How Professional Service Companies Can Generate More Valuable Sales Leads With Webinars

If you're a professional services provider, talking about your business is one of the oldest, most frequently used ways to gain custom.

So it doesn't take a big leap of the imagination to see the potential of using webinars to talk live and direct with an extended audience online.

And the benefits don't stop there. Webinars can be used strategically to give you a range of advantages when it comes to marketing your company.   To follow are some of the best strategic moves enabled by regular webinar broadcasts.

Build Your Own List

Forget trying to sell your professional services solution to cold, untested lists of contacts. One, the conversion rate on cold lists is typically low. Two, the list price is probably high to extortionate. And three, you typically can only mail this list, once only or for a limited number of times.

If you're looking for higher conversion rates from your marketing communications, in-house lists are a much better way to go.

Today, webinars are a great way to attract prospects on to your in-house list. When you offer to share useful information in exchange for contact and company information, interested parties are much more likely to engage. This low key interaction allows the prospect to show interest without being obliged to have a full blown sales enquiry conversation at first contact.

Once signed-up, you now have a chance to build a relationship with your lead, proving additional helpful information via email, social media and of course, additional high value webinars. So, when your prospect is ready to talk they'll feel more at ease and sales conversations can progress more quickly.

Come Out From Behind The Screen

Bring out the interesting, engaging human beings that sit behind your company website. Online events play host to live, dynamic conversations and make your business much more engaging and approachable.

Instantly Capture Conversations

When the online conversation gets going, your audience start to let you know what they're interested in and why they are attending. Web conferencing technology enables you to instantly capture these conversations, whether they be questions, comments or dialogue, and immediately feed them back to your sales team and customer relationship management software post-event.

Increase Your Reach

Unlike face-to-face events, it's much easier to expand for a bigger audience when you're delivering online. Typically, even the lower-cost webinar packages will allow you to broadcast to numbers from 100 to 1,000 without breaking a sweat.

Beef Up Your Social Media Communication

A regular programme of webinars gives you fresh topics to talk about each month, keeping your newsletter/social media voice active and engaging. You can also extend the events conversation to online groups and blogs, extending the impact of your presentations.

Support Pre-Sales Cycle With Tailored Event Content

Support pre-sales conversations with a staged event strategy. First, provide useful content for your prospects in the form of 'Introduction', 'How To' or Q&A events. Then as your prospect wants to find out more, provide a deeper appreciation of your solution with events that expand on best practice within your industry. Finally get more specific about the benefits of working with your business, with case studies or client interviews that showcase your solution, work methods and the benefits created in real life scenarios. If you can add client testimonials in these events, all the better, to make sure you get your lead well and truly hooked and converted.

Improve Your Profile With Guest Speakers

Are there leading speakers in your industry that you can co-present an event with? For example, a leading researcher may want to promote their Survey findings to your industry as part of their promotional activity. Associating with the leading thinkers in your field can help raise your profile, extend your reach, create a buzz online and of course, generate more leads for your business.

- - -

If your professional services business would like to learn more about generating quality leads through a managed webinar programme, please get in touch and we'll be happy to have a no-obligation chat about your requirements.