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If you want to charge for it, don’t call it a Webinar
From:
Jeff Cobb -- Lifelong Learning Jeff Cobb -- Lifelong Learning
For Immediate Release:
Dateline: Carrboro, NC
Monday, June 30, 2014

 

webinar-strategy
I’ve written before here about the inform-perform distinction as a way to differentiate Webinars for which you don’t charge from those for which you do. Here’s another, much simpler approach to Webinar strategy: if you want to charge for it, don’t call it a Webinar.
Two reasons:
1. Webinars at this point are either a marketing tool or a commodity (sometimes both)
2. Language matters
Call it an online short course. Or a virtual workshop. Or, best of all, don’t talk about the format at all other than to say that it is online. (See, for example, this offering from the Association for Talent Development (formerly ASTD). In this and other ATD programs the word “Webinar” is practically nowhere to be found.)
Just don’t call it a Webinar unless you want it to be perceived as something for which people expect to pay little, if anything.
Yes, I know: there are still plenty of exceptions. But having watched this market for years, it’s clear where the trend is heading. It’s past time to get ahead of it.
Jeff
P.S. – None of the above reduces the value of the inform-perform distinction (or, one step further, transform). In the end, if you want to charge for it, you will have to deliver clear learning value, not just information.
The post If you want to charge for it, don’t call it a Webinar appeared first on Tagoras.
Jeff Cobb is founder and managing director of Tagoras, a firm that provides expert strategy, marketing, and technology guidance to organizations in the lifelong learning and knowledge business. He is also author of Leading the Learning Revolution: The Expert's Guide to Capitalizing on the Exploding Lifelong Education Market (AMACOM, 2013). Cobb speaks and writes frequently on how new technologies and business models are transforming the global market for lifelong learning.
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Name: Jeff Cobb
Title: Managing Director
Group: Tagoras
Dateline: Carrboro, NC United States
Direct Phone: 919-201-7460
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