However, despite them being a super effective marketing tool, organizers are often seen struggling to make a webinar successful!
Hosting successful webinars isn’t always a cake walk, and there are several things you need to take care of, to succeed! Going live with the right webinar content might not always be enough. You need something more which encourages audiences to respond to, attend and gain value from, while also helping you generate high-quality leads eventually.
But how?
How do you master the strategy of attracting the right audience for your webinar?
Well, there are tons of webinar marketing strategies, and one of the most valuable ones is cross promotions. In simple words, cross-promotions involve promoting products and services from different non-competing brands, but with a similar target audience.
Let’s dive into the article to learn more about cross-promotions in webinars and the crucial role it can play in webinar promotions and overall success.
What is cross-promotion?
Several companies will vouch for the efficacy of cross-promotion in making webinars successful! However, what exactly is it, and how does it work?
Cross promotion in webinars can be defined as a collaboration between two or more brands or companies with the intention of increasing customer bases and boosting sales. Companies engaged in this type of engagement typically do not charge any fees for promoting products, because both parties derive benefits from each other’s efforts.
For example, if you’re hosting a webinar on, let’s say, ‘fitness’ that will provide tips on creating a healthy lifestyle, you might collaborate with a nutritionist or a fitness specialist as the speaker at your webinar. This is a simple example of cross promotion, where the expert shares their knowledge at the webinar and will then share updates about the webinar on their social media to improve visibility of the host company. This way, both parties benefit and that’s how cross promotion works.
Benefits of Cross Promotions in Webinars
- Increases Reach & Visibility – When you opt for cross-promotion for your webinars, you’re collaborating with another brand; it will eventually provide you access to their audience as well, which eventually increases your reach and could result in your event welcoming a greater number of attendees!
- More Budget-friendly – Cross-promotions are cost effective ways of maximizing webinar ROI. Cross-promotions enable you to leverage the marketing efforts and the resources of your partners, which helps in organizing the overall event at a lower cost, comparatively. If your business is a startup or if you have a modest budget for the webinar, cross-promotions are the ideal solution for you.
- Improves Credibility – Cross-promotions are also a great way to earn credibility. If you get to collaborate with a reputed brand that has a lot of brand value in the market, your credibility will increase too, establishing you as an authority in your industry. When a renowned brand promotes your company to the general public, it lends legitimacy to your products and services, increasing trust among the audience and gradually increasing brand awareness of your products!
- Builds Networks – One of the greatest benefits you’ll enjoy with cross-promotion is the opportunity to build a powerful network of peers and experts. By collaborating with professionals in your own industry and in related ones, you open the doors to greater collaborations, partnerships and continued associations.
Also Read – Virtual Networking – Ideas to Transform your Next Virtual Event
Cross-promotion in Webinars: How Does it Work?
If you’re inspired to invest in cross-promotions for your next webinar, here are some tips on how to go about executing it!Let’s dive in to find out.
Look for Ideal Partners – Look for ideal partners with whom you can collaborate. Identify individuals or brands with whom you share a common audience but do not compete with directly. For instance, if you run a travel agency and are looking to host a webinar on exploring some beautiful parts of the world, you can call some travel bloggers to host the event.
Invite Guest Speakers – Invite guest speakers or presenters from other industries or companies, to co-host the live webinar with you. This will help you include a variety of related topics in your webinar to the respective audiences, eventually helping both parties receive new clients.
Mutually Design Content – You and the brand you’re collaborating with must work together on crafting the webinar content such that it benefits both parties involved. Create compelling content that will add value to both audiences. It can come through either as a joint presentation, a panel discussion, or in any other format that works best.
Offer Discounts and Special Deals – Everybody loves a good deal! And when it comes to webinars, you can either include early-bird discounts during registration, offer group discounts, or even give away prizes for the most engaging attendees. By offering some exclusive offers, you’ll eventually encourage more attendees to your event, boosting participation and fostering goodwill in your audiences.
Social Media Promotions – Social media is arguably one of the best channels to promote your event. In this case, you can cross-promote your webinar by partnering with brands that have a strong presence in your target market, and encourage them to promote your webinar on their social media posts, eventually increasing the attendance rates for your webinar.
Create a C- branded Landing Page – Cross promotion also includes creating co-branded landing pages, which is a very important part of webinar promotion. By using a co-branded landing page for your webinar, you can highlight both your and your partner’s brands, which will help prospects become familiar with both brands even before the webinar.
Drive Engagement in Your Webinar – Your webinar needs to be engaging so that, throughout the event, the attention of the audience remains intact. Engage the attendees with frequent polls, and include other interactive elements as well like quizzes, Q&As, etc. Engagement will lead to effective participation and will enhance overall attendee experience.
Following Up – Always follow up with your attendees once your webinar concludes. Try recording the event and sharing it with both brands’ audiences, and nurture them effectively to maximize returns from the cross promotions.
Bottom Line
Cross-promotions have the capability to make your webinar highly successful! Though it is not recommended to skip the other webinar marketing strategies and only use cross promotion, it is suggested that you give cross promotion a fair chance, like you would with the other strategies! When done correctly, it can bring in incredible results and benefit all parties involved.
FAQ
Some common challenges in cross promotions in webinars include differences in brand messaging, scheduling conflicts, struggling to maintain attendee engagement and logistical coordination.
Measuring the success of a cross promotional webinar is made simple by looking into the data points generated by the webinar platform, which includes metrics like the attendance rates, the engagement rates, leads generated from the webinar, attendee feedback & reviews, etc.
Cross-promotions is certainly a powerful way that the businesses apply for expanding their reach, as well as enhancing their credibility and eventually foster long term partnerships!
Yes, you can use cross-promotion webinars for long-term partnerships, as they can serve as the foundation for ongoing collaborations and partnerships. It is wise to analyze and evaluate the performance of each webinar. Based on the evaluation, you need to modify your strategy, to maintain a mutually lucrative relationship with collaborators over time.
