Today, the webinar, specifically the ‘demand generation’ webinar, is more than a top content marketing staple; it is a proven way for publishers to bring more value to their readers and marketing partners, while at the same time optimise their revenue generation opportunities. If you’re not currently running a demand generation webinar program, I want to inspire you to do so.
While face-to-face conferences and pitches have been effective in the past, we can’t ignore the costs of travel and the value of people’s time any longer. By hosting and taking advantage of your own webinar, you can serve up information in real time, cutting across continents and time zones. Webinars level the playing field by bulking up even the smallest companies, because you have a much wider reach and a better chance to connect with prospective clients and partners without having to get on a plane or even in your car.
Well produced demand generation webinars allow publishers to leverage their brand, reputation, audience reach, content, and offer a new way of adding value to advertisers. This model allows attendees to register and attend for free, while the advertiser sponsors the webinar and pays a fee to the publisher for attracting the audience and producing the event.
A demand generation webinar is not about selling; rather, it’s about educating and making your audience more intelligent about a particular topic so they can make more informed decisions that ultimately influence the purchase of a sponsor’s products or services.
If the attendees gain value out of this information, after the webinar, they will become inspired to have a conversation with the sponsor to see if a deeper business relationship exists. It not only will help sponsors capture fresh new sales leads, it allows them to raise their brand’s awareness while promoting their thought leadership.
Choosing a topic
A good webinar can breathe life into existing content such as case studies, research reports, and whitepapers, etc. In the B2B world, there are three types of topics that will draw in an audience of anywhere in the mid hundreds to higher range, all of which are coveted by your sponsors to be able to reach and follow up on.
The first of these topics is a Case Study that discusses business improvement. This is usually presented by a client or partner of the sponsor, and focuses on outcomes rather than product features or pricing. The second topic is a how-to or tutorial, that educates the audience on something they weren’t aware of. A few examples are, how to use social media to attract more customers, or why manufactures who are still using legacy materials should consider the business case for composites.
Finally, the third and equally as powerful a topic is on industry trends, or compliance and standards of new laws – specifically the business impact these will have.
Any of these topics are great ways to attract an audience and are limited only by one’s imagination. Each creates a great way to tell a story that elegantly goes beyond sound bites and that audiences will find engaging.
My best tip for boosting registration and attendance is to make sure you choose topics that align with the above ideas. Remember, people are busy today, so make sure that your topic is a ‘must have’ and not a ‘nice to have’.
Effective email marketing
Because email marketing is a major tactic for attracting an audience, much of your value proposition to your advertisers is leveraging your opted-in database of readers to recruit to a webinar. While easy to overlook, the most critical part of your email invitation strategy is choosing a subject line that will grab attention. Simply put, if the recipient of your email doesn’t open the invite, there’s no way they’ll register. If you are going to feature top well-known thought leaders as part of the webinar, mention their names in the subject line as this will dramatically increase your open rates. Another important tip is to always have a clear set of deliverables that attendees will receive by attending.
After the webinar, conclude with a clear call to action on how they can get more info, or tips to get started on what was delivered, as well as some links to white papers, published case studies or videos or other webinars, and ways to continue the conversation with your sponsor after the webinar.
Maintaining audience interest
There are several best practices to maintain audience interest. One of the most effective ways is knowing your audience’s interests - something publishers know very well and this is an area where they can add tremendous value to sponsors by guiding them on what to focus on and what might come across as a sales pitch. Next, find speakers who are both credible and passionate about the topic. Rather than have them drone on and on with facts, spend time coaching them to have a conversation with the audience. Don’t let them fall into the ‘Death by PowerPoint’ syndrome by reading bullets from their slides. Boring speakers simply give the audience a reason to multi-task, check their emails or social media feeds instead of focusing on their message. Remember, people attend the webinar to be stimulated as well as entertained. They want to hear the speaker’s passion for the topic, not a boring monologue.
A great way to keep the webinar conversational is to have a skilled moderator (the publisher or editor are great moderator candidates) open the webinar by welcoming the audience and introducing the speakers. The moderator can even engage with the speakers in some conversation back and forth.
Good audio is vital
You should try to think of a webinar as a radio show with pictures. That being said, good audio is critical to your success. Poor audio is the Achilles heel of all virtual events, especially webinars. The speaker’s voice is their only connection to the audience. If the speaker is not optimally miked, or if there are echoes or subpar devices used such as an open mike on a PC or a speakerphone (which can make your speakers sound distant), you not only risk losing their interest, if it gets so bad, they’ll leave. This means you need to make sure your speakers are well rehearsed to come across as crisp and succinct to make their points.
Don’t Sell!!!
Remember: don’t sell, as it will turn off your audience’s big time. Do that after the webinar when you’ve gathered life cycle intelligence on your audience, such as how they voted in online polls, what questions they asked, as well as how they responded to a simple post webinar survey online, covering how the webinar met their expectations, what they liked most, what could have been done better, etc.
While there are many dos and don’ts for producing and delivering webinars, I’ve found that there are three webinar myths that need to be debunked for you to have successful outcomes. By not getting caught in these three myths, you will delight your audiences while meeting or exceeding your sponsor’s commercial objectives.
1. Myth #1 - Build it and they will come.
This is based on the well known movie, Field of Dreams. Webinars, like any event, require a lot of careful planning to produce and execute. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Using a proven deadline driven methodology, best practices and key webinar metrics are the best way to ensure you meet or exceed your commercial outcomes, while delighting your audience.
2. Myth #2 I’m a great presenter, I’ll just show up and wing it.
Wrong! Doing a virtual event where your speakers aren’t able to see the audience or get any feedback from facial expressions is a completely different experience than in-person events. Webinars, as mentioned above, are radio shows, but with pictures. Just like in radio, dead air or awkward silences are deadly. It takes a commitment of time to do sound checks, practice the flow and make sure that the content is engaging and will connect with the audience. It’s not so much about perfection as it is about connection with your audience.
3. Myth #3 – All attendees are ‘sales ready’ to buy now.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Many of the attendees are in various parts of their buying journey, and might not be ready to even determine if the offering that was discussed is for them. Webinar effectiveness is not simply about measuring how many new sales were closed. There are five other ways of measuring effectiveness, from being able to move a prospect to become a customer, up-sell and cross-sell to an existing base, growing the pipeline with fresh new sales leads, putting the sponsor on the map as a viable competitor, and by reaching new markets and geographies.
Being able to offer your sponsors a well-produced webinar that will allow them to attract the interest of your readers, while providing your readers with timely info to become better educated, is a true ‘win-win’ for the publisher, sponsor and readers. Whether you do the webinar in-house or outsource them to a webinar production partner, offering sponsored webinars will increase your value proposition to these three constituencies, and create a new stream of revenue for your publication.
Here’s to your webinar success!
WebAttract publishes a number of complimentary e-books on webinar strategies.
