company’s social media sites and/or blog to help drive traffic to your company’s products.
Answer Unanswered Questions
Normally there will be some type of Q&A session during a live presentation, but typically, there is not enough time to answer all these questions. A follow up is a great opportunity to do so, and it will add more value for the audience that will surely please them. Make a list of questions with answers and put it in an email to send to all attendees. It is also a good idea to ask if anyone has additional questions or concerns that you would be happy to answer. Remember, people appreciate value and when you offer your leads something useful, just for them and without any payoff for you, this is the hallmark of relationship marketing, and it pays off tenfold in the long run.
Track Sales
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of your webinar, track sales afterwards. The easiest, free way to do this is to keep track of the number of people who click on the link in your post-webinar email. While “clicks” does not mean that a sale occurred, they do indicate the degree of customers’ interest in the product or service. One of the most popular ways to track “clicks” is by using bit.ly. This program (available online) shortens your link and converts it to a format that can be tracked. Google Analytics is another highly popular tool for this.
There are other programs, too; conduct a simple search online to explore your options. If you want to know how many people purchased your product after clicking on the link in your email, there are methods for tracking this as well, but you will likely have to pay for it. If you don’t want to track “clicks,” you could also consider sending out a survey a few weeks after your webinar and directly asking the recipient whether they purchased the product as a result of the webinar. Collecting this information will help you decide whether future webinars are worth the effort invested.
In order to boost sales after your webinar, do not overlook the importance of post-webinar follow up. Design a strategy to hold yourself accountable and stay on track with follow-up milestones.
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