Marketing Question for Offline Marketing - Webinar vs. Video

7 replies
Hi everybody,

One of my main products is an sophisticated online business diagnostics system which is designed to be used by accountants, lawyers, and consultants on behalf of their clients.

The primary way of marketing to these types of professionals is usually in-person via 'lunch-n-learns' to avoid interfering with their billable hours.

Obviously that's a bit difficult to scale up the marketing effort worldwide.

So I'm looking at putting together either a very nice polished webinar, or a sales video that these people can watch during their 'downtime'.

I'm not terribly knowledgeable about webinars, except it gives you the opportunity to do live presentations, but I don't want to get tied down doing a 'live' presentation every Wednesday afternoon at....

So should I head towards a video presentation?

Watcha' think? Anybody here cross that bridge before? Share some experience?

talltom
#marketing #offline #question #video #webinar
  • Profile picture of the author sdentrepreneur
    I would record some webinars and then create a sales funnel to capture and connect with the people. That way the people serious about learning more can contact you after watching webinar.
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    • Profile picture of the author ReachOneMedia
      Originally Posted by sdentrepreneur View Post

      I would record some webinars and then create a sales funnel to capture and connect with the people. That way the people serious about learning more can contact you after watching webinar.
      Absolutely! One you got their information (name and email) You can send them free content directly into their inbox once you have a good relationship with them you might want to do a live seminar

      Just an idea...
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      • Profile picture of the author Talltom1
        Thanks for the quick responses, and yes, I understand that, about the sales funnels and all. That's not what I'm asking.

        What I'm wondering about is whether to create a webinar that can be the target of these sales funnels, OR if a sales video should be the target.

        I'm asking about the features and benefits of going with a sales video versus going with a webinar.

        What are the drawbacks and the decision criteria for using one as opposed to the other?

        Talltom
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  • Profile picture of the author kenetra
    Hi Talltom,

    I personally recommend a webinar over a video for these reasons:
    1. it's an event
    2. you can gauges when possible sales will come thru
    3. event convert better than video

    I'll give you a REAL example and I'll get to the "bogged" down solution in a minute. My company offers social media management for small businesses and each day mon-fri we hold a webinar explaining the benefits of the service.

    We set the time at 3pm eastern to try and capture all time zones around lunch time. I'm getting more people to rsvp for the webinar than the video we had up online so its working very good.

    Now the thing about being tied down with webinars. I do a lot of different things and offer lots of various webinars. I was looking for a solution that would in essence clone me and I believe I've found that with this webinar service I use.

    This service allows my webinars to look as if they are live but they are pre-recorded videos but because it is a timed event happening on a certain day at a certain time the conversions are much better then just regular video.

    If you'd like to see the model, visit this page.
    Join Our Webinar | Cash Queen Marketing.com- Social Media Marketing Management

    You'll notice after you register, the page link lets you know when the webinar will start. Also take notice to the follow up email that I send to you.

    I do not mind you copying the entire model. It works so by all means use it.

    Now I don't know about putting affiliate links in here so I won't but if you're interested in the webinar service then just pm me or contact me thru one of the social sites.

    I think you are on to the right idea. At least I know this model is working for me very well.

    Happy Marketing!

    hope my reply helps you
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  • Profile picture of the author peter.max
    My personal experience is that your target market is not familiar with webinars and I found the attendance rate low.

    I suggest short, targeted videos that you use to get them to understand your proposition. I also find that people watch videos at their leisure and if you create a channel on YouTube and make them downloadable for iPad and iPhone you will have a greater chance of watching them.

    Webinars work well in IM but we are abandoning them in our offline business for initial customer contact. Webinars can work when you have a community or have their interest.

    I suggest you ask some of your prospects if they've ever attended a webinar. That will give you some indication. Accountants and lawyers are slow movers when it comes to technology
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  • Profile picture of the author Talltom1
    Wow, some great insights here everyone, but clearly no clearcut answer. Looks like I will need to do some testing in the near future.

    Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences.

    TallTom
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  • Profile picture of the author Bayo
    Originally Posted by Talltom1 View Post

    Hi everybody,

    One of my main products is an sophisticated online business diagnostics system which is designed to be used by accountants, lawyers, and consultants on behalf of their clients.

    The primary way of marketing to these types of professionals is usually in-person via 'lunch-n-learns' to avoid interfering with their billable hours.

    Obviously that's a bit difficult to scale up the marketing effort worldwide.

    So I'm looking at putting together either a very nice polished webinar, or a sales video that these people can watch during their 'downtime'.

    I'm not terribly knowledgeable about webinars, except it gives you the opportunity to do live presentations, but I don't want to get tied down doing a 'live' presentation every Wednesday afternoon at....

    So should I head towards a video presentation?

    Watcha' think? Anybody here cross that bridge before? Share some experience?

    talltom
    There is software / technology available to help you run recurring webinars. If you do a Google search you will find a number of options.

    They are all similar to a point but differ in price and what they offer end-to-end so you'll need to determine the one that best suits your needs and budget.

    Bayo
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