What is Webinar?
A webinar is a seminar hosted through a web-based virtual event platform. It is often titled as web conferences, video conferences, webcast or an online seminar. For several years, webinars has been an integral part of the digital landscape for business and education sectors. However, until recently, the webinar was more of a tool for marketers that are more advanced, salespeople, or teachers. Today it is becoming one of the most fundamental types of online communication. Webinars are live events that take place online and are designed to provide information to attendees. The format is mostly focused on lectures and other presentations delivered in a one-to-many format. A webinar may also include screen sharing and demonstrations and may have more than one key presenter. Additionally, while webinars are often promoted as live events, webinars have value beyond their initial delivery. They can easily be recorded as they are presented and later made available, this gives attendees the opportunity to refer back to presented material and allow those who could not attend in real time to still derive benefit from the presented materials. A webinar features the following participants:
1. Organizer: The person who is responsible for coordinating the event/meeting.
2. Presenter or Speaker: The person who addresses the audience, presents engaging content and, in some cases, broadcasts videos and slides.
3. Listeners or Attendees: Those who attend and listen to the presentation via smart devices like a PC, laptop or smartphone as per their convenience.
ADVANTAGES OF WEBINAR
1. It is best suited to business organizers for internal or external meetings like sales kick-offs, employee meet-ups, training programs, educational workshops, product launches, and more. Whatever the purpose behind face-to-face meeting is, it can now be adequately replaced with a webinar meeting. Moreover, a webinar can be an instructive or educational event, a meeting that involves audio-visual communication between a host and attendees.
2. You can organize it at any time and for a global audience from wherever you are. Anyone can participate in a webinar without leaving their office or the comfort of their home, or even while on a business trip or vacation. Webinars make the world truly global in that they eradicate the need for any traveling.
3. Cost effectiveness: Organizing any events or physical meetings cost a lot and there are numerous challenges like finding a suitable venue, inviting and guiding attendees to the chosen location, fulfilling the complex logistic requirements associated with organizing such on-site events, investing heavily on their marketing strategy, arranging security, hiring food vendors and managing physical entry into meeting spaces. However, by hosting webinars through virtual event venues, organizers are relieved of the possible exponentially rising budgets involved in organizing physical meetings, and as a result, can concentrate on creating a rich and exciting attendee experience.
4. It enables the organizer to build a new list of contacts, as every attendee is a new and potential client.
5. It is a great platform for sharing expertise, information and product promotion to the target market.
6. Hosting effective webinars can be useful in building brand awareness and setting the brand voice.