Webinars – What’s the Attraction?

I Googled the word “webinars” the other day and came up with 8,270,000 results.  What in the world are all of these webinars about?  Who’s going to these and why?  I was fascinated and decided to dig a little deeper.

While most of the webinars I looked at were high-tech related, there are an increasing number of different industries using webinars as a way to reach their audiences.  So, in a very unscientific study, I tried different key words with webinar, just to see what would come up.  Here are some selected results:

• Plastic Surgery Webinars:  88,500 results
• Real Estate Webinars: 386,000 results
• Retirement Webinars:  144,000 results
• Finance Webinars: 399,000 results
• Construction Webinars: 325,000 results
• Gardening Webinars:  366,000 results

 Well, it seems there are webinars out there for almost any interest.  Keep in mind that the number of results in no way represents the number of webinars.  For example the entry “love webinars” brings back 262,000 results.  However, many of them include terms such as “I love webinars”, so take all results with a grain of salt.  Still, I can’t help thinking that webinars as a means of communicating with a far-reaching audience is spreading across category boundaries. 

What are the characteristics of webinars that make them so appealing to such a broad population of users?

• They’re convenient.  One can log into a webinar from the privacy of their office and instantly be connected to a group of like-minded individuals ready to listen to an expert in their field – all without travel expenses.
• They’re informative.  While webinar registration might be open to all, it’s always still feels like I’m getting the “inside scoop” by attending a well designed webinar with a title that promises information that appeals to me.
• They can be both anonymous and participatory at the attendee’s discretion.  Sometimes it pays to just silently listen.  Other times you may wish to jump in and ask questions or enter into a discussion while you have an expert on hand.
• They’re easy to attend (and to exit).  The latest webinar software has made it quite painless to attend and leaving is as easy as hanging up.
• They’re revealing. Thinking of purchasing something from a vendor?  It pays to attend a webinar to see what they’re all about.  While many webinars are scripted (some terribly overly scripted), most of the time the speaker’s true personality and that of the company is bound to come out.  I actually think the Q&A portion of most webinars is the most revealing.

 In all fairness, is there a down side to webinars?  Well, yes there is.  Since no good things in life are free, you will no doubt be the recipient of at minimum an email inquiry or perhaps a phone call from the sponsoring vendor of the webinar attempting to gauge your interest in their product.  In my opinion, this is a small price to pay if you’ve gained some valuable knowledge from the event.

In my final search of unique webinars, I happened to be watching TV when an ad for a new kind of mop came on.  On a lark I googled “mop webinars” and sure enough, there are webinars given to explain the many benefits of a certain type of mop.  My mop search garnered over 2,700 results, but come to find that MOP is an acronym for many different things besides what you drag across your kitchen floor (Meta Object Protocol, Millionaire On Paper, My Own Prison).  However, I can verify that at least one of the webinars was about the floor variety.

Do you have an interesting story about an unusual webinar topic?  I’d love to hear about it.