Romancing with webinar

My webinar journey started in 2019.

As marketing professional , i was keenly searching for an alternative marketing platform for promoting training programs .

A cost efficient , user friendly and result oriented platform….

From 2016 onwards , I attended lot of physical training programs conducted by motivational trainers in Ahmedabad.

Free motivational training in five star hotels. At the end of the meeting , a sales pitch came out .

An invitation to join a special paid training program that costs varies from 1 lakh to 2 lakh. Most of the people started to move out from the hall with free motivational takeaways at this moment .

That moment was really demotivating for motivational trainers !

I observed their crestfallen look towards the outgoing attendees … The people who attended the program with utmost curiosity till that time , moving out without showing any gratitude….!

5%-10% attendees stay back the hall for enquiring more details of the program.

I was wondering the financial viability of conducting the free meeting in five star hotels..

Once a coach from Mumbai , opened up the business trade in one meeting.

“Arrange a meeting with 100 people . You can expect minimum 10% people to join the paid program. If your presentation is highly influencing , expect joining rate up to 20 %”

However, arranging a meeting in a five star hotel is a costly affair.

Lot of manpower support is needed.

Counter service , payment collection, dramatic appearance of coach accompanied with bouncers and loud music…So on.

For performing all this activities , lot of human involvement and coordination are necessary.

The free training sessions went beyond 5–6 hours.

Coach has to keep the same energy level till the end of the session.

During the long hours , the coach has to influence the audience for taking a favorable decision.

In this live presentation- trust and authority building are the crucial task.

Experience , expertise , qualification, awards, testimonials are the building blocks.

At the end of the day , how many people join the paid program is really matter.

A great presentation in front wrong audience is disastrous for coaches.

Some day win .Some day lose.

My Experiment with webinars…

When i found out the immense potential of webinar , I started the experiment with different webinar platforms. One of the biggest challenge was to fix the suitable webinar platform . There are number of webinar software available in the market with different features and payment packages.

This book will give the helpful tips for finding suitable webinar platform as per the need and objective of your requirement .

For the last 14 years , I have been working for a Research department of a hospital to help promotional activities .

Patient identification , Research training coordination are the main task.

By using traditional marketing methods ( Newspaper advertisement , poster , physical meeting) I enrolled students for research training programs .

Everything was smooth till March 2020 .

The pandemic outbreak hit hardly everywhere.

Several Students paid the fees for physical class .

However, no way to conduct physical class .

All physical mode of activities were stopped.

How to promote the training program?

How to train the students who have already joined?

The Hospital chain management had to address this issues.

One of the weekly meeting , I suggested to webinar model marketing .

The management team had several doubts .

Whether the people ready to join for webinar ?- they asked.

“By using social media marketing , it could be possible”- I answered.

Management agreed for a trial.

I find a free webinar platform .Arranged the webinar. Promoted social media marketing. Got some registrations.

The final day came. I started webinar with full energy.

During the middle of the webinar , management person interrupted.

“Stop the webinar now .No need to go ahead”- That was the message .

Webinar abruptly ended in the middle way .

The management noted that no outsider was in the webinar room except the management team.

Damn..!

None of registered people joined for the webinar .

My first experiment with webinar was ended with an unhappy note.

Management team gave up the option of webinar .

But, I kept trying .

How to get more registration and improve the show up rate ?

I learned a lot from different digital marketing experts for several months.

And continue the practice.

Finally, I cracked the code after lot of trial and error method .

From June 2020 to February 2022 , I have coordinated more than 100 webinars with different subjects.

Brand awareness, expertise positioning , revenue generation, lead generation, course enrollment -every thing was achieved by conducting continuous webinars .

Now the organization is happy with webinar model and moving to 1 crore revenue goal by this model.

My conviction on the webinar potential is increasing day by day …

Webinar registration data and conversion rate are the back born of this conviction.

This article is the by product that belief.

You can achieve your business & professional goals by conducting webinars .

Webinar marketing is a skill that can be learnt over time by training & practice .

Your knowledge , experience , skill , wisdom ,talent , service ,product -everything can be marketed through webinars..

You can convert your home office into a business hub ..

Stay with family and do with webinar business…!

Coaching , consulting , training , mentoring -name it what you like it .

Somewhere somebody is waiting for your words for solving their life problem.

You can stop a suicide by sharing your wisdom words and guidance ..

Webinar history

Webinar is an online seminar . A combination of two words — web and seminar. Webinar is a very popular platform nowadays after the outbreak of pandemic. The number of online meetings were skyrocketed during this period.

All educational institutions moved into online platform.

Social ,business , political , government and spiritual organizations started webinars to interact with people , disciples and followers.

Webinar is an integral part of all business and service players.

You may have curiosity about the origin of webinar.

Webinar was born in the end of 1980 at the beginning stage of internet . However, the first public web conference was happened in 1996 by the effort of Microsoft by launching NetMeeting.

The webinar technology emerged as a business tool initially with limited interaction capacity . Webinar technology has developed gradually .

In 2010 , Google developed WebRTC standards. It made webinar so easy . Any participants can join the webinar from any browser.

By the by , Are you ready to start a webinar on your interested topic?

Keep reading .

Let us discuss more about the next article on next week.