Covid19 lockdowns across countries has changed the world drastically and impacted the lives of each one of us in profound ways. Our day to day world has got new buzzwords like online, digital, phygital, and the most important one probably webinar, especially for those who are professionals. Ideas, topics, subjects of mutual interests are being explored and expressions of creativity are being visible from across a variety of hosts and audiences almost daily. I do not recall a single day in my calendar that is devoid of any such programme slot available to me.
Interestingly, this has opened up a vista of opportunities for all of us including the content creators and content consumers. This has extended the audiences for many and has helped in improving the reach of their communication that’s beyond advertising led. The trick is to differentiate, enrich, and make the content more consumption-worthy to be impactful among the audience and build sustainability for reaping the network benefits. However, the learning curve for everyone has been varying as per their appetite, consumption pattern, understanding, learning, and finding usefulness of such initiatives.
While some have been able to catch up fast and many are still taking their own time to grapple with this situation and make the most of it, webinars have become very much a part of our daily lives undoubtedly.
Let’s look at them from the brand communicators’ lens and see how they can make it mutually beneficial for the brands and their audiences. First and foremost, the topic of the talk is always the most crucial element of any communication through the webinar. It cannot be vague, common, over talked about among various audiences but it should be a narrow, focused, and targeted one. It should allow you to reach out to anyone in the world having a similar interest, inclination, and craving for the offered knowledge and learning through the webinar.
Webinars not only allow you to expand the universe of reach instantaneously for the brands but also facilitate a great trust-building with the target audience through direct interaction. How beautiful it is, and how excitingly the times have changed where brand communicators can access their audience in an absolute fashion by breaking all the barriers of via-media channels. It allows them to peek into their audiences’ minds immaculately and precisely for further insights, understandings, and learnings for that matter to fortify their relationships.
Visual branding, one of the most important aspects of brand communication can simply be executed most effectively through webinars. With a substantial audience using mobiles, this has the potential to reach out to their audience at times beyond the traditionally available work hours, as long as the consent and availability of the audience are there.
On one hand, the webinars can be excellent for sustainable delivery of communication to targeted audiences, on another hand this also creates revenue-generating opportunities, which is being explored by many communicators today. To make the webinar topics interesting and engaging, the brand communicators can seek inputs from various entities within the organisation likes sales teams, customer support persons, social media teams, monitoring of competitive activities and initiatives along with peeking into Google analytics, etc.
Next, the most important aspect is the packaging of the webinar, choosing the topic, having a single expert or multiple experts through a panel, using the most suitable technical platforms, considering the most cost-effective ways both from the host and audience perspective. Taking care of many basics, which must ensure smooth and flawless delivery by completely avoiding glitches, breaks, momentary jolts of audio or video and hitches from the host’s side will ensure a great experience for the audiences.
It’s all about that experience, that packaging, that depth of content, that delivery, that visual imagery, that engagement, that conversation, and that feeling of taking away a lot via such participation, something can go a long way for brand building exercise
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
Praveen has been closely associated with many national and international events related to cinema for children, art and culture. He has a well-rounded experience that cuts across all key sectors of PR & Corporate Communications.
He started his career with URJA Communications, an advertising agency specialising in technology brands, where he was instrumental in developing the PR division. Post this, he had a stint with Horizons Porter Novelli, a global public relations consultancy. Thereafter, he was heading the IT & Telecom division at Clea PR, a leading Indian public relations and communications company followed by a fairly long stint with Omnicom Group agencies viz. TBWA\India and Brodeur India.
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