Insurance Agency Webinars are an important building block in the foundation of a long-term, high-yield marketing strategy. A quality webinar series allows an agency to penetrate their target market in a unique way, and to develop rapport with prospects prior to any direct conversation. However, the road to success does include many mountains to climb – so we will review 3 key elements to running a premier web seminar that will generate leads for your producers.
Choosing a Topic
As a professional insurance agency marketing organization, we have developed a long list of effective topics and criteria for future topics that our clients are able to access. This is part of our intellectual property, so I am unable to simply publish the list, but I can certainly share how we create effective topics and how we challenge our clients to find attractive new concepts. It boils down to two words: educational and relevant.
Put yourself at the desk of the decision maker of your most coveted prospect. Let us imagine that you are a benefits agency, and your key contact is the VP of HR. What is he or she in need of learning? What information would assist with their duties? An obvious example would be Healthcare Reform. This HR person has certainly heard changes are immanent, but may or may not have had the time to research and learn how reform will impact their business and their benefit plans. A web seminar presentation that provided keen insights and explanations would not only be educational – it would be relevant to this target prospect.
Choosing a Speaker
I will make this as concise as possible: speakers are much less important to drawing attendees than topics. Corollary to this is a related concept: expertise is much more valuable that popularity. I will offer an example that proves this to be true, and then move on, as I initially promised to be concise. I am not famous and my popularity is limited. However, I am able to draw significant attendance for webinars I present. This is because the topics are educational and relevant, and anyone who researches me will see that I provide deep subject matter expertise in the areas we present.
Effective Webinar Format
This is area where you will find conflicting views and a vast array of suggestions for how to solve the puzzle of proper presentation. There are several platforms which can be leveraged to deliver your webinar series. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Like buying a car, test drive them and see what is the most comfortable way to reach your destination. When exploring the options, you will likely discover that cost is not a tremendous burden, the challenge is the learning curve for the professional and effective use of your new toy. Find the solution best for you and train until you are fully equipped to run a webinar, or engage with a professional marketing organization who can provide a platform and expert operational efficacy.
The last component to webinar magic that we will review today is length. The duration of your presentation will have a dramatic effect on how many people register, how many people attend, how many people stay and how many people remain engaged. My advice: shorter is better. I constantly receive invitations to webinars lasting 60 minutes, 90 minutes and beyond. Candidly, I do not have that kind of time. If I lost that much time in a workday, that day would be a failure. I find that when our President speaks, I am always willing to listen. He is a gifted orator, and his topics are most certainly educational and relevant. So I tune in – for about 10 minutes. At this point I see there is no end in sight, and get back to work. However, if I had been promised a concise 20 minute presentation – I would make the time to tune in for the entire presentation. Remember this concept when designing your next webinar presentation.