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21 ideas for planning, creating, and leveraging your webinars
How Webinars Should Fit into Your Content Marketing & Audience-Building Efforts
#SherpaWebinar
Today’s team
Todd Lebo Senior Director of Content and Business Development @ToddLebo
Daniel Burstein Director of Editorial Content @DanielBurstein
#SherpaWebinar
• More than 10 years of research
• Over 1 billion emails
• 1,300 major experiments
• 10,000 sales paths tested
• Hundreds of publications and conferences
• 5 million phone calls
• 500,000 conversations
About MECLABS
#SherpaWebinar
4
MarketingSherpa is a research and publishing organization serving the marketing community
MarketingSherpa’s research cycle provides knowledge for continuous improvement of marketing performance
How Webinars Should Fit into Your Content Marketing & Audience-Building Efforts
Pre-webinar – developing content and orchestrating pre-event promotions
During the webinar – managing the event in real time, and engaging your audience
Post-webinar – turning viewers into customers, processing feedback, and reusing content
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#SherpaWebinar
Free webinars aren’t free
IDEA #1: Focus on delivering value…not selling
1 Pre-webinar
#SherpaWebinar
Is a webinar right for your purposes?
1. How complex is my purchase? 2. Can I help my audience without selling? “The goal with nurturing is not just always be closing or
always be selling. It’s really, always be helping.” – Brian Carroll, Executive Director of Revenue Optimization,
MECLABS
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #1: Focus on delivering value…not selling
#SherpaWebinar
Top Lead Generation Tactics
6%
6%
6%
13%
13%
16%
19%
20%
23%
26%
29%
31%
30%
40%
34%
47%
31%
34%
29%
43%
48%
56%
46%
53%
25%
29%
21%
17%
14%
17%
13%
15%
10%
6%
9%
10%
Print advertising
Social media
Direct mail
Public relations
Telemarketing
Paid search (PPC)
Virtual events / webinars
Trade shows
Content marketing
Email marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Website design, management and optimization
Very effective Somewhat effective Not effective
Source: ©2011 MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey Methodology: Fielded June 2011, N=1,745
1 Pre-webinar
Q: Please indicate the effectiveness of the following lead generation tactics for your organization:
Source: http://meclabs.com/training/publications/benchmark-report/2012-b2b-marketing/free-excerpt
#SherpaWebinar
Are other companies using webinars?
15%
30%
40%
42%
48%
48%
54%
68%
72%
75%
81%
Mobile marketing
Webinars
Direct mail
Print advertising
Tradeshows
Paid search (PPC)
Content marketing
Website …
Social media
Search engine …
Email marketing
Source: ©2012 MarketingSherpa Lead Generation Benchmark Survey Methodology: Fielded January 2012, N=1,915
Q. Which of the following lead generation tactics does your organization currently use?
1 Pre-webinar
Source: http://meclabs.com/training/publications/benchmark-report/lead-generation/overview
#SherpaWebinar
Effectiveness of webinars
6%
8%
16%
18%
24%
25%
25%
29%
30%
35%
35%
41%
57%
Podcasts
Infographics
Self-promotional content
Teleprospecting calls
Videos
Research-based content
Direct mail
Blog posts
Webinars
Thought leadership articles
Whitepapers
Sales calls
Email newsletters
Source: ©2012 MarketingSherpa Lead Generation Benchmark Survey Methodology: Fielded January 2012, N=1,915
Q. Which of the following have been the most effective for nurturing your leads?
1 Pre-webinar
Source: http://meclabs.com/training/publications/benchmark-report/lead-generation/overview
#SherpaWebinar
POLL: What is your level of expertise with creating and promoting webinars? 1. Haven’t started 2. Beginner 3. Moderate 4. Advanced 5. Move over Dan and Todd, I should be running this thing
1 Pre-webinar
#SherpaWebinar
What is a buyer persona?
A detailed profile that represents an
actual, real-life group of your target
audience. It includes common interests,
motivators and expectations, as well as
demographic and other behavioral
characteristics.
Identify buyer personas
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1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #2: Pick a target
#SherpaWebinar
Key buyer persona traits
Demographic traits
• Job title & responsibilities
• Organization size / department size
• Primary market (B2B, B2C, B2B2C)
• Industry
• Location
• Budget
Behaviors
• Key concerns for purchase
• Interests
• Motivation
• Expectations
• Decision-making authority
• Approvals needed for purchase
• Urgency
• Goals
• Familiarity with product / service
• Pain points & challenges
• Validation needed for purchase
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #2: Pick a target
#SherpaWebinar
Researching buyer personas
Step 1: Ask customer-facing departments
Step 2: Ask prospects
Step 3: Ask customers
Step 4: Mine in-house database
What to look for:
• Common traits for ideal customers – Large deal sizes, short timeframes to purchase, most repeat purchases,
etc.
• Common traits for undesirable customers – Returns or refunds, smallest deal sizes, longest timeframes to purchase
Qualitative Research
Quantitative Research
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #2: Pick a target
#SherpaWebinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study – SciQuest segmented their target audience
Challenge: Weekly webinars were not generating volume and quality of leads needed to meet goals for the collaborative procurement and supplier management solutions company
Approach: Properly identify and segment the audience to give them targeted content.
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #3: Segment your audience
#SherpaWebinar
Cleaned up the in-house marketing database and got persona-specific content to the correct audience:
• They recognized inconsistencies in the way contacts’ job descriptions were recorded.
• They began standardizing the way contacts were identified. A dozen standard job description categories were created.
• They hired a summer intern to manually examine each contact and assign them to one of the 12 standard categories.
Marketing Sherpa Case Study – SciQuest: Segmentation
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #3: Segment your audience
#SherpaWebinar
• Better segmentation capabilities from their improved database allowed them to create higher-quality segmented lists for webinar invites.
• The webinars could now be advertised to the specific audiences they could benefit.
• An invitation on an advanced webinar for the healthcare industry, for example, achieved a 4% acceptance rate – quadrupling the 1% acceptance rate for the company’s basic webinar invitation…a 300% increase in acceptance rate
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30653
MarketingSherpa Case Study – SciQuest 1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #3: Segment your audience
#SherpaWebinar
What will your audience find to be:
Relevant?
Urgent?
Important?
Make a choice of topic informed by the questions above and the research you conducted.
Pick a webinar topic for your audience 1 Pre-webinar
#SherpaWebinar
• Your first inclination might not produce the best headline
• “Once you have a headline in a certain zone, a certain skill zone, there’s no way for me to predict which one is going to win, because I can’t get in the mystery of the audience’s mind well enough to guess that.” Flint Mclaughlin, CEO said prior to testing the headlines
• Based on two hypotheses (“Which is better, a fluid statement or a list?”)
Which title will perform best? IDEA #4: Test your title
#SherpaWebinar
Minor Changes, Major Lifts: How button and form optimization increased conversion 166%
VS.
Minor Changes, Major Lifts: Three case studies, three discoveries, 166% increase
Which title do you think won?
Which title will perform best? IDEA #4: Test your title
#SherpaWebinar
Winner:
Minor Changes, Major Lifts: How button and form optimization increased conversion 166%
Minor Changes, Major Lifts: Three case studies, three discoveries, 166% increase
Which title will perform best?
Small differences in wording resulted in a 92.2% increase in conversion Source: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/blog/analytics-testing/headline-testing.html
IDEA #4: Test your title
#SherpaWebinar
IDEA #5: Repurpose a proven topic
MarketingSherpa Case Study—HubSpot: choosing a topic that draws an audience
Challenge: HubSpot wanted a high performing topic to be presented by a presenter with a proved track record.
Approach: They picked a topic in the vein of previous successful events.
1 Pre-webinar
#SherpaWebinar
HubSpot, a marketing software company, produces many webinars as part of an overall content strategy. One recent event, "The Science of Timing," garnered just shy of 25,000 sign-ups and included almost 10,000 attendees.
MarketingSherpa Case Study—HubSpot: picked a topic for their audience and got it right
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #5: Repurpose a proven topic
#SherpaWebinar
The importance of "The Science of..." series is that previous events played into the marketing of "The Science of Timing." Through past attendance metrics, they showed that this content had interest for HubSpot’s audience: "The Science of Twitter" with ClickZ had pulled in about 3,000 registrants "The Science of Social Media" had received around 12,000 registrants
MarketingSherpa Case Study—HubSpot: knew their audience liked science-y content
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #5: Repurpose a proven topic
#SherpaWebinar
Jeanne Hopkins, Director of Marketing, HubSpot, explained the appeal of this event, "'The Science of Timing' kind of combined 'The Science of Twitter' and the science of social media, Facebook and blogging because it was all about timing…This webinar was an aggregate of some of the questions that people really had burning questions to.“
Results: They achieved a record-breaking registartion of 25,000!
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31889
MarketingSherpa Case Study—HubSpot: answered audience’s burning questions
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #5: Repurpose a proven topic
#SherpaWebinar
IDEA #6: Repurpose live event content
MarketingSherpa Case Study – Fairchild Semiconductor
Challenge: Good content that got a great audience response didn’t reach the number of people they had hoped for in a live presentation format.
Approach: Repurposed day-long, in-person seminar into 7 one-hour long pieces, and turn it into webinars
1 Pre-webinar
#SherpaWebinar
30-50% of live webinar registrants actually attended, but of the remainder, 80% checked in later to access the archive.
A remarkable 75-80% of live webinar attendees stayed through the entire presentation.
They repurposed content that was already created, so these webinars were not as hard to make.
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=23547
MarketingSherpa Case Study—Fairchild Semiconductor results
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #6: Repurpose live event content
#SherpaWebinar
MarketingSherpa Case study—SciQuest: fewer webinars, more attendees
Challenge: Weekly webinars were not generating volume and quality of leads needed to meet company goals.
Approach: Respect the audience’s time: avoid oversaturation and put your webinar at a time when it’s easiest for people to watch it.
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #7: Test frequency and timing
#SherpaWebinar
• Events were no longer scheduled for every week, but every other week.
• Webinar starting time was changed from 2 p.m. to 11 a.m. to attract prospects in Europe while also reaching West Coast attendees first thing in the morning.
• Webinar day became Thursday instead of Tuesday.
• No webinars were scheduled for July and August, when attendance was typically lowest.
Results: This tactic in combination with others
increased viewership 422% Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30653
MarketingSherpa Case Study– SciQuest: timing matters
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #7: Test frequency and timing
#SherpaWebinar
Pre-event promotion 1 Pre-webinar
Source: MarketingSherpa
IDEA #8: Think beyond the email invite
#SherpaWebinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: a framework that produces results
Challenge: IDES, a plastics industry directory, was making high-quality webinars that drew a good audience. They wanted to expedite the process and get the same good results.
Approach: Create easy to use templates for a webinar communication plan that can be used and reused.
1 Pre-webinar Idea #9: Create a promotions template
#SherpaWebinar
Idea #9: Create a promotions template
1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: Promotion
Ads: 6 weeks prior to the webinar, ads placed throughout the website and link to the webinar platform’s registration page.
Webinars Page: Listing and ad link to the webinar reg page.
Social: They create a blog posting which updates LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
#SherpaWebinar
Newsletters: Include the upcoming webinar as a featured story in email newsletters beginning 6 weeks prior to the webinar.
Email Alerts: Have an opt-in list of people who have asked to be notified of upcoming webinars. Email alerts are sent to this list 1 to 2 days prior to the presentation. Email alerts are also sent to recipients based on past downloads of white papers from website and newsletter click tracking on topics associated with the webinar presentation content.
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: Promotion 1 Pre-webinar
Idea #9: Create a promotions template
#SherpaWebinar
Registration Form: Gathers minimal information: first and last name, email.
Viral: After 5 seconds, the registration page redirects to a Tell-a-Friend page created with SurveyGizmo. The form also asks if they would like to be added to our webinar alerts email list.
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: Promotion 1 Pre-webinar
Idea #9: Create a promotions template
#SherpaWebinar
Viral Emails: emails include summary information for the webinar and a link to register.
Webinar Reminder Emails: Through the webinar platform, reminder emails are sent 1 day and 1 hour prior to the event. They include connection and calling instructions, and the ability to add the event to their Outlook Calendar.
All post-webinar items are also produced prior to the webinar: On-demand video page, Landing page to download slides, Follow up emails to attendees and non attendees. Recipients receive a link to the webinar recording and slides within 3 hours of the presentation ending.
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: Promotion 1 Pre-webinar
Idea #9: Create a promotions template
#SherpaWebinar
• 73% of registrations coming from its email newsletter and special webinar alert messages
• 24% of registrations coming from Google searches
• 37% attendance rate on live webinars
• "Like all things, the upfront investment is hardest part — creating all the templates, figuring out the process," says Nathan Potter, Marketing Manager. "But once it’s a process, it’s dialed in. One person can handle it and bang it out fast.“
Source: https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31672
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: Results 1 Pre-webinar
Idea #9: Create a promotions template
#SherpaWebinar
1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #9 BONUS: Use our promotion template
MarketingSherpa webinar template
http://bit.ly/WebinarTemplate
How Webinars Should Fit into Your Content Marketing & Audience-Building Efforts
Pre-webinar—developing content and orchestrating pre-event promotions
During the webinar – managing the event in real time, and engaging your audience
Post-webinar-- turning viewers into customers, processing feedback, and reusing content
Review
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#SherpaWebinar
• Your audience has limited time and even more limited attention. Present your content with this in mind.
Continuously provide value
Based on Richard Mayer's research www.psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/mayer/research/research...
Idea #10: Every slide is a micro-conversion
2 Mid-webinar
#SherpaWebinar
Help your audience connect with each other
#SherpaWebinar Idea #11: Start a conversation
2 Mid-webinar
#SherpaWebinar
Idea #12: Go light on the selling…
2 Mid-webinar
http://marketingsherpa.com/b2bsummit
#SherpaWebinar
Idea #13: …or create a second tier
2 Mid-webinar Two tiers of webinars
Content Webinar
Focused on providing value to potential customers. Good for higher up in the funnel.
Focused on sharing your solution with attendees. Better for farther down the funnel.
Sales Webinar
Promote sales webinars in a straightforward manner (so your audience doesn’t confuse them with content webinars.
#SherpaWebinar
Idea #13: …or create a second tier
2 Mid-webinar Two tiers of webinars
Promote sales webinars in a straightforward manner (so your audience doesn’t confuse them with content webinars.
Source: http://www.meclabs.com/engage
#SherpaWebinar
Idea #14: Don’t overlook showmanship
2 Mid-webinar
Engaging + information speakers
From MarketingSherpa case study about IDES Presenter: The sponsoring company provides 2 presenters: An Expert and a Personality to add flavor and interest.
Source: https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31672
#SherpaWebinar
Idea #14: Don’t overlook showmanship
2 Mid-webinar
Engaging + information speakers
Or in our case…
Subject Matter Expert
Todd
Personality/Moderator
Dan
#SherpaWebinar
Have staff on hand to conduct Q&A through your platform since you won’t likely have the time to address every question on the call. Assign staff members to answer attendee questions and monitor tweets. Give the staff answers to common problems: • I can't get in • I can't register • I don't know what the telephone number is Encourage the audience members to have a conversation with each other by using a Twitter hashtag, like #SherpaWebinar.
Manage the event in real time 2 Mid-webinar
Idea #15: Have a support team
Before, during, after: a webinar on making good webinars
Pre—developing content and orchestrating pre-event promotions
Mid– managing the event in real time, and engaging your audience
Post-webinar – processing feedback and reusing content
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#SherpaWebinar
Share the slides
Idea #16: Easiest way to share slides is on SlideShare
3 Post-webinar
You can download these slides from http://www.slideshare.net/marketingexperiments
#SherpaWebinar
Exit Polls: Audience members are automatically directed to a short exit poll with 2 questions:
• Would you like to receive email alerts for upcoming webinars?
• What topics would you like to see in the future?
On-Demand Video Recording: Recordings are produced and posted. Then they are embedded onto a page on website optimized for search engines and available for people to view (and share) anytime from the comfort of their office.
MarketingSherpa Case Study – IDES 3 Post-webinar
Idea #17: Have a follow up campaign
#SherpaWebinar
Email Follow-Up
• Specific emails are sent to attendees and non-attendees providing them with a link to view the webinar video and download presentation slides.
• These are sent approximately 3 hours after the event, once the on-demand video recording is available from our website.
• On-Demand Webinars are promoted in future email newsletters. Past newsletter links are changed – rather than linking to the defunct registration form, they link to the recorded webinar page.
Follow-Up After the Webinar
Idea #17: Have a follow up campaign
3 Post-webinar
#SherpaWebinar
Landing Page: from the on-demand webinar page, people can click a link to a landing page where visitors can complete a short form to download the slides. The form on the landing page is CRM cookie-based for contact information – most visitors just see the questions which include inviting them to join the webinar email alert list. If a visitor is new, additional contact data is collected one step prior to the form with questions.
Than You Page: The customized landing page links to a downloadable PDF copy of webinar slides.
Archive and Persistent Lead Generation 3 Post-webinar
Idea #17: Have a follow up campaign
#SherpaWebinar
55% lead capture rate from visitors who view an archived presentation
Source: https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31672
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: results 3 Post-webinar
Idea #17: Have a follow up campaign
#SherpaWebinar
Reward attendees…while continuing to nurture and repurpose
3 Post-webinar
Idea #18: Attendee thank you gift
#SherpaWebinar
Leverage the second-largest search engine
Idea #19: Upload replay to YouTube
Source: http://www.youtube.com/marketingsherpa
#SherpaWebinar
• Blog Posts
• Photos
• Podcasts
• Videos
• Presentations
• eBooks
• News Releases
Repurpose webinar information 3 Post-webinar
Idea #20: Anywhere you have content, you can repurpose
#SherpaWebinar
Now that you have all this value in your webinars…
Idea #21: Communicate hidden value
Source: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/about-web-clinics.html
#SherpaWebinar
Now that you have all this value in your webinars…
Idea #21: Communicate hidden value
Source: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/about-web-clinics.html