Using Webinars To Future-Proof Enterprise Communications

It’s almost universally accepted now that webinars are a great communication tool for all types of organisations. They are highly engaging, increase high-quality sales leads and are easily accessible. Over 69% of companies say online events are part of their marketing content strategy, but that’s not the only way they can be used to your advantage in enterprise communications.

As Head of Customer Success at WorkCast, I get to see how clients are using webinars to their full advantage, and I thought it would be useful to share a run down of my top 5 ways to use webinars to future-proof communications in your organisation!

1. Nurturing your existing customers

We all know that keeping a customer and making sure they continue to buy from you is the sign of a healthy business. If you are maintaining your existing clients interest, they are far more likely to renew or upsell than go to a new company they have no previous experience with.

Using webinars to nurture customers is an excellent way to deliver thought leadership and promote new or additional products. Without the hard sell, you can showcase your product in a webinar to give inspiration to your clients on how they could be making the most of your product.

The real benefits of doing this in a webinar is how impactful a visually engaging presentation can be, by using polls or video you can really impress your customers  and make them continue to want to work with you.

2. Marketing to new prospects

We have been talking a lot recently about Inbound Marketing and how it’s revolutionised our sales strategy. Webinars have been key in this and have helped us market to new prospects in a way that is warmer and more engaging.

The future of marketing is not relying on who has opened or clicked a link in your newsletter, it is about creating memorable content that can be packaged up in digestible bites. Using social media to promote your upcoming webinars is a great way to attract fresh eyes to your product. People engage with good content and when it comes to securing trust, are looking for companies that deliver all round value. To stay ahead your organisation needs to start thinking about what content they can create and package up in a way that secures high-quality leads. We can give you a hint... it starts with a 'w'!

|Read more: Discover how to attract more prospects to your business today.

3. Internal communications

Trying to get a communication out to colleagues when your company is based in different locations is always a challenge, especially when they are already being bombarded by office emails and newsletters.

When flying everyone to one location is too costly but you still want that level of community, webinars are the best solution to offer. By using camera you can make yourself visible to audiences and offer multiple interactive elements, such as polls, Q&A, group chats and surveys.

There are some fascinating statistics about employee engagement, such as only 40% of employees knowing about their company’s goals, and 70% of US workers not being engaged at work.

Ensuring that you’re keeping multiple lines of communication open can help you buck this trend and keep your employees connected and in the loop. We find that organisations get more questions from their employees through webinars than a standard presentation, as the Q&A can be set to anonymous encouraging those who may have been hesitant to ask a question beforehand.

4. Internal training

On the subject of employees, we know internal training can be a bit of a challenge. It takes a lot of time to create and deliver, to then do it all over again when you get a new hire!  

Training webinars for things like on-boarding can be very effective, especially when you make them available on-demand. In fact, 70% webinars are run for training purposes. Perhaps that’s because they allow you to have the training resources ready to go, and your colleagues can watch and learn in their own time. You can even assign questions at the end of the webinar and give out certificates to monitor and grade progress. See how our client InfoSecurity Magazine successfully did this.

The days of thick files of onboarding and training documents are over!

5. Training customers

However, training isn’t just for your employees.

Getting an on-boarding process in place for customers  is key to ensuring success (as we know here at WorkCast!), and some well placed webinars can help you carry out polished and professional on-boarding recordings with minimal effort. And another benefit of using webinars is to record a series of training sessions that can be accessed anytime, anywhere by on-demand.

On-boarding customers with training also has long term benefits. When they know upfront how to use your product and service - and have access to comprehensive training materials like webinars - it can save your support team time (and money). Plus, they feel supported and informed, making them more likely to stay. It’s a win-win!

Want to know more about how to future-proof your enterprise communications? Sign up for our webinar here.