Lead Liaison

How to Run a Webinar: How to Pick a Webinar Service

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This is the third installment in the series How to Run a Webinar.

How to Run a Webinar

You’ve gotten your data ready. The next step is to subscribe to a webinar service. But, which one?

Choosing a Webinar Service

There are a few key things to look for when choosing your webinar service. Obviously, it needs to be web-based. But also think about how you want the registration to look. Think about your budget. How many people do you estimate will attend? Is it important to you that the recording can concert to MP4 (we think so!)?

This webinar comparison is a great little tool that guides you through a series of questions to help you find your match.

We suggest using GoToWebinar from Citrix for running webinars, simply because the user experience is very similar to Citrix’ GoToMeeting platform. As of July 2016, a little over 1 out of every 4 companies using webinar solutions in some capacity use GoToWebinar. This means the majority of your audience will be familiar with GoToWebinar, making it easier for them to join and participate in your event. And you want things to be easy for people. Adding roadblocks only gives people a reason to no-show. Adapt to the needs of your intended audience.

Check back next week when we cover how to define you invitation and registration process!

Can’t wait to get your hands on the rest of this intuitive guide? Download the full white paper here.

Interested in a demonstration of our robust marketing automation tool?

Click here for a demo!

 

Lead Liaison

How to Run a Webinar: Get Your Data Ready

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This is the second installment in the series How to Run a Webinar.How to Run a Webinar

You’ve determined that you are definitely ready to run a webinar. The next step is to get your data ready. Albeit tedious, this is an important step to keeping things running smoothly.

Make sure you have a good database to start

It’s important to know the topic of your webinar and who it relates to. Don’t invite people to a webinar when you know the topic would not be of interest to them. To maximize registrations, use your existing database of contacts with a focus on opt-in contacts. This could be customers, partners, or leads you’ve had any type of engagement with over the past year.

Determine criteria for who you’ll invite

Once you’ve got your database ready, gather criteria for who you’ll invite. If you’re sending out invitations to thousands of people you’ll want a good marketing automation or email marketing solution to help you. Marketing automation platforms will help you easily segment out people using lists, demographics, behaviors, and other types of criteria. These systems also support dynamic segmentation. Dynamic segmentation helps you create rules for your lists that never have to be updated again. The same audience will be ready for you to send invites to for future webinars.

We suggest staying away from purchased lists if you’re using a marketing automation or email marketing system. Most email service providers do not allow purchased lists as part of their email sending policy. There are services available to help you target certain industries and send out communication. Outsourced lists and invites should not be your core invite strategy, but could be used to complement your invite process.

Your data is ready. The next step is subscribing to a webinar service. Check back next week for the next installment of the series How to Run a Webinar: Subscribe to a Webinar Service!

Can’t wait to get your hands on the rest of this intuitive guide? Download the full white paper here.

Interested in a demonstration of our robust marketing automation tool?

Click here for a demo!

 

Lead Liaison

How to Run a Webinar: Are you Ready for a Webinar?

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This is the first installment in the series How to Run a Webinar.

How to Run a Webinar

You’re probably reading this with the mindset that you are going to do a webinar. You’ve thought about the topic, decided your company is going to do it, and thought about the material to use; but – are you really ready for a webinar? Executing a successful webinar can be expensive, and requires a lot of preparation. Here are some things to consider before moving forward:

Expect Higher Attendance with:

  1. Strong audience connection. If the audience already knows, likes and trusts you or they know, like and trust whoever is promoting the webinar then attendance will be much higher.
  2. Your opt-in database or cold audience. Participation will be much higher when marketing to your own opt-in list vs. a “cold audience”.
  3. Low industry/topic saturation. If your industry or even the topic has been saturated with webinars expect a lower turnout.
  4. Hot topics. If your subject matter is a hot topic right now that’s pushed the audience’s emotional hot buttons of pain, desire or curiosity, then you can expect a higher attendance rate.
  5. Big name involvement. If you’re going solo on the webinar, and don’t have a lot of people to invite, it’s a lot harder to drive attendance than having a co-presenter, as well as invite-support, from a big name company. For example, suppose you were a technology company with Google as your partner. Could you get a Google employee to co-present with you? Could Google help broadcast the event through their marketing channels thereby sending more people to your landing page? Your webinar will benefit from a big brand name, making it more attractive to your audience, with a larger pool of people to invite.
  6. A larger invitation list. The quality of your invitation list is certainly a factor, but the size of your invite list matters as well. Inviting 50 people to a webinar is a lot different than inviting 50,000.

Let’s be honest though. If you’re a young company (startup) without much brand recognition, a database that’s not quite “there” yet, and no partners to help with the event…you might still be able to pull off a good webinar with a few tricks. Try offering some incentive to get people to attend. Here are some ideas:

  • Offer up a free white paper (worth $X)
  • Provide a discount on your product/service if they attend
  • Offer a giveaway for the first X number of registrants (think iPod, Chromebook, etc.)

Attendance depends on the factors that will be described throughout this series. About 40-60% of registrants will show up for live viewings, but you can expect more registrants to trickle in and watch on demand over the next few days following your webinar.

Now, you’ve thought through things and you’ve decided you are ready. The next step is to get your data ready. Check back next week for the next installment of the series How to Run a Webinar: Getting your Data Ready!

Interested in a demonstration of our robust marketing automation tool?

Click here for a demo!

 

Lead Liaison

Marketing Guru Covers: What to Post on Social Media

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social media

It seems like some people have it all figured out when it comes to social media and others are sitting on the sidelines, wishing they could get some “likes” and “shares”. There is a good chance you’re one of the people on the sidelines, but that can change. You just need to know what to post on social media, and you can move up the ranks and become a power user.

Use Images

Visual content is all the rage right now. In fact, social media posts with images have an engagement rate that is 650 percent higher than posts without images. Any kind of image is great, but infographics are the best. There are tons of online resources for creating infographics. Use a resource like Piktochart to build your infographic and then post it on your social media accounts.

Use Videos

Videos are another great way to boost your engagement across the board. Video resonates in a way that the written word doesn’t, so you need to add some video to your social media campaign to make it memorable. There are many ways to do this. Tie your YouTube channel into your social media profiles and use Facebook video. Also, consider adding a Vine account to your Twitter profile. Twitter owns Vine, so it is easy to integrate the two. Then, you can create some short video loops that resonate with users.

Now that you know what to post, let’s look at what you should avoid.

What to Avoid

Constant promotion is the number one mistake that brands make on social media. People want some kind of value from your page. If you can’t provide it, they will go elsewhere and perhaps even unfollow you. You can plug your brand every once in awhile, but only after you provide a lot of value.

You also need to avoid providing the same type of content over and over again. As you know, images and videos are great for your social media strategy. However, don’t post 10 infographics in a row. You have to mix it up.

Your social media presence is very important for your brand. Keep these tips in mind when posting to your accounts. It doesn’t matter if you’re on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or one of the other networks. You need a solid strategy if you’re going to move ahead.

See how Lead Liaison’s software helps you manage and track your social media efforts here.

Lead Liaison

The Marketing Guru Covers: What are the benefits of social media marketing?

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social media marketing

Social media is everywhere. Many companies are leveraging their social media presence to build a more personal relationship with their audience. But, how effective is it – really? What are the benefits of social media marketing?

Become Recognizable & Relatable

Social media marketing allows you to increase your online presence. By increasing your brand recognition, you also gain more loyal customers. If they see your name over and over again, you become a part of their lives. You become more familiar to them. You also become more humanized.

What’s even more valuable, is that each customer interaction is an opportunity to show your level of customer service. It’s a public, 1:1 interaction that other people can see, and “like” (or dislike, so beware!). In an article posted by B2C about social media marketing, they reference a statistic originally reported by Forbes: 71% of consumers who receive a quick response on social media say they are more likely to recommend that brand to other people. And we all know that the most solid form of referrals is word-of-mouth.

Convert more leads/prospects by increasing inbound traffic

Inbound marketing is the best way to build up your list of prospects and convert leads. Every time you post something, you open yourself up to opportunities for prospects to click your link, interact with your website, and perhaps even fill out a form or put in their email address. Every post is a new opportunity for someone to be guided back to your website. With tools like Lead Liaison’s Marketing Automation platform, you can post to multiple social media accounts with the push of one button.

Save money

Compared to other marketing channels, social media posting is relatively inexpensive and time efficient. It’s trackable and measurable content, which adds to it’s value. It can be free, or you also have the option of using paid social media to give your content a significant boost. MCG Consulting Group lays it out like this, “boosting or sponsoring posts on a page with, let’s say, 20.000 likes, the average paid reach can be close to 40% (about 8,000 people) vs. the 2% organic reach, with an investment of $5 per post.  Even if you decide to boost every single post, posting on a frequency of 16 to 20 times per month with an average of likes of 500 to 800 per post, the reach could go up to 5,000,000 people who could have seen your posts during that specific period, with an investment equal or below $150.”

Learn more about our integration with social media!

 

Lead Liaison

The Marketing Guru Covers: When to Post to Social Media

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Social MediaIf you want to be a social media mastermind, the first thing you have to master is when to post to social media. Otherwise, you won’t get the engagement that you need to succeed. Fortunately, you just need to follow some posting tips, and people will not only see your posts but also engage with them.

When to Post on Facebook

People tend to engage with Facebook when they don’t want to be at work. While people never really want to be at work, this feeling hits its peak on Thursday and Friday afternoons. With that in mind, save your best Facebook content for the end of the week.

You’ll get the most shares when you post to Facebook around 1 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays. If you’re just looking for clicks, post content at 3 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays.

Best Time to Post on Instagram

If you want to be successful on Instagram, you need to have your pictures ready to post at 2 a.m. and 5 p.m. The reason is very simple. These two time slots have lots of engaged users, but people don’t tend to post a lot of pictures. Because of that, if you a post picture at this time, there is a very good chance that your content will get noticed.

When to Post on Twitter

Twitter is typically used like an RSS feed, which means that people turn to it during commutes and downtimes. They also use it when there is a lull in the workday, such as the slow period after lunch.

You can take advantage of this by tweeting from 6 a.m. until 8 a.m. to reach the commuters, and then from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. to take advantage of the slow period after lunch. Then, send out some tweets around 5 p.m. to reach people on their way home from work.

The Right Time to Post on LinkedIn

If you want to reach professionals, you need to do it on their schedule. Since LinkedIn is a professional network, you want to get people right when they’re leaving work. People are most likely to check in with LinkedIn as soon as they’re off the clock, so post right when the workday is over and wrap your posts up around 6 p.m.

Once you start posting on social networks at the right time, you’ll see your engagement rates jump through the roof. Make the process even easier by using marketing automation tools. That way, you won’t have to sit by your computer and hit “Send” each time the clock hits the right time.

Learn more!