Nothing beats face-to-face meetings to sell yourself and your firm. But it’s time-consuming and doesn’t scale too well. Have you considered running a webinar or online meeting?

With Zoom, you can host online meetings for up to 100 people for $0. That’s a nice price point and it’s a great app which many prefer to premium priced products like GoToMeeting/Webinar.

If you can’t think of webinar topics, think about your clients’ pain points! Write down the 5 or 6 questions you get asked all the time. Explaining the answer to each question is a webinar topic in its own right. And if it’s a pain point for clients, it will be a pain point for other people and businesses too. So as well as inviting clients, ask them to “bring a friend”.

In terms of promoting the webinar, consider the following:

– promote via email to clients and prospects
– publish a blog post about it on your website
– post several times on social media: you’ll most likely get the best results on Facebook and LinkedIn
– let your referral partners like bankers or lawyers know about the webinar. Ask them to share with people they work with

The content does not need to be super-polished. As long as it’s useful, you’ll get a good response. Also simple is best, don’t go into too much depth. You might think you’re adding value but you are more likely to confuse people – give them the high-level overview and let them know to contact you if they need more help. This is about marketing after all!

Expanding on that last point – you must have a call to action that is related to the webinar content. If you are doing a webinar on cashflow, promote a cashflow product or service. At the end of the webinar, quickly explain the product/service and its benefits. Then on screen and verbally give clear instructions how the viewer can sign up. Don’t miss this part out or be coy about it!

Once you’ve delivered your call to action, leave time for a quick Q&A. The best webinars are where you get interaction. Of course, you might not get any questions right away. It is said that some seasoned webinar hosts have a few pre-prepared questions in this instance to spark a discussion!

If you don’t fancy preparing a webinar, you could even do a weekly online Q&A session as long as you don’t mind thinking on the spot. Webcams are a good option if you go down this route.

After the webinar has finished:

– get the webinar recording and upload to YouTube or Vimeo as fast as you can
– send out a follow-up email with the recording and also repeat your sales call to action
– post the webinar recording on your blog, social media and your other marketing channels
– a week after the webinar, send another email with your sales call to action in it

You’ll be nervous the first time you host a webinar but after a couple, they start to be fun. Remember – you know more than your audience so just be yourself and share your expertise with them.

Join Ascend – a marketing support group for busy accountants and bookkeepers to join in the discussion and get more tips like this.