Using Webinars to Communicate Value

Last week I did my first Webinar. It was fun and I think it went pretty well.  It was a great way to use technology to communicate valuable content to a targeted audience.

At MBO Partners, we are rolling out some changes to the on-line expense entry system that our Associates use. We wanted to present the system changes to them and do some group training on how they worked. We also wanted to remind our associates of the benefits of using all our expense programs. A webinar seemed like a good solution.

We used GoToWebinar. It has worked well for us as a webinar tool. This is the first time that I had used it as the presenter.  I have been on webinars and listened in but I hadn’t thought much about the technology required to do it in a professional way. As a tool, GoToWebinar has many features that make it easy to host a webinar. Here are some of the features we used:

• You can let people register in advance for the webinar.
• You can choose what to display to the audience (a monitor, a specific application window, etc.) I moved between my PowerPoint and a browser for my demo.
• You can choose who can talk. I did most of the talking, but you can open the microphones of individual participants so they can ask questions, or for others to share in the presentation.
• You can receive and sent text comments or questions. 
• You can record the presentation.
• You can get a list of all the participants and their comments at the end of the presentation.

These are just a few of the ways that GoToWebinar helped.  It actually took two of us to do the webinar.  I presented and my colleague, Larry Stone, ran the text chat.  He was able to provide good content back to those asking questions about the presentation and then pass onto me any questions that would be good to share with the entire group.  We got lots of good feed back on our new features and the webinar.  I think we provided valuable content to our associates, and that helps us build a better relationship with them.

At MBO, we are finding that providing good content is a great marketing and relationship building tool.  This year, we have started using webinars to provide free (and intentionally not self promoting) content to the Independent and Freelance consulting world.  We believe this will be a good approach, and that if we provide something of value, then people who use it will also think that our services might be something of value, too.

How are you using good content to promote your business and build relationships?

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