If you’re a financial advisor, your world was probably rocked in the last few months. Less in-office meetings with clients, less in-person events. As a result, you’ve had to adapt.
One of the best ways to take advantage of the current climate is by hosting webinars, or virtual seminars, for prospects. Many prospects have lots of questions about what to do with their retirement plans and portfolios in light of the market. You need to position your practice as the one who can answer, and webinars make that clear right off the bat.
But should you host a live webinar, or should you record and upload it for people to watch later? There’s pros and cons to each.
Live Webinars
The obvious benefit to a live webinar is you get real-time interaction with your prospects. If they have a question, you can respond immediately. Of course, that alone can be a reason not to do it live. If you’re worried about someone derailing the conversation by posting too much in the comments, live may not be your best bet.
But another benefits to live webinars means you have a captive audience, meaning you should be able to close with multiple scheduled appointments before the webinar ends. That said, don’t forget how difficult it is to hold someone’s full attention through a tiny screen. It’s a world away from presenting live. The deal breaker, however, may be your level of comfort in technology. From a technology standpoint, anything could go wrong during your webinar. Even if it’s not a problem on your end, your attendees could be having problems of their own, which will impair you getting your message across.
Live webinars are a high-risk, high-reward scenario. If you’re confident in your ability to present live over the internet and comfortable with your grasp of technology, live webinars may be for you so that you can sign up multiple virtual appointments at once. If not, recorded webinars could be the way to go.
Recorded Webinars
Webinars that aren’t live offer the flipside of everything live webinars don’t. You can record your webinar at your speed and on your own time. Multiple takes mean you can nail the presentation just right without any technology hiccups getting in your way.
Another plus is you can make your recorded webinar available to many more followers than would ordinarily sign up. You can do that after the fact with a live webinar, too, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to fix any problems that go wrong. A recorded webinar offers the opportunity to share the perfect presentation, and your audience can watch it whenever they wish and their own convenience.But then – there’s the downside. It’s much harder to close or get sign ups for an appointment with a recorded webinar than a live one. The audience isn’t captive if they’re watching a recording of you. Because of that, though recorded webinars can be very useful as a free download or helpful content, they may not help you get in front of your next client.
So which is better – live or recorded webinars? The answers depends on your skill set, level of comfort with technology, goals and presentation style. Whatever you choose, Impact Partnership can help you set your webinar up for success so you can keep growing your practice and hitting your goals.
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