Category: Digital Marketing

10 Distinct Benefits of Outstream Video Ads

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

As digitization steps in with its innumerable benefits, social media has grown by leaps and bounds. At this crucial point of time, marketing strategies are fast evolving new changes that could bring richer dividends.

Out-stream videos are the latest in this trend to bring in a new type of ad format, which would allow the publishers to display their video ads at different places in the content. Such videos appear in text line or in the web-page corners.

Although, out-stream videos have not gained massive popularity, the usage has now increased rapidly. As the publishers felt hurdles in the past in the creation of ads for the users, out-stream videos have brought a new lease of life, which would benefit both users and advertisers.

Let’s know about ten distinct benefits of out-stream videos.

Out-stream Videos ads- most dependable independent units

Out-stream videos work as independent units without becoming introduction to another video. For this, various distinguished publishers such as Mashable and Rolling Stone have begun using out-stream ads through in-read formats. What does it actually mean? Let’s understand.

When someone is going through an article, he or she would be able to watch an auto-play video. When the reader scrolls down the video, it simply leaves his or her area of vision. It also gives the reader another advantage to unmute the video in case he wants to listen.

Highest monetization of sites- a distinct advantage

Out stream ads allow publishers to monetize their sites without pestering the readers, which is a striking advantage. Moreover such ads have the catchy and cool formats with proven utilities to reach middle ground and bestow opportunity on the publishers to monetize their sites.

With these utilities, such videos would become immensely popular in the world of online video advertising in the upcoming years.

Unique positioning of ads in the editorial content – capable of running in any device

Out-stream ads have great innovative formats, which could position the video advertising in the center of the editorial content. Once the reader gets it inside his vision, the video begins playing. But it starts pausing, once it is less than 50% visible.

And it merges continuously back into the web-page as the reader completes viewing the content. The other distinct advantage of such videos is that it could run in every device, browser, and operating system without any problem.

Best usage in mobiles- handy and convenient

As research has shown already, highest number of readers prefers to read content via cell phones, out-stream ads run excellently on the mobile phones, especially on smart-phones.

Normally people spend more time in looking at the videos in their smart-phones, the out-stream videos have proven their efficacy.

Out-stream ads- more contextual and less insidious

As the customers have always felt that such videos appear almost like organic content, those are not invasive and naturally related to content.

It gives the liberty to the readers to view completely or partially and this advantage certainly adds worth to the overall content presentation, while adding value to the information presented in it.

Publishers enjoy out-stream ads the most- popular with brands, bloggers, and traditional media

Nowadays, all types of brands, bloggers, and traditional media have begun using out-stream video. As earlier, the readers were habitually going through grey text, addition of multicolored videos makes the content visual friendly and for this reason, the readers like to stay on the page for longer time.

Out-stream videos add dimension to story-telling- a new dimension to learning

Such videos have altogether added a new dimension to story-telling. It gives the readers alternative ways to explore. Making the information accessible to every learner, who is having problems such as lower reading skills, shorter spans of attention, and vision impairment, such ads have proven their mettle in the world of online advertising.

New way of presenting information- publishers’ delight

As the publishers have forever looked for ways to present information, out-stream videos have proven their worth in this area.

Just think of the online cooking videos, those are really great sources of passive learning. Watching such videos really adds fun as it is sometimes boring to browse a written recipe.

Unique solution for the marketing needs- complete engagement of audience

Out-stream impressions are completely unique as solutions because those do not come attached to any other content. Unlike You Tube ads, which begin even before the commencement of the videos, the out-streamed ads appear alone in the placement of ads in the articles of the websites.

This endows unique benefits on the ads to grab the attention of the audience, while the ads do not interrupt the viewing experience of the readers.

The advertisers have always found that such ads give great opportunities for their marketing needs. They have opined that such ads give them real opportunities to buy video solutions programmatically as those give better satisfaction to users.

Simply speaking, the business houses find the buying experiences of such ads extremely satisfying as their customers feel less disrupted, while they go through the content of the article.

Behavioral targeting-easier by out-stream ads

The out-stream ads enable the publishers to keep a list of videos to meet the rising demands of people, who want to place good but related ads in their content.

This helps the publishers to make the behavioral study of particular group of users and guides them to identify new chunks of essential users.

The following are the three distinct advantages that out-stream videos certainly bestow on the publishers and readers;

  • Improvement in viewing of a content
  • Better rate of clicking on the ads
  • Greater versatility in the placement of ads in the article

As a result more than 70% of advertisers and 77% of the agencies have found the out-stream ads to be uniquely effective and essential for their purposes.

Literally, such videos have brought a halt to search for new formats for making of videos that could enrich their efforts for developing engaging videos.

 

 

B2B Website Best Practices to Follow in 2018

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

 Digital channel in marketing has changed how leads are generated in B2B business. Today it is completely possible to sit back and watch your leads coming to you.

But this is possible only when you have successful website, effective lead page and a content marketing plan that works.

Your website is your digital presence and it is where your leads will come in contact with your business first.

Therefore it’s important that you have website that best projects your brands as well as convert those leads for you

In this blog we will share best practices to follow for your B2B website in 2018.

But first it’s important to understand objectives for your website.

The requirements of a B2B website are very different from a B2C website. For starters, your deals are generally high value meaning that customers spend a substantial amount of time researching on the solution.

The buying cycle is also longer sometimes running into months or even a year!

You should hence assist your customers in their search. The website that adds most value throughout the buying process will be more likely to convert the lead.

What kind of a site will add value throughout the process? Read on to know.

Target your Site

Your website must be as targeted as your marketing strategy. Who do you want to serve in the market? Is it small business or big corporates?

The next step would be research everything about your target audience. You must have an average visitor’s expectation from your website and even the solutions they are looking for.

Aiia, which is into promotional products, does this beautifully by speaking directly to their customer’s emotion. This is possible only when you know your audience intimately.

B2B Website Best Practices to Follow in 2018

You must design your site for your audience and write in the language they speak. Every industry has its own lingo and jargon.

Speaking in that language will tell your readers that you understand them and have experience in their industry.

Automate Processes

A good website in 2018 must take advantage of automation available today.  You can automate email campaigns right from collecting mail IDs to nurturing your mailing list with an email campaign. Use Auto-responders to confirm visitor actions like sighing up for a webinar or eBook.

A lot of queries can be resolved through an FAQ section or a chatbot. Use of chatbots lowers customer care calls and also resolves customer objections with ease.

In fact according to study by Nuance Enterprise, 75% of customers said they find self-servicing as a convenient way. More customers prefer instant chat based solutions over calling a company executive.

Personalize Experience

With tools such as ConvertKit, Mail Chimp and Optimizely you can personalize your website for each client who visits your website.

The first step is to collect data on how visitors are interacting with your website. Next is to identify segments of visitors and how they differ from each other.

For a B2B website the segments could be region, past purchases, industry and buying stage. Not all information will be available with you but you can use cookies and other tools to identify which category your visitors falls in.

Tools such as Hubspot and Smart Content allow you to create smart lists for your website. For example, all visitors from Asia-Pacific will be shown a different homepage image.

ConvertKit allows you to take specific action based on visitor event. For eg, it adds all the first time visitors to remarketing ad list automatically.

Make it Intuitive

There are so many decisions to make when it comes to design. Design affects how your brand is perceived, your customer experience and even your conversion rates.  Always strive for a website that is intuitive and easy to understand.

Above picture is an example of how your website should NOT be. The visitor has no way to know where he is on the site, there is information load and too many call to actions. Keep the following in point in B2B website design:

  • Show the navigation path (also known as breadcrumb) at the top of your page. It tells the user how they landed on the page
  • Limit call to action to one or two
  • Videos have become very popular but they can also be distracting sometimes. Use manual pay video and avoid autoplay
  • Highlight selected menu option
  • Have thank you pages and action confirmation page like “thank you for signing up”
  • Keep your website design consistent on all pages. Different colors and fonts can cause confusion in visitor’s minds.

Keep Improving

Lastly, maintaining a high converting website is a continuous process. Just implementing the above practices and forgetting about it is not going to make a huge difference in the leads you collect.

For true transformation you must continuously test what is working and what isn’t. Improve something every day and you will soon see that your website can be your biggest source of leads and revenue.

In the fast changing digital world you cannot afford to stop working on your website.

How to Market Your Business With LinkedIn

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

LinkedIn is not just limited to job seekers and professionals; nowadays, businesses also make use of this platform for their growth.

Using LinkedIn, you can generate leads by making connections, establishing partnerships and also for creating exceptional brand awareness.

LinkedIn is an expert professional social platform. Organizations have direct access to their customers where they can market with their status updates, pictures and other posts.

As the platform consists of an entirely different crowd, LinkedIn marketing requires an alternative way to get the results you need.

In order to explore LinkedIn as a marketing network, here are 12 marketing hacks you can use to discover new clients, make new contacts, and eventually develop your business.

1. First, make your own profile

You might be wondering why your own profile comes first rather than your company profile on LinkedIn. No! We are not wrong! It is because your profile and the profiles of other employees of your organization make up the roof for your organization’s image on the network.

When targeted audience searches for your name and visits your profile, you need them to discover something catchy that influences you to stand out from other employees of your competitors.

There are a lot of chances to excite the people who view your profile. Focus on completing your profile and after that streamline your profile in the long run; including your new aptitudes, accomplishments, and cases of your outstanding work.

2. Create an outstanding company page

Your company LinkedIn page is important as it showcases your company’s image. Your company page should be simple enough and be inviting for your targeted customers to understand about your organization, learn more about the employees in the association, and hook up with your content.

Creating a company page is of free for everyone, so you don’t need to worry how much to pay for your profile. Need guidance on how to start a free LinkedIn page, you can find it here.

3. Determine your marketing goals

It is crucial to determine your LinkedIn marketing goals which generally include creating leads and raising awareness of the brand.

When you have an idea of what you need to achieve, it will be quite simpler to determine your target audience.

For instance, if your company is making toys and currently only focus on developing their business on one area, you can set your ad campaigns in a manner that it will be only shown to people who come from that particular place or near that place.

4. Enhance company page to find targeted customers

It is important that you need to enhance your company page to find targeted customers. You need to optimize your company page in such a way that it should appear easily when someone is searching for your company details.

Also, company page should be SEO friendly; for that, you need to do the following:

  • Suitable Keywords: Make sure that you include suitable keywords for defining what your company offers. The keywords should be the one the target audience is most probable of searching on the internet.
  • Link to your company website: Linking the company’s LinkedIn page with your company website is crucial as it will help in increasing your search ranking.
    Not only your company website, you can even link to blogs and include marketing materials. Also, make sure employees of your organization update their LinkedIn profiles; as they add your company as their workplace, a link is made back to your company LinkedIn page.
  • Offer consistent content: A standout amongst other approaches to enhance your rankings and to include your company in search results is by consistently sharing relevant content.
    All the more often as possible you share content that engages the audience, the higher your company will show up in Google’s search results.
5. Add the maximum number of followers

When you get followers for your company page, your updates show up specifically on their LinkedIn page. The more followers you have, chances are also higher your updates will get more views.

Encourage your employees to share the content on their page so that it will reach more people. Also don’t forget to promote company page via emails, messages and so on to various people to attract more followers.

Make sure that you add ‘Follow’ button on your page so that the visitors only need to click on that to always get your updates.

6. Post first-rate content

Ensure that your content is of high-quality because it should be engaging and also focus to achieve two objectives. First, it should help others to take care of an issue or how to carry out their activity better.

What’s more, then it sets you up as an ideal thought leader in that space. If you are offering viewers with valuable content, every aspect of it normally prompts more business.

7. Sponsor your high engaging update

Not only constant updates are necessary, but also when one of the updates goes viral you should think of sponsoring that update. It is an advertising strategy where businesses pay to promote their update into a user’s LinkedIn feed.

LinkedIn users have the privilege to select their interested industries so that they don’t have to receive unnecessary updates and messages from other industry.

So a sponsored update can be a fantastic method to promote thought leadership content which is valuable basically for the targeted audience with a solid invitation to take action.

By promoting your content through this system, your business can focus on a speciality crowd, increase visitors to the website and create potential customers if the content is sufficiently convincing. Know more about here.

8. Constantly influence targeted customers

It is essential to have consistent updates on your page. Images, colours, and content should be consistent with your site and other social media profiles of your business.

The page needs to be updated always to create the impression that the brand is dynamic and active. Keep in mind that it makes a terrible impression on audience mind if the social media networks are updated once in a month or haven’t updated in months.

9. Make sure of your custom URL

Everybody should ensure that they have their custom URL with their name, for example, http://linkedin.com/in/yourname. This is particularly critical for individuals who have a great deal of contact with potential customers..

When you ensure that you have your custom URL, you are also ensuring that your LinkedIn profile comes up in the search engine results.

10. Focus first on connections and then on relation building

Through LinkedIn, business owners or entrepreneurs can connect with their prospects, targeted partners, and other entrepreneurs. What’s more, once the connections are made, the owner can choose how to sustain those connections to build a relationship.

11. Utilize LinkedIn Advertisement campaigns

There are two ways of ad campaigns in LinkedIn – self-service ads and paid campaigns. Like setting up your company page, it is also critical to define the ad campaign goals to understand if it is boosting brand awareness, bringing leads, or building relationships.

12. Make use of LinkedIn analytics

When you are done with creating valuable content for your page, don’t think you are done with that. You also need to monitor your targeted audiences’ behaviours and preferences. For that, you need to make use of various analytic methods of LinkedIn.

  • For monitoring and enhancing your company page’s free campaign performance, you can make use of LinkedIn’s company page analytics.
  • Enhance your paid campaign performance with assistance from your LinkedIn campaign manager analytics.

Observing your LinkedIn analytics dashboard day by day can enable you to settle on information based choices that prompt better outcomes.

Sum Up

We hope that this article has helped you in getting an idea to launch and maintain your LinkedIn page to successfully market your products and services. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to share with us. We would love to hear you.

 

What is Mixed Reality & How it Helps Businesses

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Virtual reality with its interactive capabilities takes users to an alternate world. Mixed Reality (MR), on the other hand, is a combination of both Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality .

It changes how users create, connect, and interact with a holographic experience. This has made MR the ideal choice for businesses that aim at improving their operational productivity using holographic experiences.

In recent times, many business organizations want to benefit from the scope of ‘immersive experiences’. Therefore, they tend to implement augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality.

The most popular and common approach out of these three for a business is mixed reality. This is because it has certain unique capabilities apart from creating an immersive experience.

Mixed Reality can aptly combine both the physical and digital worlds creating enterprise-focused applications. Several enterprises today are investing in the development of MR dependent applications to offer users with a digital experience.

Popularly available mixed reality devices include Microsoft HoloLens and ODG headsets. These devices enable various enterprises to improve their efficiency and task management.

How does Mixed Reality Work?

Mixed Reality is a combination of both the virtual and real worlds. It combines physical and digital objects enabling users to collaborate with both in real time.

Mixed Reality has some extremely powerful features such as recording physical surroundings, tracking gestures, language processing for recognition of voice, and more. Its practical uses with a distinctive approach to communicating and collaborating give enterprises an edge over other technologies with real-world, real-time experiences.

Mixed Reality vs. Virtual Reality – which is better?

Virtual reality keeps the user away from the surroundings. While some VR headsets allow for limited movement, most do not especially in comparison with MR devices like HoloLens.

Mixed reality connects the real world of the user with 3D visuals but does not disconnect the virtual and real from each other.

Additionally, while using MR devices, the user does not have to limit mobility and can complete other productive tasks.

MR clearly wins over VR in this aspect making MR a more impactful technology for enterprises. VR is still in its development phase.

Challenges with respect to real-time processing and consideration of physical surroundings must be eliminated to make VR a more enterprise-focused solution.

Businesses utilizing mixed reality have higher chances of becoming productive since they offer a rich experience and personalized views without creating any kind of disconnect from the other views.

How does Mixed Reality help businesses?

Healthcare

The healthcare industry has greatly benefitted from MR applications. Now, there are 3D operation rooms with options for broadcasting and virtual organ replicas to understand complicated surgeries.

These systems allow for knowledge and skill enhancement with AI technologies, sensors, and data analytics put to use for the purpose of practicing evidence-based medicine with care.

Manufacturing

The use of mixed reality headsets helps to improve the performance of all industry operations right from assembly lines to supply chains. The overall designing and maintenance of the product can also be taken care of with the help of MR features and applications.

Manufacturers can easily collaborate in real-time with other departments of the organization leading to improved efficiency. MR solutions are also apt for quick prototyping, instant decision making, and 3D model visualization.

Real Estate

Mixed reality can be used by builders to give their clients a 360° virtual tour of the property they intend to sell. This property may be in the development or planning stage.

Furthermore, mixed reality lets clients customize the furniture, the color of the walls, and other designing aspects making it easier for them to make decisions.

Retail

Stores with mixed reality offer real-time experience to their clients. This means that customers can check for new offers, explore visual designs, move around to view some of the superimposed items, and mix and match to decide what they would like to buy.

Closing thoughts

While the technology of mixed reality is still emerging, it is definitely worth considering for most enterprises. Advancements, new hardware, and more such applications will keep evolving as the technology grows.

Therefore, this is the right time for businesses to invest in MR as it has the ability to change the way businesses and customers work, interact, and communicate.

 

How To Create High Converting Landing Pages

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In case if you are wondering how you guide visitors to your website, it will definitely be a landing page. The first look of your landing page says whether the visitor will remain your site or will go away.

Each penny you spend on running advertisements, or consistently you focus on composing visitor posts – every last bit of it will be a waste if you don’t convert your guests into leads or clients. In the case, if you are still not converting, the issue may be with your landing page.

You may offer brilliant content or items and your advertisements may even be producing a decent click-through rate. However, if your conversions are stale or decreasing, it is your landing page that requires more work.

What is a Landing Page?

A landing page is the main page that guests see in the wake of clicking on your standard advertisement, PPC promotions, or promotion emails. It can be a particular page on your site or a different page made only for search engines.

A landing page is intended to guide guests to make a particular move, for example, making a purchase, finishing a registration, or subscribing to your mail list.

An incredible landing page is the one that targets a particular crowd. Getting an impression from your targeted audience is done when you offer them the data they are looking for.

If you are able to provide the necessary information they are seeking when they visit first time on your page, their search will end at that point and they will be prepared to take a move. The first impression is the best impression!

In the event that you goof on the first impression, potential leads get lost in an outright flood.

Do you require a Landing Page?

If you are attempting to construct an audience or offer something on the internet, then it will be a yes!

A landing page assumes an extremely critical part of your site. It helps you to convert traffic into leads.

If you have various items or offerings, you would prefer not to confuse the guests for an excess of data. Make numerous landing pages and ensure everybody has a special reason for its own.

Key factors for a High-Converting Landing Page

High-converting landing pages do share several characteristics in common. Let’s look at the key factors needed for a high-converting landing page:

1. Striking headline

A headline is the first place that gets visitor’s interest, attention and understanding. The headline is your first and most critical action on a landing page. To accomplish that, you need to do these:

1.The headline should be catchy enough to grab the visitor’s attention

2.The headline ought to convey the client what the item or service is all about. If your headline supplements a picture that clarifies the item or service, then you are on the right track.

3.The headline should be short; never in excess than twenty words, and ideally
just ten.

2. Enticing sub headline

If the headline influences the client to look, then the subheadline should influence them to remain.

1.Regularly, the enticing subheadline is situated specifically underneath the main headline.

2.The subheadline ought to have some component of inducement. Keep in mind that, you are tricking the visitors to remain on the page with the subheadline. You can take the idea of the main headline and push it somewhat further.

3.The subheadline can go into more intensity and detail than the main headline.

3. Pictures

Our brain processes pictures 60, 000 times quicker than content. A client will be influenced by the pictures on your landing page instantly.

1.The pictures ought to be huge.

2.The pictures ought to be applicable to your item or service. In the event you are offering a physical item, it is necessary that your landing page contains a picture of the item.

3.In the event that you are offering an item, at that point, the main role of the picture ought to get consideration and exhibit the importance of the product.

4.Ensure that the pictures are of high-quality. This isn’t the place to highlight stock photos or a minute ago messed up Photoshop pictures.

4. Correct explanation

If a client doesn’t understand what is your item or services is about, you have lost them. An explanation of whatever shape it comes is urgent. The best explanations are those that are clear.

  • Your explanation can be incorporated into your headline, or totally isolated.
  • Your explanation may consolidate components from a few sources:

1.Your headline
2.Your subheadline
3.Pictures
4.A separate paragraph

If taken separately, none of these components doesn’t clarify the products or items; however, as a composite, they achieve what an explanation ought to do.

  • An explanation ought to be advantage-oriented. Explanations are useful; however, usefulness ought to be tilted towards the client.
5. Value Proposition/Benefits

The value proposition is characterized as a “modification, feature or a highlight proposed to make an organization or item alluring to clients.” When it goes to your landing page, this component needs pride of place. The benefits essentially answer the client’s inquiry, “How might this benefit me?”

1.Similarly ‘explanation,’ value proposition can be discovered among the different basic components.

2.Outstanding amongst other approaches to propel your value proposition is through a rundown of benefits. Usually landing pages use a basic bullet point list to clarify the benefits of their items or service.

3.Benefits ought to be plainly centered around the client. Mainly consider the client and how he or she will benefit from your item.

6. Logical Flow

The logical flow of a landing page is similarly as vital as the content you have on the landing page.

A really interested client will be mentally engaged with the landing page. They will read the content and pursue the point of view. Along these lines, you should lead them through a process of reasoning that is intelligent and convincing.

1.Begin with your explanation, proceed with your benefits, incorporate your testimonials, and end with your Call-To-Action (CTA). This is the most evident and enticing technique for organizing a landing page.

2.CTA position is a basic part of the landing page flow. You can use various CTAs on a single landing page, placing every one toward the end of each discrete segment of the landing page.

3.Enable your design to divide areas. Truth to be told, in the event that you enhance the logical flow with relating design flow highlights, at that point, you will enhance the process with visual or emotional consistency.

4.Use enticing components all through. Try not to limit influence to a single area. Enticing highlights ought to be available in each area of the landing page.

5.Keep in mind, a lengthy landing page is very powerful. Try not to be hesitant to make a landing page extremely long.

7. Reliable Testimonials

The testimonials on a landing page are one of its most vital trust signals. A client needs to realize that they can confide in the items or services. If they see a dependable testimonial, this goes far in developing the client’s trust.

1.Utilize testimonials from genuine individuals. Celebrities and experts are extraordinary, yet you needn’t bother with testimonials from these individuals. Pick testimonials from individuals who are most significant to your targeted audience.

2.Ensure that you utilize pictures. Pictures are the foundation of the trust in testimonials. It’s vital that each highlighted testimonial is followed by a photograph of a genuine individual.

8. Means of contact

The most convincing pages have numerous methods for contact – a telephone number, an email address, a physical address, or a contact form. Some pages even have popups where a customer service executive inquires as to whether they can be an assistance.

These go far to help to reinforce the trust in the organization and to wipe out any problems in the conversion pipeline.

9. Provide Guarantee

Clients adore guarantees. Despite how it is or what it is introduced, a guarantee can enable individuals to feel relieved while on your landing page. Essentially the word itself enhances the probability of a conversion.

1.Guarantees can take numerous forms. Pick a kind of guarantee that suits your business, and express this guarantee on your landing page. There is no compelling reason to dive into the authorities of it. The fact of the matter is that you have a guarantee and the client knows it.

2.Position your guarantee near the CTA. This nearness will enable the client to get a last piece of information and to be prepared for a changeover.

10. Social sharing buttons

These buttons allow the guests to share the content of your page to their network or systems via social media platforms.

Sum up

A landing page is where all your efforts work out as expected. This is where clients click, purchase, and you make income.

You will make an effective and high-converting landing page by executing all of the above-listed factors. Also, once you are done, run some A/B testing and continue moving forward. The way towards making a landing page never gets wrapped up.

How to Boost Your Influence and Authority as a Marketer

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Traditional push marketing does not work anymore as customer is in charge of what they consume. Television has been replaced by on-demand video and ad blockers have reduced the window to get your message across.

Marketers have to deliver their message in a way that audience wants it and through people they want to listen to.

This is why influencer marketing has emerged as one of the major trends in marketing. Brands such as Adidas, Motorola and American Express have embraced influencer marketing with success.

In fact businesses are earning $6.5 for every $1 they spend on influencer marketing. Influencer reach is clearly the future of marketing.

Who is an Influencer

An Influencer is any person who has a substantial following in a niche segment on the internet. The area of influence could be anything from business to pet-care.

They are actively engaged with their followers over social media or mails. They can monetize their following by product endorsements or selling their own services.

Marketers work with influencers for product endorsements to use this powerful channel. Another way to work this channel is for marketers themselves to become an influence.

For example, one of the top marketers in the world Neil Patel, is also the most influential celebrity in the area of business startups and digital marketing.

Being an influencer naturally boosts your marketing and sales. This is why most of the influencers are starting their own business. A following is very easy to monetize compared to strangers on the internet.

Why Influencers are so effective at Selling

We all know the influence of celebrities like Dr.Oz (in health sector) and Oprah Winfrey have on populations. It has been estimated that Oprah’s support for Barack Obama swayed around 1 million votes in his favour.

Today, the internet is filled with smaller stars who are celebrities to their respective audiences nonetheless.

Youtube star like Wayne Goss (3 million subscribers) and Lily Singh(13 million subscribers)  are sought by brands to promote their products.

But what is it about influencer marketing that makes marketing so successful?

Influencers have a trust and connection with their audiences that an unknown marketer can never match.

Influencers give their followers tons of value in education, entertainment or inspiration. Therefore the followers trust them as an authority in their field of work and are more open to messages to them.

Secondly influencers endorsing a product act a social proof to their audiences. As kids we all wanted to do what the cool kids in the class were doing. Influencer marketing is not very different from that.

It is the mix of authority, social proof and trust that makes influencer marketing so effective.

How to Become an Influencer

Influencers are going to rule the web in coming years. According to TapInfluence, 73% of marketers have allocated budget for influence marketing.

If you don’t have huge budgets to hire top influencers it makes sense to become one yourself.

Here are some ways to increase your influence as a marketer or business founder:

  • Share Knowledge

Are you into clothing? Share fashion tips with the world.

Maybe you are in B2B SaaS services. Share knowledge on how to evaluate and implement SaaS products.

Whatever your industry is there is always information that people want to know. Developing your expertise in the topic and sharing it with the world is the first step to becoming an influencer.

The deeper your knowledge the better you content will be. So make sure you exactly know what you are going to talk about.

Use various formats like blogs, video, webinars , podcasts etc. to see what works.

Tip:  Videos are doing much better than any other format currently

  • Networking

You have to be social if you want to be an influencer. Find out other influencers in your niche and start building relationship with them. You could start off with social media and move to personal channels such as mail and meeting at events and conference.

Interacting with your followers and comments on your posts is equally important. You will have to build virtual as well as real relations to become an influencer.

  • Build Authority

People must view you as authority on subject before they trust you. Certifications, memberships in professional associations and affiliations help in this regard. Testimonials from known personalities are also helpful.

Another way to build you authority is to be quoted in well-known publications. Use HARO to register and get in touch with journalists who are looking for quotes in your industry. You can also find contacts for popular publications and contact the journalist.

  • Events & Industry Meets

 Do not underestimate the importance of live events and meets in influence marketing. Giving live updates from events and being with the right people will boost your following tremendously.

Takeaway

Influence has been taught in marketing and sales since a long time. These are some of ways in which you can increase your influence in the online space.

Because marketers are always looking for maximum conversion, becoming an influencer is a natural progression for a marketer. Once you are an influence, a tweet could get you more sales than Google Adsense.

How to Implement a Successful Personalized Marketing Strategy

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

If you have purchased products from Amazon or Flipkart, you will be able to see the amazing effects of personalized experience.

You will be able to see a list of suggestions based on your search history. Also, most probably you will receive a follow up email which contains similar collection of books based on your recent purchase.

We will not be surprised to see if you return to purchase more; it is because they are based upon your likes and interests.

This is why most of the marketers believe that personalized marketing campaigns are crucial for the success for their business.

If you wish that your customers want to come back for more purchases, you need to provide them with personalized experience that matches their wants and needs.

This means that more visits equal to more leads and more leads equal to more happy customers. Let’s take a look at how to implement a personalized marketing strategy:

1. Review your strategy

Before you execute your marketing strategy, think about the following questions to perceive how your organization can handle the strategy implementation:

  • What brand value I would like to offer my customers?
  • What kind of customer trends should I enable for e.g., repeated customer visits, increased trust, lot of purchases etc.?
  • What are the marketing resources that we have/can create which may change one strategy over another?
  • How much time does the plan need – whether short term/long term requirement?
  • Do I actually have enough resources such as people, tools, time etc. to achieve success?

2. Research and Analyze your audience

When you are done with planning your strategy, it’s time to gather some information about your audience and you will be able to use that for your marketing program. These are the ways you can research about your audience:

  • Surveys
  • Questionnaires
  • Discussion groups
  • Feedback via website or email
  • Social media platforms

Try to collect maximum amount of information from your potential prospects or customers. One or two queries might be enough rather than a drawn-out survey.

3. Choose right marketing tactics

Choosing the right marketing tactics is very crucial in the process of personalizing marketing strategy. Here are some of the marketing strategies to choose from:

  • Send emails from humans, don’t sound like a brand

Email is one among the simplest ways to create a personalized experience for your prospects. Rather than having the sender name as company’s name, create it from the name of an actual agent working on your promoting or marketing team.

Also, think about adding that agent’s photograph and his/her’s email signature to the body of the email to indicate that actually that agent took their time and energy to craft the message and can get some responses.

Even if you employ email templates, guarantee that they don’t appear as if they have been designed by a promoting/marketing machine. It is because you want to sound credible in your emails.

  • Use recipient’s name for emails

Writing “Dear Customer,” “Hi Customer,” “To [First Name]” etc. are all not at all preferred for your email communication with your prospects.

A lead’s real name is one among the best items of lead intelligence to assemble. If a prospect has filled out a form at any point of time, you can easily get their first name and email address.

If not, most likely you should not be emailing them. Most of the email service providers give you the opportunity to customize the email messages with recipient’s forename; so what’s more to think? Take advantage of it!

  • Make use of marketing automation tools

Based on content interest, automation tools will be able to trigger lead nurturing campaigns. While you will address completely different business problems and topics inside your content, that does not mean that each one of the prospects have an interest in all told topics.

If a prospect downloads an e-book targeted on specific topic, for instance, program your automation tools to automatically enter them into a lead nurturing campaign which will deliver content relevant to the initial topic and personalizes email messages based on supported data of that original content which was downloaded.

  • Segment email database by marketing persona

There are number of ways to segment email database; but the most effective and easiest way is by marketing persona. For example, if you have classified three separate marketing personas that combine your ideal customers, segment your email list into three different blocks.

Then, personalize the messaging used in independent emails sent to each blocks using the language that individual persona always uses and responds to.

  • Focus on creating persona driven content

Persona driven content is a key factor to consider when you begin with the process of personalization. Produce new content or modify the existing one to handle the exact needs and problems of your varied marketing personas.

Contemplate the very fact that one persona might have issues that the other persona doesn’t have. When you prepare a non personalized campaign, your one-size-fits-all content policy won’t fit with the particular problem of persona, which will be a drawback.

However, with a personalized approach that is targeted at a selected group of prospects, you will be able to address that drawback and make more customized and valuable content for those potential prospects.

  • Respond personally to customers on social media

Nowadays customers depend upon social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google + to research about the products and to make buying decisions.

It may appear to be an easy task to assign a real person to respond to customer queries on social media; however, several companies choose to automate it.

You need to check your social media activity on a daily basis and respond to them in a personal manner which provides suitable and rightful content that can address each persona’s needs.

  • Generate targeted landing pages

If you lack the bandwith to create content targeted for each of your personas, you have an option to create targeted landing pages for your different offers.

Make sure to customize the messaging and language on your targeted landing pages to handle the precise needs of particular segment, and do that for every phase.

  • Build targeted company’s product page variations on LinkedIn

LinkedIn company pages provides amazing targeting tool that permits you to personalize the products or services that a visitor sees on your product page in LinkedIn.

You will be able to target based on demographic info such as trade, job function and geographic area.

  • Use Google + topic circles to target content

Google + topic circles is another way of using social media platforms to supply a lot of personalized content distribution. By using Google + Circles, you will be able to create many totally different topic circles depending upon the different interests of your targeted page followers.

The next step is to poll your followers, raise that Circles they would wish to be side to, and simply distribute only targeted content to those Circles. This offers an individuality and personalization.

  • Lead intelligence to help in personalizing sales follow up

Lead intelligence or knowledge you gather concerning your leads/prospects consists of demographic data, customer behaviour on your website etc. which can be very useful as you outline segments of your business’ client personas.

However, it may also function as a robust lever to assist your sales team to personalize their sales pitches and perceive the wants of a lead before they even pick up the phone to dial the prospect. A well prepared sales agent can close the deal in no time.

4. Regularly update and refine personalization process

Like all other methods, personalized marketing process needs constants review and improvement to make sure of 100% effectiveness. The best way is that let the campaigns run for some weeks and then evaluate the results.

By this way, your team will be able to get a correct impression of exact progress over time, instead of getting a quick picture of how your personalization process is advancing.

It is also crucial to re-check all of your technological integrations to make sure that you have got access to holistic image of information.

During the refinement phase, marketers may take a step back and judge certain strategies or aspects of their personalized marketing campaign.

Let’s see how incorporating personalized marketing campaigns can be beneficial for your business:

1.A large compilation of client data: Personalization methods track the habits and activities of potential prospects; which in turn provides marketers with valuable knowledge that may not be available with conventional marketing campaigns.

If you are passing your leads to sales team, they will get a better clarity of whom they are merchandising and how the products/services matches with the client’s needs.

2.Loyal brand followers: Once customers feel that their needs are fulfilled and a company actually takes care of them, it is doubtless that they will definitely come back to the company in future to shop additional services or products.

3.Valuable business insights: Data gained from trailing customers will assist you in confirming what works and what doesn’t work in regard to marketing tactics and messages.

Takeaway

It is evident that customers prefer to buy more from retailers who can personalize their shopping experience across various channels.

Don’t be too late if you haven’t started implementing personalization strategies listed above. Companies who can successfully implement personalized marketing experiences will be able to witness an increase in sales and customer loyalty.

How AI and Machine Learning Will Shape the Future of SEO

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Since the inception of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), it has been going through various transformations. It is evident that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning is going to change SEO soon.

AI is a system which is constantly evolving and changing. Nowadays, SEO prioritizes more on content, links and user experiences.

Machine learning

It is a form of artificial intelligence. Machine learning gives the opportunity to computers to learn without being programmed.

That means software programs will be able to change and grow accordingly when exposed to new data. This will make computers more adaptable to new data.

Machine learning is not a new concept. Even in 1990s, basic machine learning algorithms existed but with minimal usage of applying it.

From recently only, Google started making use of it in its searches and we started seeing rapid changes whenever there are new major updates.

RankBrain

RankBrain is Google’s new game changing algorithm introduced in conjunction with Hummingbird. It was introduced to help in identifying and interpreting the intent of the content and showing result pages which don’t include the words users searched for; but contains information related to the category or idea of the query.

RankBrain is designed in such a way to continuously determine and integrate new features on its own. Even though, you may not have noticed any major changes in searching; RankBrain is definitely doing an outstanding job.

On the billions of searches Google process everyday, 15% of those enquiries had never been processed before. From 2016, Google uses RankBrain to process each of them; where its resources are used to learn how to investigate all kind of queries including the rare ones.

To analyze how AI and machine learning will shape the future of SEO, we need to study about the history and current scenarios of SEO. Let’s take a look at those:

How SEO evolved?

When SEO started, it was very easy to rank top in a search engine as the results were based on keywords used. If you wanted a top position in search results, all you needed to do was use the phrase suitable for your title and the content and you are done! You were guaranteed one of the top most positions in search results.

The basic idea was that the number of times the keyword used was more on your page; your ranking will be higher.

But this also paved ways for some unethical search engine optimisation practices by various companies such as hiding keywords in the background of websites or putting keywords off screen.

Different types of tactics were developed for ranking high on search engine which led Google to change the algorithms used.

As Google had enough with the unethical SEO practices, Penguin 1.0 was introduced by Google on April 2012. It was developed to block various web spam tacticssuch as duplicate contents, stuffing of keywords, link schemes and also unwanted redirects.

Based on Google’s quality guidelines, Penguin decreased those sites’ ranking where it felt has violated the guidelines.

Current scenario of SEO

Various algorithms used by Google have helped a lot in kicking out spam filled sites. Also this scenario forced marketers to create high quality contents to get into search results.

In the past, if the SEO techniques were based on keywords; at present, it’s based on technical SEO, link building and speed of the page.

In the past, technical SEO only makes sure whether you use suitable keyword, but now it also focuses more on creating greater user experiences.

Now it includes various factors such as user behaviour, page speed and responsiveness of mobile pages.

Now Google focuses more on quality content rather than keyword stuffed contents. Engaging on high quality content will always decrease the ranking of low quality content even if it has high keyword density.

Future of SEO

The future of SEO will mostly rely on artificial intelligence rather than relying on a formula to create organic search result listing.

AI will be relying on machine learning, big data and user experience. Using AI and machine learning, search engines can learn from user behaviours and will be able to provide a list of contents users will most likely search for.

The following are the trends that are more likely to shape the future of SEO:

In 2015, Google has introduced RankBrain into its search algorithm. As said before, it has made keyword phrases irrelevant.

RankBrain is the third most important ranking factor in their search algorithms.

  • Understanding user intent

It will play an important part in ranking as major part of search results are based on artificial intelligence. Now, when marketers are thinking of creating content for their website, they need to think more than just keywords to hit the ranking on the search engine results page.

They also need to think what users will hope to find on your web page when they click from the results on search engines.

Marketers should be vigilant to get clues from search intent from their queries. There are four types of queries based on the user intent:

  • Navigational: A user looking for a specific information on a specific website
  • Informational: A user trying to get some information to read
  • Transactional: User trying to pay a bill, creating a new account or even trying to subscribe newsletters
  • Commercial: A user wishes to purchase or trying to get information to purchase later
  • Schema Markups

It is code or semantic vocabulary that you create on your webpage which helps the search engines to have a better understanding of your content.

This in turn enables search engines to give informative and accurate results for the users. It looks like Google will be making use of new schema markup supports for carousels, data feeds, job listings etc.

Impact of AI and machine learning in the future of SEO

Emergence of machine learning and artificial intelligence will definitely bright up the future of search engine optimization. In favour of SEO, AI not only delivers useful content to users but also makes sure of what fits to user’s need.

Rather than sending users to a page that has more likely content, machine learning AI system will send users to the page that not only answer their initial queries but also can answer follow up queries.

It is very evident that AI and machine learning are definitely going to revolutionize SEO in delivering a greater user experience.

So don’t even think of compromising the quality of content on your website because no one wants to get listed last on the search engine ranking.

If you are not sure in creating content that will hit the top rankings in SEO, you can definitely outsource them. Our team is happy to help you with. Learn more about our products and services.

15 Strategies to Run a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Crowdfunding is an exciting alternative for start-ups to raise finance. The method allows founders to raise capital from general public who believe in their idea and support their cause.

Crowdfunding is growing as an idea every year. In 2015, $34.4 billion was raised through crowdfunding. Start-ups on Kickstarter, an online platform for crowdfunding has received donations $3 million in funding so far.

Not all crowdfunding campaigns are successful though and getting people to pledge money requires a lot planning. In fact, only one in three crowdfunding campaigns reach their goals.
Here are 15 Strategies to make sure your crowdfunding campaign is successful.

#1: Involve your Investors

Crowdfunding appeals to the regular audience because it gives them a chance to participate in innovation and business creation. Give your investors a say in your business by involving them in market research, product design and marketing.

You will not only receive valuable feedback but will also multiply your word of mouth by involving many other people.

For example, NikeID by Nike provides a platform for customers to design their own shoes. These practices can be extended to crowdfunding easily as public involvement is at the centre of this concept.

#2: Support a Cause

Pledging your capital and efforts for a social cause will convince more people to support you. Don’t worry if your business is not a social service.

You can show sustainability and care for community in many parts of your business.

Mexiuan is an e-commerce platform raising funds on Kickstarter. They support socially committed Mexican brands that employ underprivileged Mexican artisans and children with disabilities.

Supporting a social cause makes success of your crowdfunding campaign more likely.

Strategies to Run a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

#3: Make it a Personal Story

People take decisions emotionally rather than logically. They make decision based on the emotional ‘why’ and justify it later with the logical facts of the matter.

This is the reason why crowdfunding for college bills and funeral expenses also sees tremendous success.

Strategies to Run a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

Sharing your story is essential as it answers the ‘why’ in your business. Always make sure you talk to audience in the video and share your journey as an entrepreneur.

Apply the techniques of good storytelling to make your case more compelling.

#4: Benefit Investors

Though the main objective of your campaign is to raise money, remember that crowdfunding campaign must be designed to benefit your investors too.

A deep understanding of your investors is necessary for this. What are the investor’s needs and pain points? How can you solve it? Your customers and potential investors are often the same for a crowdfunding campaign.

Benefits offered could be limited edition of product, discounts and offers, exclusive content or equity in company. A benefit doesn’t have to be monetary all the time.

Recognition for a cause, a thank you note or satisfaction of helping is also benefits that entrepreneurs are using successfully.

Make sure that the benefit fits into your story and is compelling enough for people to take action.

#5: Visual Presentation

Make your campaign as visual as possible. Include videos, pictures, testimonial and screenshots wherever possible. Your campaign page must give your viewers a peek into your business.

Good explainer videos have been shown to increase conversion rates by upto 30%.

Make a video that reflects the ethos of your company. Here is a funny video from Sensibo for their crowdfunding campaign.

Remember the video doesn’t have to be fancy. Many entrepreneurs have raised good amounts based on a sincere message on a clear video shot at their desk.

#6: Set realistic Goals

Here is an important tip on crowdfunding campaigns. People support campaigns that are closer to achieving their goals.

Most of the platforms show the percentage funded relative to the goal you set.

Strategies to Run a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

Setting up huge targets for your campaign can be a mistake sometimes. People are less likely to fund you if page says $10 pledged or 4% funded.

Set up small targets that are achievable and repeat another campaign if required. Running small and successful campaigns will also build your reputation as a regular fundraiser on the platform.

#7: Launch with a Bang

This is where most of the entrepreneurs go wrong. They think that money will just start rolling in once they have uploaded a great video.

It’s important to understand that crowdfunding campaigns need traction to get going. People want to put their money in a campaign that is likely to succeed.

Therefore it is important to launch your campaign on the right note. According to Indiegogo, 42% of funds are raised in the first and the last 3 days of campaign.

Raising funds must start before the campaign is launched. Ask your offline investors to invest via the crowdfunding platform as soon as the campaign is live.

Your campaign should ideally reach 30% of its goal within a week. This will give it more visibility and accelerate conversion.

#8: Use all Digital Marketing Channels

There are hundreds of crowdfunding campaigns launched every week. How do you make sure that yours is noticed?
Outreach or marketing of your campaign is required to get traffic to your campaign page.

Spread the word on your campaign on social media. Plan PR in popular publications, blogs and websites in your industry. Email marketing is another channel that will give you lots of traffic.

Build a targeted email list of at least 5000 email address to support your crowdfunding campaign.

You have to promote your campaign just like you promote your website to get traffic.

#9: Influencer Marketing

Support from right influencers can get you highly targeted audience that is ready to invest. Start a blogger outreach campaign a few weeks before your campaign.

Narrow down on 15-20 bloggers in your industry and request for guest posts, campaign mentions and backlinks to your page.

#10: Build a Community of Investors

Crowdfunding does much more that raise capital for your idea. It also builds a community of enthusiastic supporters for your business.

Putting your investors in touch with each other will build a stronger support system for you.

This also gives your investors a platform to communicate their shared value and support for a cause. This can be done on Facebook closed groups or forums on websites.

This active community will create excitement around your campaign and make it more attractive for their friends to join. It can also be a source of feedback from early adopters of your product.

#11: Update your Investors

It’s important to keep your investor community updated and engaged. Your investors have risked their money to invest in a start up that has no previous record.

Investors for iBackPack that raised $720,000 were left hanging when all communications from iBackPack were stopped with no delivery date promised

Strategies to Run a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

Regular communication builds investor’s confidence and assures them of good investment. This also helps in spreading goodwill and word of mouth in the community. Investors can easily pull in their friends to a campaign that is running profitably.

#12: Use the Right Platform

There are many options available to launch crowdfunding campaigns. Some of the famous ones are Kickstarter, Indiegogo, GoFundMe, Patreon and Tilt.

Each platform has its advantages depending on your business and project.

For example, Patreon is mostly used by content developers of videos and podcast who require recurring investment every month.

Fundly.com is the largest site for raising funds for non-profit social cause.

Strategies to Run a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

#13: Create Excitement

Some campaigns gain a lot of attention because of the innovative product that they are marketing. Think of how Apple builds excitement for its product launch.

They keep a mystery element until their launch and have their customers waiting in excitement by the time the product is shipped.

Your product may not be inherently as exciting and will require even more marketing in that case.

Most successful campaigns plan their marketing strategy 8 to 12 months in advance.

Use storytelling and influencer marketing to build up excitement until your launch day.

#14: Leverage Offline channels too

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that crowdfunding will raise 100% of funds from strangers online.

The truth is that you need the support of all your friends, family and contacts to get your campaign going.

Do not underestimate the role of offline channels such as networking events, pitching to investors, support from friends and mentors.

Besides, having reputed investors and PE firms already invested in you greatly increases your credibility on crowdfunding platforms.

#15: Do the Math

Last but not least, research on all facts on crowdfunding before you jump in. What are the average contributions that you can expect? Which platforms convert the most for your kind of projects?

You must calculate the estimated collection, budget and ROI for crowdfunding just like you would do for any other business activity.

Also remember to factor in video making costs, prototype development, marketing expenses while budgeting for your campaign.

Here are some numbers to help you plan your campaign in advance:

1.The average conversion rates is 3%. That means 3 out of 100 people who visit your page will back your campaign (Forbes)

2.Having a video increases your contribution by 20-30%

3.30 Day campaigns are the most successful (Indiegogo)

4.Campaigns that work in teams raise 3 times as much funds as solo campaigners (Indiegogo)

Bringing it all together

At its core crowdfunding is all about cutting out the traditional financing institutions and setting up a democracy for funding ideas.

It is a great way to raise funds, build supporters and get a customer base that believes in you.

Do your research, start planning a detailed strategy early and launch with a bang to maximize your success.

Do not forget to do online as well as offline methods of promoting your campaign to build excitement.

How to Host Webinars to Increase Conversions

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Deciding on the format of content is one of the key aspects of content marketing. There are many formats that your content can take.

This includes blog posts, podcasts, video, e-book, webinars, etc. How do you know which one is best suited for you?

Well the best format depends on your target audience and the stage of buyer’s journey they are in. Webinar is known to give great results in converting leads to customers.

According to Content Marketing Institute, over 60% of marketers are using webinars as a part of their content marketing programs. In this blog we will talk about webinars and how you can use them to convert more customers

What is a Webinar?

Webinar is just like a seminar event except that it is conducted online. It is a presentation that is done live for the people who sign up for it.

Presenter and attendees are also able to communicate through live chat.

What makes a webinar unique is:

  • It gives a personal touch
  • It gives you more focused attention as it is live
  • It gives you more time. A typical webinar is between 45 mins to 2 hours
  • t gives you a chance to resolve objections in real time
  • It builds relation through a two way communication
  • You can reach anyone across the globeYou can see that a webinar keeps your audience more involved than a blog or video post. It is the closest to meeting to your leads face to face.

What are the conversion rates for Webinars?

For this reason webinars also have a high conversion rate. Whereas email marketing has a conversion rate of 3-5%, most webinars convert between 10- 20% of attendees down the line..

Companies like Adobe, Buzzsumo and KISSmetrics have confirmed above 20% conversion rates through webinars.

How to Use Webinars in Your Marketing Funnel?

Webinars can be used at two stages in a digital marketing funnel. Firstly, they can be used to connect with your visitors.

Webinars can even be used as lead magnets to convert visitors into leads.

Secondly, they are especially effective in the conversion stage, the last stage of marketing funnel.

Someone attending your webinar has set aside an hour for you, which means that they trust you to deliver value.

Most of the webinar attendees are hence qualified leads that are ready to buy.

How do I host a Webinar?

Hosting a webinar is not difficult. There are many webinar software that are user friendly and intuitive.
Here are the steps to follow to host a webinar:

1. Decide on the Topic and Presenter- Pick a burning question that your readers have or a pain point they face in their lives. A headline that speaks out to the visitor is half the job done.

2. Make your presentation – Make you presentation ready. A BIG mistake for any marketer would be treat your webinar as a sales pitch. A webinar is first and foremost a valuable training session for your attendees.

Remember they signed up to learn what you promised in the title, not to buy your products and service. Make sure you are giving tons of value in return of one hour that they have allotted to you.

3. Choose webinar software – There are many options to host your webinar like Webinars on Air by Google, Go to Webinar, Cisco WebX, Mega Meeting etc.

Go to Webinar is the most popular one with impressive features and reasonable pricing. It has a free 7 day trial and a monthly fee of $79 after that.

The software is easy to use with intuitive design. They allow you to share your screen with attendees, set up email notifications and reminders, take polls and surveys, chat with attendees and view webinar dashboard.

Practice a mock presentation a few times for successful live webinar.

4. Promote Webinar- Start promoting your webinar on social media, web-site pop-ups, email lists and any other channels you may have to reach your audience.

Make sure your topic matches your audience’s requirement. For example, a high school student is more likely to sign up than an undergrad for a webinar on ‘How to prepare for SAT Entrance’.

5. Host Webinar and Follow up- Use the tips shared below to host your webinar. Most of the attendees don’t sign up immediately but do end up buying up from you eventually.

Add the attendees to your email marketing list and follow up with your offer within 48 hours. Nurture these leads over time by sending webinar recording and other valuable content.

Tips to Host a Successful Webinar

  • Be well rehearsed

If you are a B2B company share your company story along with your personal story too.

Learn all the functions of webinar software and make sure you know how to get over technical setbacks even if they occur. Being well rehearsed will also make you sound confident.

  • Arrive before time

Arrive at least half an hour before the scheduled time. This will give you time to check if everything is working.

It is also a good opportunity to strike up a conversation with people have arrived early and are eager to start. Ask them about their expectation from the webinar.

  • Keep it interactive

The beauty of a webinar is that you can get direct live feedback from your attendees. Keep your webinar interactive by asking questions and also receiving questions.

Keep moderators on your team who will answer questions in chats and keep everyone engaged. Take names of people who are responding, mention geographies from where people are logged in. All this will make attendees feel connected and part of a live event.

  • Bring your personality

An event is way to know each other personally. So share your story and connect with your audience.

Tell them how you landed up here and highlight the similarities between you and your audience.

If you are a B2B company share your company story along with your personal story too.

  • Keep it Light

One hour is a long time to ask for focused attention from your audience. If your presentation is long and boring they will either exit or drift off.

So keep your webinar light and entertaining. Use a lot of stories, short videos, jokes and real life examples.

There will be parts where you will be giving heavy information, but make sure you prepare your audience and spread out the heavy material throughout the presentation.

The rule of thumb is to keep no more than three slides of heavy concepts.

Final Notes

Hosting your first webinar may seem like a difficult job. However, it is easy once you get used to it. With a conversion rate of 20% you are sure to do more of them once you get started.