DEMAND INCREASE GROWTH

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Rosemary Lindsey
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1 WHITE PAPER Accelerate. Intelligence. How marketers can use webinars to create demand and fuel the sales pipeline WEBINARS SALES DEMAND INCREASE GROWTH

Accelerate. Intelligence. How marketers can use webinars to create demand and fuel the sales pipeline Introduction Webinars (also known as webcasts ) are nothing new.

2 Accelerate. Intelligence. How marketers can use webinars to create demand and fuel the sales pipeline Introduction Webinars (also known as webcasts ) are nothing new. In fact, they ve been around, in one form or another, for more than ten years. Webinar use cases have included online instruction, employee communications and demand generation. What is new, however, is the advancement of webinar technology, making it more effective than ever as a demand generation vehicle to fuel marketers sales pipelines. In this white paper, we ll have a look at: Why webinars have become such an effective demand generation vehicle. How to use them to create demand. How to manage your sales pipeline via webinar-based lead qualification. Why Webinars? Let s consider a number of reasons why you should consider webinars for your demand generation campaigns. Your Sales Funnel will Benefit Today, more than 90% of your target audience will conduct significant research on your product or service before purchasing. Webinars are no longer only for Top of the Funnel leads they re a great way to engage and rank suspects, prospects and nurtured leads at different levels in your sales funnel. In fact, webinars are a fantastic way to influence decision makers as they make their final purchase decision. 2

They re Easy to Configure Ten, or even five years ago, the lead time on a webinar (i.e. the time you needed to begin the planning steps in advance of its broadcast date ) was 60 to 90 days.

3 They re Easy to Configure Ten, or even five years ago, the lead time on a webinar (i.e. the time you needed to begin the planning steps in advance of its broadcast date ) was 60 to 90 days. Presenters required intensive training on the webinar platform, while the webinar vendor required several business days to configure the webinar console. The long lead time (per webinar) meant that marketers could only do a handful of webinars per quarter or perhaps just a single one. Advances in technology have made webinar configuration and set-up easier than ever. The best providers enable the ability to publish webinars and webcasts for on demand viewing immediately, making it easy to create a vibrant flow of intuitive and accessible content for your audiences. Today, presenters with a slide deck and photo can set up a webcast and, begin broadcasting in five minutes. Wizard-driven tools provide presenters with a step-by-step guide to webinar creation, all while preserving the branding and personalization required for each presenter. Gone are the days of presenter training sessions. With some technologies, in fact, gone is the user documentation! Vendors have made the software so easy to use that they no longer provide user guides or manuals. 3

4 They re Interactive Webinars used to be one-way communications, in which subject matter experts broadcasted to large audiences. Today, audience members want to be part of the conversation, in the same way they participate on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and TripAdvisor. Advances in webinar technology facilitate these interactions. Now, presenters can hear from their audience in real-time and adjust their presentations accordingly. In addition, audience members can interact with one another to share thoughts, comments and ideas. Later in this paper, we ll cover how these interactions factor into lead qualification. Further, the best webinar and webcast platforms enable simple camera switching with the click of a button so multiple speakers can present on a virtual expert panel from any location in the world. This results in an engaging, TV-like experience that keeps your audience attentive and improves retention. 4

5 They re Measurable As viewers (i.e. prospects) increase their interaction within your marketing webinars, they generate additional data points for lead scoring and lead qualification. Compare the measurability of webinars to more static media. With banner ads, you can measure impressions and clicks. With white papers, you can measure conversion rates and leads. With webinars, you measure leads, of course, but you also understand metrics such as: Viewing time Viewed live or on-demand Number of views Responses to polling questions Questions submitted Group chat comments Responses to surveys If the marketing revolution is about data, then the measurability of webinars is your Paul Revere. They re Repeatable Similar to your other marketing campaigns, you ll build a repeatable process that can be used over and over again. Marketing webinars tend to involve speaker identification, pre-promotion, registration, live broadcast and postwebinar follow-up. Once you define and document the process, webinars become part of a repeatable machine to fuel demand and pipeline. They re Reusable Marketers can look to webinars as a Swiss army knife of content creation. The slides from the webinar can be uploaded to SlideShare for additional awareness (and/or leads, if using a premium service, such as SlideShare Pro). The audio track from the webinar can be turned into a podcast (MP3 file) that you host on your web site. The presentation can be turned into a series of blog postings on your blog or, on blogs managed by your partners. And of course, the webinar itself can be used to drive incremental leads, via prospects that register to view the ondemand archive. 5

6 How to Use Webinars to Create Demand Demand generation via webinars should utilize tried and true aspects of content marketing, while also taking advantage of the unique capabilities that webinars provide. The Fundamentals: Be Useful There s your content mission statement, in two words. In days past, the goal of marketers was to be relevant to their target audience. Today, marketers must move up the value chain from relevance to usefulness. To be useful, webinars ought to do one of two things: 1. Address a business need. 2. Teach viewers how to solve a problem. Whether it s webinars, white papers, web site content or blog postings, your content should provide one (or both) of these. As such, don t pitch your company s product unless you re demonstrating to prospects how it addresses their needs or how it solves their problems. And if your product does address both, be sure to focus on the solution ( how ), rather than your product ( what ). Be Engaging Sales prospects attended (or viewed) your webinar for a reason. They could have easily downloaded a white paper or product sheet. Or, visited your web site or viewed your YouTube videos. Instead, they took the time to join your webinar. As such, be sure to provide a captivating and engaging experience by showing enthusiasm, using eyegrabbing imagery and varying the media often. That means a high frequency of slide advances, along with a mix of media types (e.g. video, polling question, screen sharing, etc.). 6

7 Be Interactive Live webinars provide a tremendous opportunity for marketers: a real-time connection between your organization and your sales prospects. A one-way broadcast (i.e. the webinars of days past) is a failure to capitalize on this opportunity. Rather than involving your prospects, one-way broadcasts force them to sit idly on their hands (or computer mouse), while attempting to remain engaged. Interactive webinars, on the other hand, provide a more enjoyable user experience, while creating far more touch points between you and your prospects. And which would you rather have: an idle and bored audience, or one that s actively engaged with you and your brand? How to Manage Your Sales Pipeline via Webinar Based Lead Qualification This paper has referenced interactivity a number of times. Frankly, the use of interactive features in your webinars is absolutely critical in creating enjoyable experiences, sustaining demand (i.e. interest) and driving the lead qualification process of separating the wheat from the chaff. Interaction Generates Valuable Prospect Data It s our belief that interaction has replaced consumption. The use of real-time engagement tools (e.g. interactive polls, Q&A, group chat, etc.) creates an experience that engages prospects. To date, web analytics (i.e. for your corporate web site) has focused on static measures, such as page views, bounce rate, time on site and pages viewed per session. With interactive webinars, we ve again moved up the value chain. Now, we can analyze answers to polling questions, percent of program viewed, questions submitted to the presenter and chat messages contributed to the conversation. Interaction has replaced consumption. With web analytics, you decipher what they consumed. With a video-based online platform, you know what they consumed, but more importantly, you now know what they said and how they feel. And as a marketer, isn t that a great thing to know? 7

Interaction as an Input to Lead Qualification From the increased level of interaction, think about the wealth of engagement data that we can now feed into our CRM and marketing automation systems.

8 Interaction as an Input to Lead Qualification From the increased level of interaction, think about the wealth of engagement data that we can now feed into our CRM and marketing automation systems. Marketing automation systems exist to process, analyze and respond to these data sets. Armed with this additional data, you re now able to segment your prospects effectively. You can configure lead scoring formulas in your marketing automation system that map to interaction points within the webinar (e.g. time viewed, questions asked, chat messages submitted, etc.). Based on this lead scoring, Inside Sales can follow up with the most engaged prospects, while the less engaged prospects can be placed into a lead nurturing program. Tips and Considerations for Your Webinars Short and sweet 90 minute webinars are dinosaurs (they re extinct). While there may be a rare occasion to actually host a 90 minute webinar, shorter is always better. A good sweet spot is minutes. Audience members may begin to tune out 5-10 minutes into the program, which provides you with an increasing challenge the longer your program airs. Enable social sharing You know it already: blasts, telemarketing and the like are common vehicles to drive audience to your webinar; however, they rarely deliver the results you need. Enable social sharing in your webinar, however, and you enable your audience members to promote the program on your behalf. Collectively, your audience will have a far larger following (in aggregate) than the size of your list. 8

Find easy ways to incorporate video While it s fine to broadcast out of your corporate studios (if you have such a thing), it doesn t have to be so fancy.

9 Find easy ways to incorporate video While it s fine to broadcast out of your corporate studios (if you have such a thing), it doesn t have to be so fancy. Instead, look to tools that everyone already has access to, such as a webcam and the microphone that s built into your computer. In addition to the camera logistics, consider tools that make it easy to create and publish presentations. Be seen on mobile devices Your audience is on mobile. So be sure that your online presentations can be experienced on mobile devices. And, ensure that the rich engagement features (mentioned earlier) can be experienced on mobile as well. If mobile users cannot interact, then your mobile-based video experience degrades from two-way interaction to one-way viewing. Plan an editorial calendar around consistent communications To keep your sales pipeline filled on a consistent basis, be sure you re producing content continuously. No, this doesn t have to be every day or every other day. But, it should be regular enough that prospects are keeping you top of mind and, they re finding a rich library of on-demand video content (from your prior, live-streamed programs). 9

10 Next Generation Webcasting from INXPO We turn boring presentations into memorable experiences! With Next Generation Webcasting from INXPO, we provide you with the resources and tools that will allow you to deliver engaging content to audiences around the world with the click of a button. You can: Deliver live video presentations from the comfort of a home, office or studio setting Do it all yourself (both self service & full service options) Enable presenters to share their screen to demonstrate the latest product features Engage viewers with live interactive web page navigation Have viewers participate in moderated Q&A with presenters Have viewers participate in polling and surveys on the fly Use your existing presentation materials, including animated PowerPoint presentations Social Widgets allow you to incorporate third party social networks and social enterprise offerings into XPOCAST For more information, visit the Next Generation Webcasting page on our web site, send to contactsales@inxpo.com or give us a call at

GETTING STARTED GUIDE

GETTING STARTED GUIDE ON24 SOLUTIONS AND PRODUCT CATALOG Delivering innovative solutions for engaging and high-impact webinars and digital experiences Table of Contents WEBINARS OVERVIEW ON24 Webcast Elite...2