What is a webinar?

A webinar is an online web conference that allows people from remote locations to connect as a group using their computer, phone or tablet.

Think of a webinar as an online presentation or discussion, that normally involves a single presenter relaying content on a specific topic to a group of people.

what is a webinar

Webinars may have the following purpose:

Most webinars in business are offered for the simple reason to build better relationships with customers and sell more product or services

  1. To highlight a product or product feature (marketing driven)
  2. To educate broadly on a topic (education)
  3. To facilitate a discussion around a topic (discussion).

Once you’ve answered what is a webinar, you may want to know how to host a webinar.

To host a webinar you’ll need to use an online service. This service will allow you to invite people at a specific time to attend your webinar where you can provide the following:

  1. Show online slides to the group (presentation)
  2. Listen to the speaker via you phone or computer (conferencing)
  3. Chat with the presenter and / or other participants (chat)

If you want to host a webinar here are some popular webinar services:

  1. Google Hangouts (good for more informal webinars) – Free
  2.  Fuze, Goto Webinar or Adobe Connect (small business webinars) – Paid $20-$50/month
  3. On24 (enterprise webinars) – Paid

After hosting a webinar it’s a good idea to follow up with an email using an email marketing service to encourage attendees towards your webinar goal. Here’s a good example of a sales email:

3 line sales email