Webinars are a powerful way to raise brand awareness, promote products, and attract new prospects. Creating compelling content, even for a single event, is a time-consuming task, but the potential rewards are more than worth it. Besides, once you master it, you may want to host regular webinars highlighting your products or positioning your brand as an industry leader — and such consistency is one of the best lead nurturing tactics.
Below, we will delve into the definition of webinar marketing, present a few recent stats proving its efficiency, describe the best practices for creating engaging webinars, and even analyze a few inspiring examples from industry leaders who already grasped the full potential of webinar marketing.
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>What is Webinar Marketing?
While a webinar definition implies any online presentation where ‘attending’ individuals interact in real time, webinar marketing is a more narrow concept. This type of presentation focuses on specific features of a product or service, aiming to educate users on the best ways to use the products and services in question.
So, webinars are a real gold mine of digital marketing, especially when promoting complex services with multiple features and functionalities. They help with lead generation by explaining complex product features in an interactive, easy-to-understand manner while building brand credibility as an industry leader. When handled right, webinar marketing not only helps accelerate customer education but also provides opportunities for faster sales closures and improves customer retention rates.
Recent stats show that webinar marketing usage has been growing since 2019, which is not surprising considering that 20-40% of online attendees convert into qualified leads after a single session! But, of course, to achieve such impressive results, one needs to create truly exceptional webinars – and we list some of the already proven practices below.
Best Practices for Hosting Engaging Webinars
Target narrow audiences & topics
Every form of digital marketing starts with defining one’s target audience, and clearly, webinars are no exception. Here, the best strategy is to target narrow audiences to ensure all attendees can participate during the event. Besides, a webinar that speaks about a narrow subject is more likely to attract participants in the first place.
To amplify the effect of speaking to a narrow audience, consider giving a detailed overview of the topics you will cover – this way, you will ensure everyone who subscribes to it will truly be interested in the subject. And, of course, don’t forget that the best topics address and offer solutions to problems your audience might be facing.
Invite industry leaders and influencers
If you want to add massive star power and credibility to your webinar, consider inviting a few industry leaders or influencers. Start by researching people who share their opinions and fit in with your subject matter and target market.
Reach out to them with a clear win/win value proposition, outlining how being part of the webinar will increase their authority while helping you grow yours. Advertise their participation in the webinar to get even more people on board.
During the event, give them enough time to contribute some great content and share their experiences. Prepare some questions in advance, but leave plenty of time for an interactive Q&A, too.
Promote across relevant channels
Understanding your target audience will help you figure out the best channels for webinar promotion. Even though your company’s website remains the chief channel for driving registrations, email and social media play their part, too. So, segment your email lists, run targeted ads on social media platforms, join platforms related to your industry etc. to reach out to people who may be interested in attending.
If you want to expand your reach, collaborate with influencers or leverage industry groups. Send promotional materials containing key takeaways and the unique value of your webinar. Create a sense of urgency by indicating limited spots or early-bird registration.
Encourage audience participation
Use polls, Q&A, and live chat to engage your audience during the webinar. Ask open-ended questions at the beginning of the webinar to start a discussion. Encourage participation by asking questions throughout the webinar and keep attendees interested with dynamic slides or other visual elements. If someone asks a question or makes a comment, call them out by name when answering to boost interaction.
On the whole, the more buzz, the better. Besides, active input from your viewers — through questions, comments, and suggestions — is a certain way to prevent marketing myopia, that is, avoid seeing your product from a stale, single-sided perspective. Real interaction with leads not only makes your webinars more engaging but also helps improve your products and services.
Follow up after the event
We already mentioned that up to 40% of attendees turn into qualified leads by the end of the webinar, but you can boost this figure by qualifying them further. To optimize lead generation and boost conversion, send a thank-you email as a follow-up, with a link to the recorded webinar and some additional resources.
If someone registers but doesn’t attend, you can send them a copy of the recording with the key takeaways. Most companies are making their webinars available on demand, anyway, because it simplifies repurposing content and keeps spreading the message to new audiences – even after the main event.
Analyze and adjust
To improve your webinar and digital marketing game, you need to constantly analyze and adapt. When done, analyze metrics like attendance and conversion rates, and don’t forget about engagement. Find out what content sections spurred the most interactions and apply these takeaways to further refine content and presentation style. Keep testing new formats, improving interactive parts in the webinars, and playing with their lengths. If possible, improve your future webinars by adopting new trends and feedback from attendees.
Repurpose content
When you repurpose webinar content, you’ll be maximizing the value of that content and extending its reach. Make a few short video clips or extract key points to turn them into social media posts. Depending on your brand specifics and webinar content, you can even try to repurpose parts of your video for TikTok marketing because this network is no longer only about entertainment and user-generated challenges.
More conventional sites work, too – as long as you post the repurposed content on networks your target audience favors. But don’t feel like you should limit yourself to video alone – transform the main content into an infographic, podcast, or eBook to suit different audience preferences. Simply put, do what you must to keep engaging your prospects and turning them into sales-qualified leads.
Inspiring Webinar Examples
Here are some examples of companies hosting regular seminars and successfully engaging their audiences:
Google Digital Garage
Google Digital Garage series emerged in 2022 and has been offering free educational videos since then. The topics cover various subjects, from SEO and marketing to data analytics and cybersecurity. Besides, Google regularly educates its audience on using its own analytics and SEO tools, which is why it attracts massive audiences from all over the globe.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft also leverages webinars to educate its users about the features they need. Considering this company’s vast range of products, Microsoft categorizes its webinar selection by business role. To date, it has separate pages for business professionals, developers, and other user categories. This is a really smart move that helps the company carefully segment its audience and offer each group exactly what they need.
HubSpot
HubSpot, one of the undisputed leaders in digital marketing, never loses an opportunity to educate its users and engage new leads. Besides creating its own webinar content, HubSpot also features events made in collaboration with partners and industry leaders as part of a larger digital marketing strategy. This way, the company expands its reach, nurtures relationships with other industry leaders, and regularly updates the website, thus boosting SEO.
Adobe
Adobe’s products are notoriously complex, so it’s no wonder the company regularly hosts webinars to keep educating its users. The past videos are eventually uploaded into a webinar archive where registered users can watch them on demand. Another smart move is that Adobe’s e-learning section does not only cover the company’s own products; it also discusses relevant industry topics including the use of generative AI, successful strategies for business growth, and more.
Salesforce
Salesforce is another bright example of how a company can leverage webinar marketing by regularly hosting new events and covering subjects that have value for its target audience. Salesforce makes a point of quick event registration, keeps most of its webinars free, and never buries the lead — that is, explains what the webinar will be about to avoid misleading (and disengaging) its prospects.
Conclusion
Creating engaging webinars is a lot of work, but it’s a wise investment with the potential for generous rewards. Online webinars are an excellent way to promote products, position yourself as an industry leader, nurture leads and, of course, drive conversions. Besides, careful planning and regular analysis can eventually help you find the format and voice that work best for your target audience. And while you polish your webinar marketing, we will keep you updated on recent industry stats and effective marketing strategies to engage your audiences — in fact, you can already find a lot of inspiring digital marketing insights in our recent blog posts.
