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As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the Be a Marketer podcast! New episodes every Thursday!
Today on episode 44 of the Be A Marketer podcast, it's another ask Dave episode, and I'm answering your questions about how to get more people to your webinars and trainings. This is the be a marketer podcast. When you started your business, you probably didn't realize how many hats you'd actually have to wear. All of a sudden, you have to be an owner. You have to be a boss.
Dave:You have to be the person making sure all the things go. All while making sure you're getting new customers to keep things going. And that means you also have to be a marketer. The good news, you don't have to be a marketer alone. I'm your host, Dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, and I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing.
Dave:And on this podcast, we'll explore how to find the time to be a marketer. No jargon, no hype, just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember friend, you can be a marketer. In a Constant Contact, we're here to help. Well, hello, friend, and thanks for joining me for another episode of the Be A Marketer podcast.
Dave:As always, I am grateful to have you here and to have your attention. And today, we have a question from John, and he is an educational technologist at a higher education facility. So I want you to thank a college campus where he supports training faculty and staff on the technology used to better educate students. So here's John's question. How can I engage faculty to come to higher education, instructional technology, webinars, and trainings?
Dave:John, thanks so much for the question. Now this question hits home with me on a couple of levels. 1, I host webinars all the time. And secondly, my wife is in higher education, and she participates in many of these trainings that you're talking about. So I can appreciate what it takes to create and promote great webinars, and I also understand the challenge of trying to engage people that, well, may not be interested.
Dave:Now for the sake of clarity for everyone else listening, at a high level, instructional technology represents a philosophy of teaching teachers how to transmit their expertise to students. At any rate, oof, John, you've got your work cut out for you. So here's how I'd like to start to think this through because I don't think it's as simple as just sending an email, for example. Now that's gonna be one component of it for sure, but there's actually a bunch of things that come together to really make that email work even harder for you. So here's what I'm thinking about.
Dave:You have to do some prework. You have to find your friendlies. You have to create engaging content. You have to get the word out, and you have to collect feedback. So let's dig into each of these items a bit.
Dave:You have to do some prework. So this means really digging in to find out what your people are interested in. What are their challenges? That way, you can tap into those things and position those webinars as solutions to help with those challenges. Now these can be done in 1 to 1 conversations, or you may wanna think about surveying your audience to get answers to those questions about the performance of the students.
Dave:Now I say the students because you're really treading a fine line here in terms of the ego. I'm sure not all, but many of your educators won't think that they're the problem in this scenario, but rather, it's the student's fault. So, sure, you can ask a question like what specific topics in instructional technology are you interested in learning more about, but I'd also ask some questions to better understand their challenges with students engaging with, retaining, and applying the material that they're learning about in class. So questions such as, what frustrates you most about your students' engagement in class? Then you can start to create those webinars and trainings that address those frustrations.
Dave:So, for example, and I'm making this up, but how to turn the phone into an engagement tool in the classroom. Now I should also mention that you have access to survey tools within your Constant Contact account. I'm gonna include a link with some details for you in the show notes. Okay. Next up, you have to find your friendlies.
Dave:So what do I mean by friendlies? Well, these are people that you've built relationships with already that you trust and can go to for support. Now this also includes the faculty you know who actually care and wanna participate in these trainings. Now these people can be a great resource for feedback on your webinar ideas and get more people involved with your programs. So don't go it alone.
Dave:Involve these friendlies as much as possible. It's really gonna make a difference. Next, you have to create engaging content. Now this sounds like a no brainer, but most webinars and trainings are boring. Sorry.
Dave:It's true. So you have to ask yourself, how can I present this content in an engaging way? Now we can also get a little bit meta here since we're talking about instructional technology. So I would employ the same tactics and strategies you want to teach faculty to use in their classes. Alright.
Dave:Also, don't forget, you have to get the word out. So think about what are all the ways you can make people aware of your webinar. Think about spreading the word 1 on 1, giving your friendlies the details so they can do the same, and also make a list of the internal channels that make sense to include the details. Also, think about what does the promotional timeline look like. So now we typically play with a 2 to 3 week window here when we're thinking about promoting a webinar or Constant Contact.
Dave:This gives us multiple opportunities to make sure that people see and act on the information by actually registering for the webinar. So let's use email an example. So a simple way to think about this would be to have an announcement of the webinar, a reminder about it, and then also you give people a last chance to register. So this 3 email series is helpful because the reality is people are thinking about their own stuff more than yours. So even if it's something that they wanna do, they can get distracted and not act.
Dave:So this gives them multiple opportunities. One other thing in regards to future webinars. If you know your webinar schedule and can provide registration details for the next session during the current session, do share it. You're gonna get some sign ups for that right away, particularly if they enjoyed your event or find value in it. So lastly, remember this.
Dave:You have to collect feedback. This way, you can get a sense of how people are responding to what you're doing. So if possible, I like to collect feedback or capture that feedback as people are leaving the webinar. If not, a follow-up email after the event can work too. Now I like to keep it simple with a max of 3 questions.
Dave:Number 1, what would you rate your experience with today's webinar content? Then you can allow people to rate the webinar content on a scale of 1 to 5. Number 2, please share the reason for your response in the previous question. Now this should be a short answer right in response, Then you'll start to hear the words people are using and what they actually think about the content. And 3, are there other topics you'd like to see covered in future webinars?
Dave:Now this is also a short answer right in response that gives you some ideas for things you might wanna think about covering in the future. Now these questions give you good feedback and, like I said, things to consider for the future. And you can use the good feedback in the form of anonymous quotes to help promote your future webinars because you can say, hey, look, other people are enjoying this as well. You will too. Right?
Dave:So now, I wanna give you a little warning here about feedback. Sometimes, in addition to being helpful, it can also be contradictory, hurtful, and sometimes unrelated. Now I mentioned this just so you can prepare yourself and, also know that you'll learn to recognize what's useful and what you can actually ignore. Okay. So let's recap what we've learned here today about engaging faculty to come to higher educational instructional technology webinars and trainings.
Dave:And I just wanna say the same applies for any type of webinar training or event that you might be wanting to send people to or get people to register for. So you wanna do some prework so you understand the needs and frustrations of your audience. You wanna find your friendlies. These are the people that you trust and can go to for feedback. You wanna create engaging content that is gonna keep the audience's attention.
Dave:You'll wanna get the word out by finding the right professional timeline and channels to make people aware of the events. And then, lastly, you'll wanna collect feedback to make improvements and promote future events. Well, John, I hope that helps, and thanks for sending in your question. Listener, did you know that you can manage and promote events directly from your Constant Contact account? Did you also know that you can create surveys just as easily as you can create emails?
Dave:Well, here you can. Hooray. I'll include links If you're a Constant Contact customer, you can head right on over to the Constant Contact community to post your question for an upcoming Ask Dave episode. And you guessed it. I'll include a link for you in the show notes.
Dave:I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. If you have questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me directly at dave.charestt@constantcontact dotcom. If you did enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show.
Dave:Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.