Web Business Marketing Blog

The promise of webinars

The recipe for a successful webinar programme is very similar to the one for conventional seminars:

1. a venue, i.e. a service provider allowing you to schedule webinars having their own landing page (it’s amazing how many webinar service providers fail to offer this feature)
2. a speaker, and a presentation
3. a host
4. an audience, which often proves to be the hardest part

Webinars are attractive for a number of reasons:

1. To organisers: easy to set up in minutes
2. To attendees: attend webinars from the comfort of your desk
3. To speakers: deliver a presentation from the comfort of your desk

As a result, webinars are cost-effective and time efficient, allowing industrial marketeers to increase market presence, reduce costs, save time. Webinars can even reach new audiences of individuals who would not travel to a seminar, or would not travel for your particular subject.

So where’s the catch?

High no-show ratio

First of all, to attendees, while being able to follow your webinar from the comfort of their desk, there is usually a wide variety of disturbances in the office. As a result, in our experience with organising over 100 webinars over the past 2 years, only 30-40% of registered attendees actually show up.

In addition to office noise, there are technical barriers (firewalls or install restrictions in large organisations) or cultural barriers (unfamiliarity with a new technique, or preference towards face-to-face interaction).

Finally, unlike seminars, webinars have no boundaries, and attract global audiences, adding time-zone confusion to the mix. No matter how well you communicate, there will always be a small portion of attendees showing up an hour early or late.

The quality of the lead

During seminars, you have direct contact with the lead and exchange business cards. Follow-up will never come as a surprise, and may even be expected. After webinars, you receive a list of names, e-mail addresses and whatever information you’ve choosen to collect in the registration process. Typically, you’ll get many more leads through a webinar, at a much lower cost, but leads are largely unqualified.

As a result, you may find that your sales people prefer seminars, where your marketing department goes for webinars. Seminars are a proven technique, providing high quality leads in the funnel leading to sales. Webinars are much more effective for positioning your organisation as a thought leader, building image and reputation.

The challenge of the webinar audience

A few ingredients for the recipe to attract an audience for your webinar:

1. A permission-based mailing list - it’s easier to build an audience if you have a few regulars
2. Post imminent webinars in a prominent position on your site
3. Find relevant community sites to promote the webinar
4. Mobilise your sales network - an upcoming webinar provides a good excuse for a sales person to call a hot lead

Seminars are planned months in advance, but for webinars, you build up an audience typically one week before the event.

After the webinar

Seminars peak at the event. But with webinars, there are many actions you can do after the event (source):

• After the webinar, you invite everyone on your registration list to participate in the online “conversation area” for that webinar subject.
• The “conversation area” contains the podcast for download, the slides for download, articles you or your company have written about complimentary subjects.
• Discussion Forums that the users can join to participate in further dialogue with others who are interested in extending the conversation - including you.
• A survey that allows you to learn what people think about the subject under discussion.
• Links to articles, white papers, eBooks and other stuff that’s relevant to the conversation
• A Share Your Thoughts option for people to post their own articles or ideas in relation to the topic and a way for users to comment on those posts.

Last but not least, consider publishing a webcast, i.e. a recorded version of the webinar for 24/7 viewing, which allow you to effectively clone your speakers, while attracting thousands of viewers. Branding does not get more cost-effective than that.