Why Choose Cloud Hosting: Reasons to Love the Cloud

This article was written by Garen Arnold, who is a graphic designer out of Kansas City, Missouri. Garen provides people with the Best Web Hosting Service by using his expertise to help people choose the best web hosting service for their business.

“Cloud” is the buzz word these days; or more specifically, “Cloud Hosting”; and it sounds a huge deal. Many consider it a revolution in technology infrastructure as more and more companies are shifting to cloud-hosted environments.

Among the reasons why cloud hosting is increasingly becoming the trend, the enormous cutbacks in infrastructure overhead stand out as the most prevalent motivating factor. This, of course, is an off-shoot of full server hardware redundancy, among other things, where companies substantially reduce expenditure on physical infrastructure.

Another “come-on” of cloud hosting is its flexibility and capability to instantly scale technology resources. And this is because cloud hosting is compatible to current applications amazingly as well as being capable of faster time-to-market new applications.

With this ongoing trends and statistics, business analysts predict that by 2012 cloud hosting would have captured 25% of all information technology spending.

What exactly is cloud hosting?

Cloud hosting is conceived from the concept of virtualization; where a single server is segregated into several virtual servers. Each virtual server is allocated specific portions of the server’s processing capability, memory and disk space. The concept is practical and simple. Your costs hinges on your actual usage and you don’t have to pay for server resources that you don’t use, as is mostly the case in other web hosting plans with underutilized servers. The fact that the resources are virtualized makes it easy to increase or decrease your allocations on the fly; which simply means you can scale up to a larger virtualized environment as your requirements grows or otherwise scale down if the demands are low. Pretty easy, isn’t it?

Brilliant minds take this concept a step further in cloud hosting. Instead of partitioning one server, multiple servers are linked together into a (gigabit) speed network. To bind them together, a grid operating system is installed on each server. The amazing result: it provides you with a built-in redundancy and the ability to scale resources on demand.

All the data you upload to a virtualized environment is mirrored in a ratio of 1:1 on every different physical server that is part of the cloud hosting network you’re under. That’s not all; the grid operating system is so set up that adequate spare resourced are reserved to hold out when one of the physical servers fails. When this occurs your data remains available, as other servers simply take the slack and the resources are restarted somewhere else in the cloud. You won’t even notice any difference because it all happens automatically and takes just about three to five minutes to get done.

You’ll Love It!

Not quite convinced cloud hosting will work for you? Read on and find out the details on how you can maximize your web hosting capabilities without spending a fortune.

Structured According to Your Specs. With cloud hosting, there’s no need to pay for what you don’t need. You can expand your resources – memory, processor and disk space – individually and autonomously, as the need arises. This allows you to keep your web hosting start up costs to a minimum because you only pay for what you use now; and not for anticipated needs in the future (that could lay idle for quite some time).

Automation Makes It Easy to Implement. A cloud server works like any other traditional servers and the system is fully automated. You are not required to learn any new technology methods nor create a new team to handle your applications, system updates and backups. The Cloud can be managed much the same way as the traditional server and the automation releases vital internal resources for high priority projects. Anybody you authorize can access information from anywhere. This means you can operate your business from any location you want.

Optimal Uptime with High Accessibility. The problem with traditional server is you could be offline for uncertain duration when something goes wrong. If the motherboard gets roasted or the hard drive conks out, it could take hours to revive the server – and there’s no real guarantee that your data will sustain its integrity by the time you’re back online. The Cloud is equipped with a self-healing architecture, in that your data is mirrored across a grid of cloud servers. Even if one of the servers fails, the data remains accessible and available. Your website automatically gets re-deployed to other servers on the Cloud within minutes. You can definitely kiss goodbye all your hair-pulling frustrations over extended downtime and data loss.

Scale Up or Down. The flexibility of cloud hosting allows you to make adjustments as you go along; thus gain more control over your web hosting expenditures. On the cloud, you can simply scale up the resources you need without having to migrate to another server. When the demands dwindle, you can just scale back down again; no sweat. And no further expenses, either. You only have to pay for what you use – when you use it.

Up-to-the-Minute Backup Solutions and Data Restorations. Even cloud hosting system can collapse at any time. With this in mind, the Cloud has to make copies of data as back up. This will assist the central server to retrieve lost data. Ever heard of snapshot backups? Well, you can say goodbye to traditional backup solutions because this is the trend now. The Cloud snaps a picture of your entire server; should the need arise for you to roll back to that snapshot, simply shut down the live environment and start the snapshot. Presto! You’re up and running in a matter of minutes. It’s like having standby servers that are fully configured and ready to operate on demand – but without the entailing expense.

Environment-Friendly. In the US alone, analysts estimate a colossal $14 billion per year cost on powering and cooling servers. This enormous energy consumption is mostly wasted on powering up underutilized servers. The Cloud provides a great level of energy efficiency with the significant decrease in power and cooling demands brought by the provision of multiple virtual servers in a single physical hardware and the subsequent reduction of data center space. Thus, a cloud hosting server has far less environmental impact than traditional servers. This makes cloud hosting an integral part of the campaign for a greener Internet environment.

Making too much money on the web? Then you don’t need to read any further.

But if you want to increase your web profits quickly, follow this one simple step – make sure you copywriting is professional. Good copy that properly promotes your products or services can be the difference between stellar and mediocre sales.

Whether you plan to write the sales copy yourself or hire a paid copywriter for the job, here is what you need to know to ensure that your copy is up to professional standard.

Target Audience

Write the sales copy with your target audience in mind. If you don’t know who your target audience, you had better go find out!

Collect demographical information about your prospects such as their age, likes and dislikes, hobbies, occupation, suburb of residence, and problems that they may be facing in their lives etc. Find out as much as you can about your visitors.

Your probability in converting prospects to sales will be much higher, if you understand the rational reasons that are driving their purchasing decisions. Knowing more about your prospects makes this process easier.

The Right Emotional Response

While logic plays its part in the decision to buy, there will also be underlying emotional reasons behind each and every purchasing decision. Often these emotional factors are more important than the rational factors – they can certainly be more powerful. (Is that 20 year old buying an iPhone because he needs all its functions, or because it makes him look cool in front of his friends?) So find out what these emotional reasons are for your product, and write your copy to address these emotional needs.

Tell a Story

People love a good story – preferably one which shares aspects of their own personal situation. Try sharing a good story about yourself that shows you are just like your customers in your sales copy to develop rapport with your target audience. Customers are much more likely to buy from a friend or peer than a stranger, and a good story is a great way to help them get to know you.

Strong Heading

Craft a strong heading that will get people to continue reading your copy. The majority of people won’t read past the heading and first paragraph of most web pages.

A strong heading demands their attention, and makes your readers want to know what you have to say.

First Paragraph

The first paragraph is also a crucial factor in whether a person continues to read your copy.

Put yourself in the shoes of your customer, and ask yourself whether the opening paragraph is informative and interesting enough to make them want to continue reading on. If the reader has learned something useful, or been entertained by your opening paragraph, the chances are good that he’ll keep going.

Providing Solutions

Your copy should outline the benefits of your product, and be able to provide a convincing solution to their problems. It’s OK to mention the features of a product, but people are really more interested in finding out how your product can help them. Show them how your product or service will make their lives better, and you are well on the way to making the sale.

Social Proof

Strong social proof demonstrated through the use of testimonials from happy customers is a powerful way to sell more products.

Social proof provides a higher level of assurance that your product can be trusted to deliver on its promises. If other people have bought your product and been satisfied with their purchases, then new prospects will be more inclined to believe that your product is right for them.

Money Back Guarantee

Take the risk out of purchasing your product by offering a money back guarantee for your product. This helps reduce the customer’s fear of getting ripped off, and increases the chances of making a sale. And if your product or service is good value for money, you will get very few people demanding a refund.

Conclusion

Which of the scenarios below do you think will sell more products?

(1) An excellent product with poor sales copy; or

(2) A good product with excellent sales copy?

The second scenario will come up trumps every time and increase sales for your business. Write copy professionally for your products and services using the above tips, and your business will soon have many more happy customers on its hands.

The bottom line is that your business is missing out if it is not taking advantage of social media to reach out to its customers and other businesses.

One social media channel that continues to escalate in popularity and gain constant media attention is none other than Facebook, the personal networking site. But Facebook is rapidly becoming an opportunity for companies to increase their profits as well!

Why use Facebook for your business? Here are a few good reasons in case you’re not convinced. Facebook has provided some quick statistics on its company:

• It currently has more than 150 million active users;

• There are over 900 million objects including pages, groups, events and community pages that people interact with in Facebook.

• There are more than 30 billion pieces of content on Facebook – i.e. web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, and photos that are shared each month by users;

• Facebook is widening its reach into new countries. It opened up shop in India last month, with more than 8 million new users enjoying the social application;

• Facebook is still expanding its features – it launched its location based social networking service “Places” last month. With the weight of Facebook behind it, Places is sure to give competitors FourSquare and Gowalla a run for their money.

Getting Started

Here are some things you can do to get your business off to a flying start on Facebook:

Create a Thriving Community on Fan Page

Set up a Fan Page to establish your business presence. Creating a Fan Page will provide your business with the opportunity to let Facebook users know what your business is about and to create a thriving community for your business.

What does your Wall say about your Business?

Create a Wall on Facebook and interact by publishing regular comments and interacting with users who post on your wall. It’s like a collage of what your business does – sharing interesting news and snippets, and reporting on the activities of your company.

Upload photos and videos to Facebook to showcase your activities and tell others what your business is about. If you have a local “bricks and mortar” business, then publish interesting photos of your shopfront or products that you sell.

Providing a channel for commenting is an easy way to generate feedback from your customers about their likes and dislikes for your products.

Lead Generation

Facebook is also useful for lead generation. Create an opt in box on your Fan Page, so that subscribers can opt in to receive a free report or other special offerings from your business.

Be Personal

Facebook thrives on the social element and frequent interactions amongst users. People are interested to know the people behind a business. Consider posting photos of yourself and staff members to highlight the human face of your company.

It’s about your Brand

Have a clear strategy about why your business is using Facebook.

Some of the popular reasons why businesses use Facebook include the following:

• to increase recognition of their brand;

• to engage with others about what their business does;

• to obtain feedback from their customers in a easy, informal manner;

• to expand business networks and connect with other businesses for future partnering arrangements;

• to show the human side of their company by having fun on the Internet through a popular social medium.

Add Facebook to your Website

Add Facebook to your site by installing a suitable Facebook plugin on your website. That way, customers who arrive on your website or blog will know that they can visit  your business on Facebook.

User engagement is the key to using Facebook to successfully promote your business. You’ll be missing out on crucial customer leads if your business doesn’t have a Facebook presence. Don’t miss out on the business marketing opportunity of a lifetime!

Please share your experiences about how your business uses Facebook.

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Dream big, love everyone and pursue happiness!

-Ian

If your company uses Twitter, there are many good applications that can be used to enhance your business activities. Trendsmap is a great example of this – an application that can monitor trends in your industry based on real time Tweets.

Trendsmap can be used to track local news and events, media coverage, and relevant business news in your industry. It can also be used to identify current and future trends in your industry, to find other people’s opinions, and to expand your business network by connecting with people through Twitter.

Trendsmap provides a cool visual presentation of the most relevant real time Tweets that are occurring based on your user profile location.

Here are some useful tips on how to use Trendsmap effectively for your business:

Find Popular Topics

• Tweets shown on the map vary in color – the Tweets that display in darker colors and in bigger font on the Trendsmap belong to the more popular topics. You can turn to Trendsmap for guidance on how to view hot topics around the world and to display Tweets for specific locations.

Drill down on Information

Click on the Tweet topics displayed in the map and drill down on a topic that grabs your attention to read the latest tweets about that subject. The filter function can be used to find topics based on your own keywords or search terms.

Specify your Location

• Trendsmap uses Google’s geolocation software to display Tweets taking into account your location. The application provides a global, regional or city view. Trendsmap works best when more detailed information is provided about your location, e.g. your location specified by city and country.

• Tweet real time information may not be as accurate if a location is too broad, so giving your city location is a good idea. Note that if you live in a location with low volume activity, then Tweets from this location may not show up on the map.

Navigate Your Way

• Tweets are displayed all over the map for a wide range of topics. Try using the zoom function to zoom in and out on various Tweets, and to find topics that are of interest to your business.

If you are already using Twitter for your business, consider using Trendsmap as part of your arsenal of Twitter applications. I like Trendsmap for its visual appeal and because it can provide a snapshot view of the latest trends in your industry or on a topic quickly and easily, but with the ability to drill down to get more detail. Find out what’s hot in your industry on Trendsmap!

Mobile marketing is on the move as businesses discover the benefits of advertising to mobile phone users with convenient access to web browsers. As mobile ownership is on the increase world wide, the opportunity is ripe for businesses to promote their products and services through mobile marketing.

Trends

In its latest report on “Internet Trends” (April 2010), Morgan Stanley reported that the use of the Internet remains robust with 5 countries representing over 40% of the world’s usage. In 2009, Internet users from the USA and the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China alone totaled 1.8 billion people. (Source: Morgan Stanley Research)

Morgan Stanley has also predicted that:

“Mobile will be Bigger than Desktop Internet in 5 years”

Mobile advertising is predicted to surpass advertising spend on current online search and content networks in the near future.

It is gaining momentum due to its ability to reach a wider and more targeted audience compared to TV, radio, billboards, newspapers and other forms of online advertising.

Text messaging via mobile phones is a convenient way in which to distribute your business’ advertising message. It also tends to produce a higher open response rate in comparison to more traditional forms of marketing.

Higher Open Response Rates

Gauher Chaudry, a well established online marketer stated in his recent report on “Making Money with Mobile Marketing” (2010) that:

• “Mobile marketing generates a 15% – 20% response vs a 1% response with conventional media.”

• “Mobile marketing works because advertisers have better control of their marketing message. In fact, text messages have an open rate of 97%.”

Drive traffic and increase sales conversion rates

Alex Barza in a report titled “Fortune 100 Retailer Discovers Mobile Traffic and Harnesses Potential with Google Mobile Ads”  reported impressive results by a Fortune 100 company which adopted mobile marketing:

“Discovered that three of the top ten sources of visitors were coming from high end mobile phones such as the Iphone, Android, and Palm.”

“Looking further into eCommerce tracking, Alex also realized that not only was the retailer seeing a lot of mobile traffic, but that the traffic was converting to online sales.”

“Within the first three months of investing in mobile search advertising, the retailer saw almost a 6:1 return on their investment.”

Next Steps

A business owner who wants use to mobile marketing should take the next steps to:

Find suitable Mobile Advertising Network(s)

There are many mobile advertising networks to sign up with. Consider the objectives of your marketing mobile campaign to assess which network suits your requirements.

Advertising networks include AdMob, iAd, Jumptap, AOL, Google, Yahoo!, and Nokia, amongst many others.

Optimize Web Pages

Optimize your business’ web pages so that they can be suitably tailored to display ads for mobile web browsers. Ensure that visiting your business website is a user friendly experience for all browser types, including mobile users.

Promote your Local Business

There are huge opportunities for businesses to advertise to people who are searching for location based services. Many people use their mobiles to find businesses when they are on the go. For example, a person is out and about and needs to locate a good restaurant quickly that is convenient to their location – your mobile ad may just be the trigger to prompt a visit to your restaurant.

Marketing Mix

Aim to include mobile marketing as part of your overall marketing mix – determine your business objectives and set a budget for your mobile marketing campaign as part of your overall advertising spend.

Ensure that the message delivered through mobile marketing is consistent with your corporate brand. Regardless of your marketing efforts – both online and traditional – a consistent message should be conveyed to your prospects and customers.

Mobile marketing is a powerful marketing tool for your business. It’s a trend that is here to stay and the time is ripe for your business to increase brand awareness, traffic, sales, and profits by marketing to the ever increasing number of mobile consumers.

If you blog for your own website, you would have at one point or other thought about the anatomy of a good blog post. What separates the good, the bad, and the ugly? What makes a blog sticky, so that people will read it all the way through to the end?

Blogging is a writing form that has its own unique set of rules which are different from other forms of writing such as print media.

Here are some useful tips to help you write that next sticky blog post:

Catchy Headings

Try to come up with a catchy heading – when I first started writing this post, the initial heading was simply “How to write a blog post”. Boring! The title would certainly convey the essence of the blog post, but it doesn’t do a great deal to grab a potential reader’s attention. So I came up with the current title, which I hope has succeeded in getting you to continue reading my post!

Valuable Content

Assuming you have been successful with coming up with a catchy title for your blog post, the next step is to encourage your readers to read on. So the quality of the first few paragraphs of your post will be critical in determining whether a reader continues to read what you have to say. If you can make it informative and entertaining, you have a great recipe for holding people’s attention all the way through your post.

Content is a powerful marketing tool on the internet. Your subscribers will appreciate content which is informative, but unless they are reading all of what you write, they are not getting everything you have to offer.  The ability to provide valuable content presented in an engaging style will help your business to grow its followers each day.

Types of Blog Posts

As well as writing blog posts in a standard paragraph style, try using a variety of formats for different posts. Bullet points and lists are a couple of popular blog post types, since these formats allow a reader to quickly scroll through a post and pick up the essentials. Many Internet users use a scanning style when reading web pages, and bullet points and lists allow these types of readers to get the gist of an article without getting stuck in the detail.

Sub Headings

Use heading tags to format the sub headings in your article. Using sub-headings to highlight the key points in your article will again allow readers to quickly scan through a post and spot the key points that they are interested in.

Length of Post

A good length to aim for is a blog post of around 400 to 600 words. A minimum would be around 250 words and a maximum of 1000 words. Too short and you haven’t got enough time to explain anything properly (and your readers may feel short changed), too long and you risk losing people’s attention.

Your Writing Style

Keep the style of writing your blog post informal – it’s not an academic exercise! Blog writing tends to be casual in style, and often conversational in nature – as if you were talking to a friend. Although a blog style is relatively informal, the use of proper grammar and spelling is still important – imagine that you are talking to a friend, not texting!

Visuals

Spruce up your blog post with a good photo or two or by adding an entertaining video to your blog post. Ensure that the image selected is appropriate to your article and well positioned to enhance your post. Photos that tie in with key points in your post are especially good, since they provide another way for your lazy readers to quickly pick up the key points you are making.

Photos can be sourced from popular photo sites such as istockphoto or through Flickr. YouTube is a popular source of videos for blog posts. When sourcing images or videos from external sources, check to make sure that you are not breaching anybody’s copyright.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Apply search engine optimization (SEO) to your blog posts by following the basic principles of good SEO. For each blog post, ensure that you include an appropriate meta tag and description. While this may not be important for your readers, the search engines will love you for it.

Format

If you have been applying my tips for writing a sticky blog post thus far, you would have written a nice catchy title and a strong opening paragraph or two. The middle part of your blog post may expand on your earlier paragraphs or provided some additional points for the reader to consider. It’s now time to complete your post with a conclusion and a call to action.

Conclusion / Call to Action

A number of readers will read the title of a blog post, the opening paragraph or two, and then scan straight through to the conclusion of the post. Your conclusion should convey the overall message of your post in order to give these readers a sense of having “got it”.

Many blog posts also finish with a “call to action”. This could be one of any number of calls to action – such as subscribing to a newsletter, or asking for your reader’s opinion on the blog post issue at hand.

So when writing your next post, start with a catchy title, a strong opening paragraph or two, an entertaining middle section, and a good wrap up in your conclusion, and you won’t go wrong. Add a little extra polish with photos or videos, and you’ll definitely have a winner!

Please share your tips on writing a sticky blog post.

Listing your business in an online directory is one popular method for driving traffic to your site. The more places that your business can be found on the Internet, the better your chances are of attracting visitors to your website, and of converting them into customers.

But are all directories of equal benefit to your business?

There are many directories to choose from where you can list your business. Here are some important factors to consider when assessing the merits of a business directory:

Authoritative

Try to locate reputable and authoritative directories to list your website URL in. An authoritative directory will usually rank high in the search engines, and be visited on a regular basis by both visitors and search engine bots. DMOZ and the Yahoo! Directory are a couple of the top directories that have high authority, have been online for many years, and are well trusted.

Page Rank

Authoritative directories usually have a high page rank. The search engines will crawl through and index the pages of a high page ranked website on a more regular basis than a low ranked one. This means that if your business is listed in an authoritative directory, then the search engines will find and index it much faster.

Automated or Manual Editing

Look to submit to directories that manually edit submissions. These

directories have editors who will review your directory submission on an individual basis. As time is taken to ensure that your submission meets the directory’s requirements, these directories tend to be of a higher quality and standard.

In comparison, a directory that allows people to list businesses using automated software will tend to be a poor quality one. These type of directories are often not checked for the quality of their listings, resulting in a diluting of the quality of the directory, and subsequently these directories tend to be down ranked by search engines.

Industry Relevant and Regional Specific

Choose directories that are relevant to your business’ industry. For example, if you run a plumbing business in Pasadena, try to find a Local Business Directory that specializes in providing listings for tradesmen in Pasadena.

Directory Submission Tips

Once you have selected suitable directories to list your business, you need to make sure that your listings are structured to give you the best results possible.  Here are some useful tips on creating an effective business listing.

Categories

Choose appropriate categories and subcategories within a directory. For example, if listing your business in a directory such as Yahoo! Directory, choose the most relevant category and sub categories to help your business be found in the listings.

Your business may provide computer services (i.e. the Computers category) but specialize in hardware, software, and programming (sub categories of Computer). Ensure that you can be found in all the appropriate sub categories and not just one broad category.

Website Description

People will search the directories for subjects and for specific businesses that can meet their requirements. To maximize your chances of being found in the directory, use popular search strings and keywords to describe your business. A good starting point is to imagine what you would expect a user to type into a search engine to find your business in a search engine, and use those keywords.

Getting your business listed in high quality directories is a great strategy for driving visitors to your website and increasing your business’ online presence.

Good content is an essential criteria for your business website. There are many formats of contents to consider such as full feature articles, blog posts, videos and audio.

YouTube is testament to the massive popularity of videos, as videos that go viral can receive millions of views over a short space of time.

Here are some tips on streaming videos onto your company website:

Cater to different Visitor Preferences

Some people like to read, others like to listen, and others like to watch. If you place content on your website using a range of formats, your business will be able to cater to a wider audience to suit different preferences for consuming content.

Get Personal

Videos can effectively communicate to prospects at a more personal level. Your prospects and customers will get to know the face behind your business. Customers are interested to know whether you are an expert in the subject matter, and to glean information about how professionally your business is run. These are all important factors to help gain the trust and authority of your prospects.

Capture Your Visitors Attention

Streaming a video on your website may better capture the attention of a visitor than a blog post. Hopefully your video captivates their attention so that they want to watch it till the end. For the segment of your audience who find it tedious to read a detailed article, videos may provide some fun content that is still able to convey your core message.

If the video helps your visitor to engage with your brand, it will increase the likelihood that they might read other content on your website, whether it be your blog, articles on your website, or podcasts.

Call to Action

A video could be streamed onto your website as a call to action. Perhaps you want to communicate to the customers about how your product can help them solve their problem. Consider a video based on topics of interest to your viewers and prospects. The call to action in your video may be to purchase your product. Firstly, provide good content and if your product is of a high quality, the viewer may already be convinced that they want to purchase the product without doing any “hard” selling.

Streaming Time

Ensure that your video can stream quickly. If your visitor has to wait too long for the video to stream from your website, they will leave without a moment’s notice.

Video Circulation

Circulate your videos through services like Vimeo and Viddler. These services will distribute your video throughout the Internet to many different websites. This strategy will help increase your business reach on the internet and increase exposure for your website.

Hosting Services

Consider hosting your videos on a service like Amazon S3 Hosting. If you plan on streaming multiple videos on your website, consider the use of a reliable service such as this.

Create Engaging Videos

People are also looking to watch the videos for many reasons: to be informed, to be entertained. Consider the type of image you want to portray to prospects about what your business does.

Videos are a great way to engage with prospects. If done well they can improve your branding and increase your customer base.

Has your business held a webinar recently to engage with your customers or partners?

If you have never attended a webinar before or held one for your business, it might be time to get serious about adding webinars to your arsenal of online marketing techniques.

A report titled “Engage! How to avoid the seven sins of live, online presentations.” prepared for Citrix Online, August 2009 by the 1080 Group, LLC reported that webinars have reached the tipping point, stating that “Among respondents surveyed, 91% have attended a webinar, and in the next six months they expect to grow their own use of webinars by 148%, from an average of 2.1 per month to 5.2 per month.”

The report surveyed 600 professionals to find out their challenges in delivering powerful, engaging presentations to audiences that were not physically in attendance at a live “in person” event.

Why Hold a Webinar?

Webinars or teleseminars can be usefully applied by businesses in the following ways:

• To communicate on a regular basis with clients and partners of your business;

• To educate your target audience on a subject;

• To provide informative content to your audience in your area of expertise;

• To help establish relationships with your prospective customers and future business partners.

Brand Recognition

For businesses that have just launched their online presence, webinars are a good way to get the word out about your business and to improve brand recognition. It’s also a great way to establish new relationships with potential customers and to find future business partners.

Relationship Building

People who are interested to develop a long-term business relationship with your business will want to get to know you and your company better. Attendees will be able to learn more about you on a webinar than just from a web page, and by the same token, you will be able to find out more about them.

Webinars are often given as a free service to prospects, though some companies do provide paid webinars as well. Attendees are enticed to sign up because they are interested in acquiring new knowledge, or are attracted by what services you or your company has to offer.

Content

Webinars are often packed with informative content for attendees. As a business owner, think of a recent webinar that you attended for your business. Think about why you decided to attend the webinar – it’s not likely that you signed up for it just to attend a sale pitch for a product or service – you could have just gone on to a website and purchased the product or service if that was all you wanted. Chances are that you attended the webinar to acquire knowledge about a subject of interest to you.

Keep in mind that sharing good content is one of the main purposes for holding a webinar, as far as your customers are concerned. It’s OK to inform clients about the types of services that your business has to offer during a webinar, or to quickly survey your attendees about a particular aspect of your business, but your webinar will need to have plenty of informative content to attract attendees to your event, and to keep them listening.

Trust

It’s the trust that you build with your attendees by consistently providing great content in webinars that will help to increase sales for your business down the track. So stay focused on the long term benefits to be achieved for your business before setting about to plan a webinar for your business – don’t forget that webinars are a tool for building better relationships with your customers. Don’t risk harming that relationship by running a webinar that is really just a thinly disguised advertisement for your business.