This Q-and-A is with MarketingProfs Chief Content Officer Ann Handley, author of Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business. Check back on Wednesday for part two of this interview, which focuses on how to plan and execute a successful webinar.
Compared with some other forms of social-media marketing, webinars can seem a little more work. What makes them worth the extra effort?
Hmm. Do they seem like more work? I’m not sure they are; I’d argue that they require no more effort than, say, a well-produced e-book or even an active, consistently updated blog.
That said, webinars are a wonderfully robust and lively marketing tool, and an effective way to reach your prospects or buyers. Or, rather, they can be; a 2009 study by Business.com found that a whopping 67% of business leaders who rely on social media for business information seek out relevant podcasts or webinars. That stat screams opportunity, doesn’t it?
Attendees and the businesses that host them love webinars for six key reasons:
- They act and feel more tangibly alive than, say, a white paper or case study. Attendees can hear the speaker, watch the slides (or video), and, in short, interact with the content you produce in a more robust environment.
- They are interactive and social. Done right, webinars feel like real-world classrooms or conference rooms. Participants get a chance to ask questions, and they can chat with the speaker, the moderator, and each other. Outside of the webinar itself, participants can interact on social back channels like Twitter (which only amplifies its visibility, of course).
- They are less intimidating. Maybe your prospects aren’t quite ready to field a call from your sales team, but they are happy to hear what you are all about in a no-pressure webinar in which they are one of many.
- They are broad-reaching and affordable, which means you can accommodate far more people, too. Instead of inviting a few prospects to an in-person event, you can invite hundreds to a virtual one. What’s more, it doesn’t matter whether the people you are trying to reach are in Dubuque or Dubai.
- They’re a team player in the content mix. Webinars can be “reimagined” (to use a term from “Content Rules”) as many things, including podcasts, articles, blog posts, or on-demand events.
- And finally, they work. Remember that earlier stat from Business.com? Further research backs it up: Event or conference presentations rate second to referrals and personal awareness as the top method for how professional services companies initially identify the firms they work with.
Sounds great, right? But of course, all that is accurate and sustainable only when the content of the webinar itself really grooves.
How do you find return on investment from a webinar? Should webinars include a sales pitch?
It depends on the intent of the webinar. Many companies create broadly appealing webinars to generate broad awareness and leads, and then host smaller affairs to a more qualified base of prospects. (The webinar for this second group might include a product demo, for example. The first would likely not.)
But in either case, webinars — any kind of content — should create momentum. Your goal should be to educate or inspire your customers, to be a resource and educator, but also to make it clear that you are there for them when they’re ready to buy. What do you want your audience to take away? What do you want them to do?
To that end, you want to carefully craft your final slide.
Usually the final slide in a presentation is among the lamest or ugliest. But think of your final slide as the last word in a book or final point in a blog post: Create a slide that either converts browsers into buyers or inches them closer to buying. Your final slide is a kind of visual takeaway for attendees, so be sure the slide visually inspires whatever next steps you want attendees to take.
For a simpler sale, you might give your audience a link with a compelling limited-time-discount offer. For a more complex sale, offer related content that furthers engagement — perhaps a downloadable checklist or worksheet or a companion guide.
Another tip to upping your ROI: Create your webinar-registration form wisely. If you’re focused on lead generation, select form fields that capture relevant information and start to flag the hottest leads without making the form so long and cumbersome that the visitor will abandon registration. And think about your long-term goals. Do you, for example, anticipate making this webinar a series? If so, consider adding a check box for opting in to future offerings and webinar invites.
What steps can marketers take to integrate webinars with other social media channels?
We spend a lot of time in “Content Rules” talking about “reimagined content,” or imagining, at your content’s inception, how it can be used on various platforms and in which types of formats. Your webinar is a perfect candidate for reimagining across other social channels.
How? Before the presentation, publish an article or blog post that gives prospects an idea of what to expect and helps drive them to register for the event. Also: do a pre-webinar podcast, in which you interview the speaker about the topic of his webinar. Record your event and offer access to it, on demand, on your website. Consider having your webinar transcribed, and offer the text as a download from the site or as a special offer to those who attend. You can also use the transcript to create smaller pieces of content: one or more (or a series!) of blog posts, for example. You can inexpensively outsource transcription to a virtual assistant, or try a transcription service such as CastingWords.com, which charges $0.75 to $2.50 per minute.
Other ideas: Produce a post-webinar podcast. You excerpt the Q&A from the webinar as a separate podcast, or interview the speaker to get responses to unanswered questions from the Q&A. You can also publish the PowerPoint slides to SlideShare.
Finally, Twitter is a natural fit for any kind of event or seminar. Make it easy for those active on Twitter to talk about it there before, during and after the presentation. Creating a short, searchable companion hashtag allows people to find and share nuggets of information about your webinar.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by SmartBrief on SocMed and others. SmartBrief on SocMed said: Should webinars be a part of your social media strategy? http://bit.ly/i8JXtV [...]
I’m getting ready to do a webinar soon and loved all of the little logistics tips that I tend to forget in the excitement of getting ready on the content end!
These are great suggestions, and I think webinars are a great opportunity that hasn't been fully realized by lots of people using social media right now. I would like to give some of these strategies a try to see just how effective they can be.
Great tips. I never even knew about the transcribing service listed so I'll definitely bookmark that. Looking forward to Wednesdays post.
[...] And finally, they work. Remember that earlier stat from Business.com? Further research backs it up: Event or conference presentations rate second to referrals and personal awareness as the top method for how professional services companies initially identify the firms they work with. via smartblogs.com [...]
Thanks for posting this, Jesse; much appreciate the opportunity.
My recent post Affluent Gen-Y Hooked on Social Media- Brands
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Excellent interview. I agree with all of Ann's insights, especially in that webinars do not have to be overly complex, strenuous, and least of all expensive. I managed a webinar channel a while back and we were executing one webinar a week mostly with new content but also some repeating topics covered and found great results and directly attributable incremental revenue. Once you have a well-documented process in place and a solid content stream, it is much easier than most people realize… case in point – podcasters.
One thing to ad to this list of tips is the countless benefits of a recorder webinar. You can always reuse the recorded version as backfill or a refresher at some point down the line. You can re-engage your attendance roster by emailing a link some time down the line, give those that didn't attend a second, third, fourth chance to listen, etc.
You can also use an automated webinar tool to ease the burden of consistent webinar production, but still get the impact of a "live" setting… check it out at http://finestlinks.com/autowebinar
My recent post Comment on SBA Business Plan Webinar – Part 2 of 8 by Chazamno1
Having participated in a bunch, I've found they can attract huge, qualified audiences (hundreds of leads). To do this well, you need real content, not just a pitch. Examples: research findings, customer talking about their experience, analyst or author insights.
My recent post Whats at the intersection of marketing and technology Boston
Having hosted over 400 webinars (yes, the zeros are accurate!), I still love 'em. I have done these in the not for profit segment — our goals were to educate the members how to use the technical products generated and be quicker and have fewer errors. So measuring the ROI was a matter of taking the 'found' error rates, and watching the trend line decline! Plus the customer service and tech support calls followed down that same trend line! Saving on Help Desk Calls or Customer Service calls are a great way to track/publish success. ____Once you have done your scripting and powerpoints/video and openers for a webinar… and have given a few, try recording the webinar to publish — or using an e-learning authoring tool to recreate a webinar as a training/self-paced and refresher. Works great! And you are consistent and always know the question answers when you do the video!
Great tips. We at 3Play Media believe strongly in the value of a transcript and don't think it has to stop at flat text. It can be another tool for user engagement and searchability when you post the recorded event.
My recent post 3Play Media’s Top 10 Innovations of 2010!
Sorry, didn't realize the commentluv box would result in that link showing up, didn't mean for that to sneak in.
I dig the whole webinar thing and have used them quite a bit. I do think they need to be targetted to a specific audience, gone are the days of Social Media 101 webinars…imho
I also question how many of the attendees actual attend or just wait for the PPT deck to get emailed, which they glance at and then file away only to be forgotten.
Love it. Rather than webinars, Splash Media, the company I love working for, hosts free social media boot camps around the country. We have received great feedback from our attendees, and it's been great source of networking. Logistics requires a great time, which I'm lucky to have. We have 8 Boot Camps this week in LA & San Fran. http://www.splashmedia.com/events/social-media-bo…
I love webinars as a tool to demonstrate a company's knowledge and capabilities to a broad audience, one that might not ever be found through other means. I have hosted them in the past, but now have the opportunity to create them in an industry that is not very computer-savvy, not to mention the majority of people do not know the term 'webinar'. Any suggestions would be helpful. And, by the way, I just ordered your book!
Great post, Ann. I particularly liked your section which you called "re-imagining" — we find that webinars can jumpstart an entire content creation program including all of the content types you mentioned and more.
Part of their "secret sauce" to making this happen is pre-produce the webinar for tightness, the same way broadcasters pre-produce some of their broadcast segments. This does NOT mean the webinar is "canned" — all interactive elements such as Q&A and Chat Panel should be live — and in fact the audience experience will be enhanced since the overall webinar production quality is much better.
We have more ideas around this at: http://content.avitage.com/webinar-success.html
What an enormousl timely article! New England Multimedia began blogging and engaging in social media a year ago, and the ROI of time has chganged our business! 2011, for us, will be the Year of Video and Webinars, since those were the platforms that got ME the most excited this year. I learned so much from webinars, I can't wait to pay it forward — while harvesting the buzz associated with webinars done well!
The first really exciting webinar I attended in early 2010 was Laura Roeder's "How I Built a 6 Figure Business From Scratch in Less than One Year." Google that title, and if you get the chance, sign up to take part in that particluar webinar if she offers it again. Laura's webinars are a shining example of everything Ann Handley suggests above.
Thanks so much for all the tips here! This has been bookmarked and saved!
My recent post Grateful Reflections on 2010
Sorry about the typos in the last comment — my keyboard is bugging out today and I hit "reply" before proofreading. Wish there was a way to edit comments after posting.
Another great example of webinar use is by MLT Creative. Martine Hunter wrote a blog post called "10 Tactics for Phenomenal B2B Webinar Registrations," which includes links to two on-demand webinars about using LinkedIn and Twitter: http://bit.ly/fQMbZY
Martine hosted a webinar with Mark Schaefer ("Grow"), and when we ran out of time, took questions that were answered later in a blog post. That kept many of us engaged after the webinar!
My recent post Grateful Reflections on 2010
My earlier post got truncated because I was having some technical issues with IntenseDebat — what I wanted to share further was a few of the many ways that pre-producing your webinars drives better outcomes (in addition to tighter delivery and programming):
1. The webinar serves as a driver for content creation, that goes far beyond the webinar. Content captured during the course of producing a webinar can be used to create a content-rich, on-demand microsite — used to nurture prospects after the webinar, and as an ongoing content asset used for marketing programs well after the webinar itself.
2. Webinar content can be managed and organized in a modular fashion, for use in all sales & marketing communications activities ranging from lead generation, lead nurturing, sales enablement & customer communications.
3. The webinar is edited into an executive summary (shorter version), which both creates pass-along content for webinar attendees to share with colleagues, and is an alternative way to attract those that don't have the 45 minutes to invest in attending or viewing the webinar.
We have a lot more ideas to share on the topic. Looking forward to continuing the conversation directly or via Twitter.
Zak Pines | Twitter @zpines, @avitage
[...] Fonte: smartblogs.com [...]
Thanks for all the great tips! I was introduced to webinars
by GVO. I have now started using my own conference room and I find
it really helps me make more sales. Plus their price is very low!
Check my website for details!
Thanks Ann,
This is a good summary of all the benefits of webinars. It seems hard to remember a time when businesses were not including them in their marketing plans!
You may talk about this in part 2 of your interview, but my strong recommendation to clients planning webinars is not to go cheap on the delivery – you need robust technology, good audio and a professional facilitator. Focus on the message, let someone else worry about the delivery. And, for goodness sake, practice it – don't drone on and on.
Take care.
Tim Redpath http://www.trainofthoughts.ca/blog
Twitter: tredpath
My recent post Marshmallows- anticipation- sex and marketing
Jesse, great post/i-view with Ann. I want to add a couple more things to this:
The first is quality of speakers. We know that a lot of webinars are hosted by companies for the intent to generate business, and I think most of the audience is okay with that (being very careful of the pitch, of course). But the problem is the presentation itself is boring. And by boring I mean OHMYGOSHBORING. The hosts/panel/guests clearly have no business presenting anything, and they only reason they are is because they're paying for the time or they're the expert.
If you're going to do a webinar, you need to treat this as if you're standing live on stage in front of a huge audience, and give a great presentation.
Second, competition in an industry can kill a webinar's appeal, so do something out of the ordinary. I have seen so many webinars that are, literally, the same stuff rehashed over and over, with only a new (and often boring) voice behind it.
Do something really unique – give away a little IP, encourage the audience to do something they have never dont before. It's the little things that people will take away.
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[...] This Q-and-A is with MarketingProfs Chief Content Officer Ann Handley, author of “Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business.” For part one of the interview, which focuses on the marketing justification for hosting a webinar, click here. [...]