Many of my blogs so far provide best practices, market trends and proven formats to optimize your webinar. The next few will look very specifically at the importance of identifying content specific to your prospects based on what stage they are in of the buying cycle.

As you all are well aware, effective webinars will generate leads. The webinar as a tool however, is much more powerful than just that. A strong webinar program is built to bring in prospective clients and then works to nurture them throughout the buying cycle until the last stage which is actually purchasing your good or service.

Your job is to create and deliver the content that will allow them to move from awareness to consideration, meaning it’s time to answer some important questions.

What Are They Looking For?

Moving prospects through the buying cycle is an intricate production which includes providing the right content at the right time to meet your prospects’ needs. In the consideration phase as I’ve mentioned, you’re there to answer questions of importance that will inevitably help the prospect move one step closer to making that purchase decision. These are typically challenge based questions that are industry related. Your webinar in turn should provide general solution-based content that tackles typical challenges and benefits but does not necessarily provide your company as the answer to that challenge. When trying to assess what kind of content you’d like to deliver there are three areas of consideration in the consideration phase.

Help Me

A no brainer – your prospects are challenged and need answers. That is typically why they are engaged with your webinar or series to begin with.

The first thing clients here at Streaming Network will ask me about this stage is how to go about framing questions or sourcing challenges that can be addressed in their webinar. There are a few ways to ensure you’re creating content that your prospect wants. A great place to start is with your sales force. Find out what their clients are trying to deal with and how they are phrasing their questions. Another great source is good ol’ social media. LinkedIn and other message boards are useful resources to find industry specific discussions which will include the challenges and questions that your target market has. A third and less direct way is to surf! Content marketing is often focused on business challenges to begin with and can provide useful guidance as well.

Apply Yourself

Another way to help the prospect move through the cycle is to provide content that is application based. Our Message Mapping Tool is a really helpful way to create, rank and choose your key messages.

Valuable Advice

A third approach to creating a webinar for prospects in this section of the buying cycle is to provide actual business value. How can your prospective buyer gain value from attending this webinar much before deciding to work with your business or buy your product to solve their general challenges? Tools, tips, whitepapers and other educational resources that provide general industry specific applications are all valuable pieces of content to consider.

A strong webinar provider will not only ensure clients have the right platform in place but work to provide the service beyond that which is to help you create the right content for your objectives based on the information that your prospect is looking for. Remember you’re not there to sell on day one. The goal is to build rapport, trust and recognition for your company over a series of webinars that slowly guide your target into leads and finally into customers at the end.