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Written by the Heinz Marketing Team heinzmarketing SECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARSSECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARS The venerable webinar has become almost as core to most B2B marketing programs as white papers and straight batch-and-send email campaigns. And while some consider them clich and stale, world-class marketers know that webinars can still be a highly effective and scalable means of driving significant volumes of qualified leads into their sales teams pipeline. Webinars are often also a mainstay of a companys content marketing and lead nurturing efforts. This best practice guide covers a variety of elements surrounding successful webinar strategy and execution from content and planning to campaign management, day-of execution and follow-up. Any marketing channel, strategy or tactic can become redundant and stale if you execute like everyone else. We hope this best practice guide helps you invigorate your webinars and drive significant new value to your pipeline and organization. Eight Ways to Make Your Webinars More Compelling Best Practices For Successful Lead Generation Webinars Could This Single Copy Change Double Your Webinar Registration? Didnt Complete The Registration Form? Send Them The Offer Anyway! Five Ways To Prove Your Next Webinar Isnt Going To Suck Four Critical Components To Maximize Webinar ROI How To Get Others To Promote Your Webinar For You Is Your Webinar Vanilla Or Hot Fudge? Five Ways To Scale Your Online Event ROI Quick Tactic To Engage Webinar Registrants Beforehand (And Increase Attendance Rates Too) Three Alternative Webinar Formats That Work Why Bullet Points On Webinar Slides Are OK CONTENTS 2 |4 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 13 | 14 | 15 | SECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARS Heinz Marketing, Inc. SECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARSSECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARS 2 If you thought last year was the year of the webinar, wait till you see this year. More and more companies are discovering the power of webinars as educational, thought leadership and lead generation tools. And that means youre likely going to be inundated even more in 2014 with webinar offers. As a marketer, this doesnt mean you should pull webinars from your marketing mix. Far from it, as they can still be incredibly powerful, foundationaltools. You just need to execute better. Below are eight ways to make your webinars more compelling, help them stand out from the crowd, and increase their power to attract and convert prospects into followers, opportunities and closed business 1. Choose a narrower target audience If youre trying to get as many attendees as humanly possible, you might be shooting for too wide of an audience. Narrowing your focus to a more specific target audience will help you hone the message, value proposition and appeal of the event more specifically to a particular group of prospects, decision-makers and/or influencers. Focus on quality of content and audience, and not always the highest possible registration volume. 2. Solve Problems vs Describing Products Unless youve promoted it specifically as a demo event, dont waste time describing or promoting your product. Your company or product can be a sponsor of the event, but use the webinar to address and solve problems your customers have. Help them think differently about something they already struggle with. If youre trying to introduce a solution, you might be doing so out of context or too early, when the prospect doesnt yet understand or respect its ability to solve their problems. 3. Make Your Points More Immediately Actionable and Tactical Were all busy people, and have tons to get done. So if your webinar can help me get those things done, Im all ears. But that typically means they need to focus on content thats very actionable and tactical, including best practices that can immediately right nowhelp me do my job better. Leave the theoretical discussions for another event. The more actionable your webinar, the more attractive it will be for busy prospects. 4. Make it Really Clear What People Will Learn Every good webinar description needs a clear, short “you will learn” section. Ideally, this is a bullet list at least three or four points long. It should enumerate some specific, actionable EIGHT WAYS TO MAKE YOUR WEBINARS MORE COMPELLINGSECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARS 3 things people will take away by attending. This is tactical but critical. Scanners wont read your two-paragraph warm-up copy. They want to know, quickly, what theyll get out of it. If your bullet list passes the sniff test, theyll register. 5. Tease the Reader with Quality, Pre-Event Content If your webinar will feature a prominent expert, author or speaker, why not publish a short Q&A with that presenter on your blog a week or so beforehand? If youre going to feature a top ten list of tips to do X, why not feature the first couple on your blog as well? Think about how you can use your additional content, social and marketing channels to share snippets of content relative to the presentation, and drive additional demand, interest and registrations. 6. Create an Extra Incentive or Offer to Attend Live Is there something you could make available only to those who attend live? Something like an extra white paper or free research report or e-copy of the speakers book? Something of value without a ton of incremental hard cost to you, but makes it that much more likely someone will 1) register, and 2) actually show up. 7. Build the Presentation for Skimmers We all do it. Attend webinars while multi-tasking with something else. We listen, sort of, while checking email or flipping through RSS feeds. We arent going to change this behavior, so we might as well optimize our webinars to accommodate. So if you take too long to make a point, those multi-tasking might miss it. But if you format and present your content with skimmers in mind (think top ten lists, highlighted subsections, well-formatted and clear divisions between points), youre more likely to get the point across to more people. And, bonus, skimmer-focused webinar content typically works much better for subsequent, on-demand viewers of the recording. 8. Have a Plan for Takeaways Think beyond just a copy of the deck and recording. Could you summarize your main points in a one-page PDF? Create a checklist of to-dos and action items out of the event? For attendees and non-attendees alike, make it easy to distribute, pass along and digest the content in shorter, more efficient formats.SECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARS 4 The use of Webinars to engage prospective customers and generate leads has increased exponentially over the past year. As such, best practices for making them successful for lead generation have become clear. Here are several recommendations for planning and executing Webinars that develop thought leadership for your business, and qualified leads for your sales team. PLANNING Have a bias for action. Get in there and get started. Dont worry about getting hundreds of prospects on the call. Dont worry about making everything perfect. No matter how much time you spend planning, your first couple Webinars will be a learning experience. Know your audience, know your content, and get out there and start executing. Pick the right day and time. Customize this based on when your audience is most likely to be available. For example, dont plan on reaching sales professionals at the end of the month, or accounting targets at the start of a new month. Avoid Mondays and Fridays. 10:00 Pacific time is a generally good time (1:00 on the East Coast, avoid lunch on both coasts). Scan for existing conflicts. Before locking in your day and time, check to make sure there arent existing conferences, holidays or other Webinars planned for the same audience at the same day and time. Choose a third-party speaker. Even if the topics youve chosen are well-known to employees, pick someone outside the company to give the presentation. Itll come across far more credibly if its seen as “independent”, and youll likely get a higher registration rate by further separating the content from your sales pitch. Ask for content feedback from registrants. As you register attendees, ask them for specific up-front questions or requests based on your general topic. For example, if youre doing a Webinar on health care reform for HR professionals, ask them what specific questions they have. As you see patterns in their answers, youll know how to customize your content and presentation to make it even more relevant. EXECUTION Teach, dont preach. Everything about an effective Webinar should be value-added to the audience. Make sure they walk away with knowledge, insights and specific ideas that can help themboth immediately and long- term. As such, make your content easy to digest. Top 10 lists are greateasy to follow along, and easy to pull next steps from. Dont demo. Unless youve promoted the Webinar explicitly as an online demo of your product or service, dont spent time showing much of the product. Your product should be a natural next step to what BEST PRACTICES FOR SUCCESSFUL LEAD GENERATION WEBINARSSECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARS 5 youve presented. If your content has set up and addressed the problem, the pain, the challenge, or the current situation your customers are in, it will intensify the need for what youre selling. If your Webinar content is done well, it will organically drive more attendees to want to see what you can offer to help them Be interactive. Change the format, the speaker, the visuals on a regular basis to keep your viewers engaged. If you have a specific guest speaker, consider presenting in a Q&A format so that different people are speaking. This change in voice will keep people following. Consider also interjecting video or other visual tools in between slides. Ask qualifying questions. Use your Webinar services polling services to ask questions within the Webinar. You can use these answers to customize follow-on content, ensure what youre addressing is reaching and resonating with viewers,and also qualify attendees as leads for post-event follow-up. Be ready for the Q&A. At the end of a good Webinar, attendees can ask questions. But sometimes they need to be warmed up. Have a few “canned” questions ready to address “from the audience” right away. Believe me, this will help other attendees feel comfortable raising their own hands with more questions. FOLLOW UP Treat registrants the same as attendees. To a large extent, whether or not the registrant actually attended the live event isnt important. Whats more important is that they resonated enough with the topic to register and put it on their calendar. That relevance means they likely have a need for the content (and solution) youre offering. Everyone who registers for your Webinar (not just the 55 percent who actually attend) can be a good prospect. Follow up quickly. Dont let those leads go more than three days without a follow-up call. Make the follow-up value -added as well. Ensure the content was valuable, ask if they have additional questions, offer an “additional” article, white paper or other content related to the topic. Make materials available for free. Provide the slides, notes, transcript etc to attendees, registrants and anyone else for free. Put it on SlideShare, post it on your blog, make it as easy to access and pass along as possible. Conduct and record a post mortem. What went well? What could have gone better? Capture this information quickly (ideally the same day as the Webinar) to ensure youre improving the next time. SECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARS 6 Its oftentimes the simplest of changes that can give you the greatest lift in performance or results. For example, check out this webinar offer from Ralf VonSosen, Julio Viskovich, Colleen Honan, Gerhard Gschwandtner, Craig Elias and Jamie Shanks. The topic sounds great, but my favorite part comes after the pitch, with this line: “Register even if you cant make the live event so you receive the recording and the handout” How many times do you get a webinar offer but cant make the day and time? Or dont have time to look it up on your calendar? But youre still interested in the topic? Your prospects think this way too. How much higher could your registration conversion rates be if you added the line above? Smart. COULD THIS SINGLE COPY CHANGE DOUBLE YOUR WEBINAR REGISTRATION? DIDNT COMPLETE THE REGISTRATION FORM? SEND THEM THE OFFER ANYWAY! There are a ton of shiny objects in demand generation. Good looking headlines and offers that get our attention, but not quite the conversion. Something might look like a blog post but ends up requiring registration. You thought it would be an instant gratification white paper but instead its a 20-minute video, or a webinar two weeks from now. So you abandon pursuit. Not because it wasnt interesting to you, but because it was too hard to get, or not immediately available. Most companies count you among the unconverted lost. They might score your half- effort for future usage, but theyre done with you for now. Not so for Citrix in a recent white paper campaign. I was compelled initially by a headline in an email from Enterprise Guide for an article titled “Missed Opportunities: Why Webinar Attendees Leave”. Great topic, so I clicked to learn more. I assumed it was a blog article, but instead they wanted me to register. I was in a hurry, and didnt feel like it, so moved on. A few minutes later, this email popped into my inbox: Subject Line: Missed Opportunities: Why Webinar Attendees Leave Body Copy: Thank you for your interest in SECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARS 7 “Missed Opportunities: Why Webinar Attendees Leave”. We know that youre busy, so for your convenience, weve sent you a direct link to this resource so that you can access it anytime. (Direct, no registration link to the paper on Slide- Share here) Enjoy! The Enterprise Guide Staff They didnt get my full registration, but they knew I was interested so sent it to me anyway. So instead of getting nothing, they got me to read the content (plus tweet about it, write a blog post, and link to it again on my blog). Smart strategy, guys.SECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL B2B WEBINARS 8 How often do you read about a webinar but wonder if its really just going to be a veiled sales pitch? Your prospects are wondering that about your webinars too. So how do you convince them your webinars are worth registering for and attending? Here are five tactics that are proven to increase credibility, confidence and conversion rates to registration and attendance. 1. Share Endorsements And Testimonials
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