Sometimes as marketers, we tend to get too absorbed in our efforts to achieve our marketing goals that we forget about what it feels like to be a consumer. It would certainly help to take a step back once in a while and reflect on how we would feel if we were the consumers being targeted by our own marketing outreach efforts. If you do this well, you would inevitably understand why Content Marketing is such a powerful way to engage with your prospects/customers. Imagine that you were a customer looking to buy a specific product: Wouldn’t you appreciate it when companies take the effort to provide you with knowledge that would guide you to make your own informed decision rather than plainly trying to brainwash you to buy their products? Of course you would and that’s the reason why companies are beginning to invest heavily in Content Marketing.
Now, having established the fact that Content Marketing is the right way to go, the next step is to decide on the tools/modes that you should use to implement your very own Content Marketing campaign. You have got several options available to you. Check out the graphic below (Source: Content Marketing Institute) to see the various methods and their respective popularity levels.
Which option should you use when implementing your own Content Marketing campaign? Which is the most effective and cost efficient way? Well, every one of those options have their own advantages and disadvantages. Let’s focus on Webinars in this blogpost.
Based on a survey done by Content Marketing Institute on 1092 marketers, 46% of the marketers used Webinars as a Content Marketing tool and 70% feel that it’s an effective medium. What is surprising is that Webinars are deemed to be more effective than Social Media (only 50% of surveyed marketers believed in the effectiveness of social media). But, what then is the reason behind less marketers adopting webinars as compared to social media?
Well, the reason is simply that, it takes much more effort and resources to conduct a successful Webinar than a Social Media marketing campaign. However, if done well, Webinars certainly have huge benefits for your company. Here are two simple reasons as to why Webinars are quite popular with prospects and customers.
1) Webinars are very engaging as you get to directly speak to your customers and prospects. You can almost immediately respond to their queries during the Webinar. Also, Webinars make your audience feel like they are part of a larger group and this feeling of inclusiveness often has a positive ripple effect.
2) Webinars have the ability to be very focused on a particular topic and hence they can be very informative and draw the right set of audience.
Having said this, it would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that you should ignore Social Media marketing and only engage in Webinars! That is tantamount to treason! It’s like saying that you can row a boat with just one hand! Webinars are an excellent tool to supplement your social media marketing efforts and the combined effects of these two can be very very powerful.
I hope you enjoyed this blogpost! Have a great weekend folks 🙂
