COLUMNS | SALES & MARKETING
How to run an online educational event It’s hard to stand out from the crowd with traditional forms of promotion. Paul Watkins argues that running a live, online event is the way to go – and explains exactly how to go about it.
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hat is your advertising message? “We search out the best rates”; “We have access to over 20 lenders”; “We take the hassle away from you”; “We do the hard yards”. These are all real headlines I have seen in adviser advertising. Do they work? Maybe, maybe not. One thing is certain: they do not set you apart from the rest. Prospects want to be educated on the challenges and opportunities around mortgages, particularly right now with the markets and interest rates not behaving very predictably. So what’s one of the best things you can do? Offer an interactive education event – online. These go by various names including webinars, online seminars, educasts, webcasts and webisodes.
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TMM 03 | 2022
Whatever you call them, online events are booming right now, and the freely available technology makes them a piece of cake to run, as I will explain.
The how-to The basic idea is to advertise that you will be running one and they click your ad to register. They then attend at the nominated time, usually evenings, say at 7:30pm; and as these kinds of webinars are interactive, participants can ask questions by voice or in the chat. Typically, events like this would run for around 30 minutes. How do you run them? First pick your target group. These only work if you are very specific in who you want to attend. It could be first home buyers, aged 25 to 35. Or perhaps those wanting to
change houses in their 50s, or those about to enter retirement but who still have a mortgage. Then come up with a topic headline that is aimed directly at this group. For first home buyers it could be, ‘How the rules for first-home buyers have
‘Whatever you call them, online events are booming right now, and the freely available technology makes them a piece of cake to run’
