60 Quotes to Ignite your Sales & Marketing Drive

Posted on Jan 26, 2018 by .

Sales and marketing professionals are the lifeblood of any B2B organization. They also get told ‘no thanks’ and have more doors slammed in their faces than the rest of the departments in any organization combined! Extremely thick skin, ‘can do’ attitudes, and a fearless mentality are a must in the sales and marketing game

As we’ve done the last few years, we direct you to our friends at Hubspot for their 60 Motivational Sales Quotes to Ignite Your Sales Drive in 2018. It’s a short read, but totally worth it. Now go make 2018 the best year yet! Click here to read on.


4 Tips for Better Content Engagement

Posted on Oct 12, 2017 by .

Content is king, and the amount of engagement that content is generating will tell you whether or not you’re hitting all of the right notes with your audience. The challenge, however, is that most folks know that content is king and marketers are creating more content than ever before, making it increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd.
Continue reading


5 Traits of Successful B2B Marketing Teams

Posted on Sep 12, 2017 by .

The world of B2B marketing is ever evolving, and today’s marketing team needs to be able to adopt new strategies and leverage a mix of technologies that educate, engage and increase conversions. Marketing is part art, part science, and there are a number of different things that make up a top-notch marketing team that always keeps the pipeline full. With that said, we’ve paired it down to 5 essential traits.

Continue reading


Great Webinar Content Is Staring Back At You

Posted on Aug 8, 2017 by .

Marketers (and anybody else involved with producing webinars) have a number of challenges and questions they’re faced with when executing webinars:

  • Is the platform I’m using actually going to work the way it should, or is it going to be a technical pain in my @#$?
  • Who will my presenters be? Will they be any good? Do I have enough bandwidth to execute my webinars the right way?
  • How are we going to promote it and will our promotional efforts drive the traffic and leads we’re hoping for?

Continue reading


3 Online Marketing Events That Drive Measurable ROI

Posted on Jun 7, 2017 by .

Marketers are constantly looking for the right mix of events to build brand awareness, educate their customers and prospects, and, of course, help them close more business. Unfortunately, most marketers think that a certain type of event always needs to be executed a certain type of way, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. With the technologies available today, and the different ways customers and prospects want to engage, companies need to be taking more of their events online to extend their reach and touch more of their audience, drive more measurable response and save a good chunk of change in the process. Here are three events that have traditionally been in-person, but are tailor-made for an online/virtual approach: Continue reading


The Perfect Webinar Registration Page

Posted on Mar 2, 2017 by .

 

 

It’s where everything begins. It’s where you make your first impression. It’s where you’re audience decides whether or not they’re going to give you 45 minutes to an hour of their time. The registration page. Seems simple enough, but a boring, vanilla, unoptimized registration page can be the difference between a webinar with huge registration numbers or one with little to no audience at all. Let’s look at the key components to the perfect webinar registration page

It Needs to Look Good!

People consume with their eyes, and your registration page needs to look good to convert them from a visitor to an actual registrant. If your plate of food didn’t look appealing, you’d be less likely to dig in, right?  Take the same approach with your registration page. Too many webinar/online event platforms out there offer little to no customization, and what you’re left with is a plain Jane registration page with no appeal. You should be able to customize the page with your banners, logos, color schemes, branding, call-to-action, presenter pics and bios, etc. Anything to make it look like the registration page is YOURS. Another thing that more and more marketers are starting to leverage on their webinar registration pages are videos. Either a short video talking about the product/solution/service that the webinar is going to focus on, or a webinar ‘trailer’ of sorts giving the audience a quick glimpse into what the presentation is going to cover. Remember, people love consuming short videos and they’re an extremely engaging content marketing tool. If your platform has the capability, it’s something you should look into.

Date & Time, Social Integration:

I like to list the date and time in a few places. If you have a banner at the top of the page, list the date and time within the banner. Another good place to put it is above the abstract. Your platform should provide the ability to save the webinar to an Outlook or Google Calendar. Remember, people’s attention spans are shorter than ever. They don’t remember what they did yesterday, let alone 1-2 weeks ago. Giving them the ability to save it to their calendar is critical. Also, your platform should provide social media integration and give your visitors the ability to share your webinar through various social media channels. This is an effective way to extend your reach and get your message in front of people you otherwise wouldn’t have reached.

The Title and Abstract Must Speak to your Audience:

Your title should be 6-8 words and speak to the target audience you’re going after. Too many webinar titles are entirely too long and lose the audience right off the bat. As for the abstract, put yourself in your audience’s shoes. If you were them and read the abstract, would it be compelling enough to get you to register? I believe every abstract should have a quick intro setting the tone; the body should introduce the speakers and what they’ll be talking about; the conclusion should mention who should attend and the value/educational benefits they’ll get out of attending, and how they’ll be able to interact with the presenters during the webinar (live Q&A, for instance). This format works, plain and simple. Not too long, not too short.

Only Collect the Info you HAVE to Have:

Today’s buyer has thousands of people and hundreds of vendors vying for his/her time. Be cognizant of that and only collect the info you absolutely have to have. I cringe when I see a registration page with 10 plus registration fields. If that’s you, you’re losing registrants because of that…I guarantee it. 5-7 fields should suffice. For us, a common list includes: first name, last name, company, email, title and one qualification question (For example – Are you struggling with converting qualified leads into actual revenue?. That’s 6 and does the trick for us every single time. Try your best to stay in the 5-7 range. Remember, you want to make it as easy as possible for your audience to register. Don’t make it a hassle.

          If you’re compelled, please share your feedback below. Talk soon.

        Jason Stegent is the Founder & President of ElasticSolutions. Email him @ jstegent@elasticroi.com


5 Common Traits of Bad Webinar Campaigns

Posted on Feb 9, 2017 by .

Webinars have increasingly become the most important piece of any B2B marketer’s lead generation strategy. We all know the benefits: they allow you to more cost effectively reach more of your target audience; educate and engage them with top quality content that’s much more interactive than other forms of content marketing; get invaluable audience engagement metrics that enables you to determine who’s hot and who’s not; and drive more qualified leads into the pipeline, ultimately accelerating revenues. It’s everything you want in a demand/lead-gen tool. Unfortunately, not everybody takes the right approach from registration page creation to event archive, and the result is a campaign with no webcasting ROI and marketers saying “we’ve tried webinars, but they didn’t work for us or our audience.” Here are 5 Common Traits of Bad Webinar Campaigns:

1. Thinking the Registration Page is “Not that big of a deal”

EVERYTHING starts with the registration page. The whole point of a registration page is that when people get there, you want to convert them into registrants. The best way to do that is to align yourself with a webinar provider that allows you to customize your page to meet your brand and your call to action. The right tool should allow you to customize banners, logos and color schemes on the page. You should have freedom to create the registration fields you want and not be forced to use the fields that your provider has hardcoded. In today’s day and age, all registration pages should be optimized with social media integration so it can be shared through various platforms. Outlook and Google calendar integration so folks don’t have an excuse to ‘forget’ about your webinar. Finally, video is huge these days (we talked about that in our recent webinar – 10 Marketing Predictions for 2017). You should be able to add video to your registration page to tell the story of a product you’ll be promoting in the webinar, or to act as a webinar trailer of sorts so your audience will get a better feel for everything the webinar will cover. Video is one of the most engaging tools a marketer has in their toolbox. Add them to your registration pages and watch your traffic numbers soar.

2. Not Promoting Long or Hard Enough

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to a marketer who told me they’ve had zero success with webinars, and then I find out that they promoted it for two weeks and their marketing mix was non-existent. At Elastic, we believe a webinar should get four weeks of promotion time, three weeks minimum. But I’m a big stickler for four. Over this time you should have it front and center on your website and in your social promotions (FB, Twitter, LI). Plug it in blogs and newsletters, do a press release. If you have the budget, promote it through industry publications and associations. And for best results, email still reigns supreme. Over the course of four weeks, you should send three promotional emails – at the beginning, 1-2 weeks out and 2-3 days before. And don’t forget the reminder emails!

3. Not Providing Any Value Before the Webinar

In my opinion, when somebody registers for your webinar they become a prospect. They’re not a lead yet, but they’re somebody that has shown interest in what you’re going to cover. Once they’ve registered, the time leading up to the webinar is a great time to give them additional content that would be relevant to them and their role. The registration confirmation landing page, confirmation email, and reminder emails are great places to do this. For example, when somebody registers for a webinar of yours and goes to a page confirming they’re registered, it’s a good play to provide access to other pieces of content on that page. When they get the confirmation email with details about the event, why not say “Thanks for registering for our upcoming webinar. Based on your interest in this topic, we think you’ll get a lot of value out of our recent whitepaper on XYZ.” You can take this approach with your reminder emails as well. It simply allows you to drive more value for your prospects before the live event. You need a webinar provider with this capability.

4. Not Letting Your Audience Engage

Webinars aren’t a ‘one person talking to many’ environment anymore. They’re multi-touch, interactive, collaborative events that drive attendee engagement. We believe that audience engagement is the true measure of a successful webinar (that and did it ultimately convert to real $?). I see too many webinars today that are vanilla and it’s some guy talking for 60 minutes without getting the audience engaged. Your platform should give you the ability to have live Q&A and group chats. It should allow your attendees to interact with one another and network with each other within the webinar environment. Polls and surveys should be in your toolbox if you wish to use them. If you want to show your product, seamless screen/desktop sharing should be a play. Your attendees should be able to share the webinar through their social networks and get their colleagues involved that they believe would get value out of your webinar. And finally, you should be able to host other forms of content in the webinar environment, enabling your attendees to download literature, read blogs, view videos and register for other webinars that are relevant to the topic you’re covering. These capabilities make your webinars multi-touch, engaging events that provide more measurable results for you and your team on the backend.

5. Thinking the Live Event is all that Matters

Marketers do all of this hard work to have a great webinar. They get great speakers. They promote the hell out of it and have an awesome turnout. The webinar itself is jam packed with fantastic content and the audience is truly engaged. And then…they do absolutely nothing with a great piece of on-demand content and crap the proverbial bed. This drives me crazy. I argue that your on-demand strategy should be just as important as your strategy to drive traffic to the live event. The first thing you should do is immediately archive the event on your site. The right webinar provider will not only host the webinar on their platform for a certain period of time, but you’ll also be able to build an MP4 (complete media capture) of the webinar and host it behind a registration page on your site. Within 24 hours of the event, you should send emails to those who attended and those who registered/didn’t attend letting them know how they can access the on-demand version. After that, you should send an email to everybody on your list that didn’t register letting them know the webinar is now available on-demand for them to watch. Promote the on-demand version through social media and any other channels you see fit. Another great thing about on-demand webinars is they can be used to build other pieces of content as well. Use them to create a blog, eBook or whitepaper. How about this – take the highlights of the webinar and bundle them into a 3-4 minute video and distribute that to your audience letting them know these were the key points of the event. For people who don’t want to sit through a 45 minute on-demand event, this approach is much more consumable and engaging. The point is you’ve got a great piece of content…don’t waste it. Extend its shelf-life and watch your webcasting ROI improve dramatically.

If you’re compelled, please share your feedback below. Talk soon.
Jason Stegent is the Founder & President of ElasticSolutions. Email him @ jstegent@elasticroi.com 


50 Motivational Quotes to Ignite Your Sales Drive in 2017

Posted on Jan 5, 2017 by .

We did it last year, and here it is again. From our friends at HubSpot, here are 50 quotes that are tailor-made to motivate all of the sales warriors out there:

1) “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” -Thomas Edison

2) “Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.” -Og Mandino

3) “Become the person who would attract the results you seek.” -Jim Cathcart

4) “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” -Sam Levenson

5) “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” -George Addair

6) “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” -Mark Twain

7) “Quality performance starts with a positive attitude.” -Jeffrey Gitomer

8) “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” -Thomas Jefferson

9) “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” -Tony Robbins

10) “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” -Thomas Paine

11) “We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.” -George S. Patton

12) “Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.” -Norman Ralph Augustine

13) “Change before you have to.” -Jack Welch

14) “Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.” -Daniel Pink

15) “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” -Florence Nightengale

16) “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” -Zig Ziglar

17) “Well done is better than well said.” -Benjamin Franklin

18) “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” -Wayne Gretzky

19) “I got lucky because I never gave up the search. Are you quitting too soon? Or are you willing to pursue luck with a vengeance?” -Jill Konrath

20) “There is always room at the top.” -Daniel Webster

21) “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” -Yogi Berra

22) “It’s not about having the right opportunities. It’s about handling the opportunities right.” -Mark Hunter

23) “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” -Napolean Hill

24) “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” -Vince Lombardi

25) “Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.” -Christopher Morley

26) “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” -Sheryl Sandberg

27) “Outstanding people have one thing in common: An absolute sense of mission.” -Zig Ziglar

28) “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” -Henry Ford

29) “Trying is winning in the moment.” -Dan Waldschmidt

30) “Fall down seven times and stand up eight.” -Proverb

31) “If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” -Joe Namath

32) “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” -William James

33) “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” -Babe Ruth

34) “Lean in, speak out, have a voice in your organization, and never use the word ‘sorry.'” -Trish Bertuzzi

35) “Whatever you are, be a good one.” -Abraham Lincoln

36) “The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.” -John Madden

37) “Fortune favors the bold.” -Virgil

38) “Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts.” -Winston Churchill

39) “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” -John D. Rockefeller

40) “High expectations are the key to everything.” -Sam Walton

41) “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

42) “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” -John R. Wooden

43) “There is little success where there is little laughter.” -Andrew Carnegie

44) “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” -Albert Einstein

45) “What we dwell on is who we become.” -Oprah Winfrey

46) “It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.” -Warren Buffett

47) “Nothing is impossible; the word itself says ‘I’m possible!'” -Audrey Hepburn

48) “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” -Steve Jobs

49) “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” -Bruce Lee

50) “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” -Wayne Dyer

If you’re compelled, please share your feedback below. Talk soon.
Jason Stegent is the Founder & President of Elastic Solutions. Email him @ jstegent@elasticroi.com


When a True Webinar PARTNER Makes Sense

Posted on Dec 21, 2016 by .

My message isn’t striking a chord with my audience.

I’m unsure how I should promote this to my audience.

My registration page is boring as hell, and so are my confirmation and reminder emails

Why are my registration numbers so low?

Why do I have seat limits?

This technology is too hard, my presenters are never going to get how to use it

Speaking of my presenters, I can’t track them down to save my life.

Why is my attendance so low?

Wait, only X amount of people can attend?

Why can’t my audience hear me? Why is the audio quality so crappy?

I have to wait to get my reports? Are you kidding me?

I can only post this on-demand for 3 months? I have to pay more for more archiving?

What are best practices to extend the shelf-life of this content so it can keep generating leads for me?

You know what, this is just too hard. I don’t have time to plan, schedule and execute webinars. I simply don’t have the bandwidth

Does this sound familiar? If you’re a B2B marketer and you’ve run webinars or they’re a key part of your marketing strategy, chances are you’ve made some of these statements and/or asked some of these questions. If that’s the case, then you don’t need a webinar vendor…you need a webinar PARTNER. A partner that has a vested interest in making sure that you’re webinars do what they’re supposed to do – they drive traffic, they provide a platform to execute a customized, multi-touch content marketing event, they provide deep insight into audience engagement, they drive qualified leads into the pipeline, and they actually work!!!

At Elastic Solutions, we provide a managed-service webinar offering that has us managing the process from registration page creation to event archive. This includes:

• You’re given a webinar account manager that will be assigned to your account to make sure the process runs as smoothly as possible for every webinar you run on our cloud-based platform, Elastic Meetings. We handle technical, production and scheduling details. You worry about putting together great content (we’ll even consult with you on best practices for driving a value-centric message that drives traffic

• Webinars can be live, simu-live (pre-recorded and then broadcast as a ‘live’ webinar with live features) or on-demand. Elastic supports audio and slides, video and slides, video only, live screen share, etc. You name it, we can do it

• Customized registration pages with your logos, color schemes, call-to-action and overall branding. Unlimited possibilities. A more optimized registration page will convert more registrants

• Customized confirmation and reminder emails with your branding, as well as the option of offering additional pieces of content leading up to the live webinar date. This will help increase registration to attendee ratios

• Dedicated and customized dashboard for each webinar where you’ll have access to real-time reports before, during and after each webinar. These reports will give you a true sense of audience engagement

• Completely customized webinar attendee interface with a number of different engagement widgets that turn your webinars into multi-touch marketing events that increase audience engagement, provide more audience analytics and drive greater lead results. Like the registration page, this includes logos, color schemes, images, overall branding, etc.

• Managing schedules with your presenters, including running dry-runs to make sure they’re comfortable with the technology and the message that they’ll be delivering the day of the event

• Recording the webinars the day of the event so they can be ready for on-demand archiving

• Post event emails promoting the on-demand version, sending separate emails to attendees and those who registered/didn’t attend

• Each webinar is archived on our platform for 12 months

• Providing an MP4 (complete media capture) of your webinar so you can host it on your side for perpetuity

• Consulting with you on best practices to extend the shelf-life of your webinar content so it continues to act as a lead generator for your business for months to come

If you want to make webinars a bigger part of your lead generation and overall marketing plan in 2017, but you just don’t know if you have everything it takes to pull it off, a provider like us could be the solution you’re looking for. Happy Holidays!


5 Lead Generation Initiatives for 2017

Posted on Nov 23, 2016 by .

fullspeedahead

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re going to keep this short and sweet…

Focus on Qualified Leads

‘Quality over quantity’ – cliché, yes; but it’s solid advice. According to LinkedIn’s Technology Marketing Group, 59% of professionals confirmed that generating high-quality leads was their top priority for 2016 and moving forward. A large number of ‘leads’ don’t even make it to the conversation stage because they aren’t qualified, but your team already put time and effort into getting those leads. Prevent that waste by having a defined target audience and the right content to attract that audience.

Where’s your content ‘bulls-eye’?

You know what’s coming… you say it in your sleep – “Content is King.” However, how much power does a King have outside of his realm? The same applies to content! You can have incredible, earth-shattering content but you won’t see any results if you’re not targeting the right audience. So, who’s in your bulls-eye?

Maximize Content Usage

Okay, I‘ll stop harping on content… after this. Think of how much time, effort, and budget goes into creating all of your content. Some content takes hours or days to perfect, but others can take weeks or months! That’s a tremendous use of resources to wash your hands of once you’ve completed the project. Instead of launching and leaving, repurpose your whitepapers, webinars, blogs… basically everything! If the topic is still relevant to the industry, keep your message going.

(Need ideas on how to repurpose content? Check this out… )

Get in the Automation Game

If you have multiple targets, marketing automation should be your best friend. You can do a bit of predicting and guess work to automate messages and interactions based on the pages that people visit. For example, this blog will most likely be visited by sales reps and managers, while this blog is more likely to attract marketers and event specialists. By implementing marketing automation, you’re able to pin-point the most qualified and active prospects, optimizing your time and efforts.

Let’s get personal…

Well, on a professional level, of course. All of your interactions should be personalized with the first name at the very least – bonus points for company, industry, etc. Personalized interactions build and nurture your relationships without coming off generic. If you do it right, the prospect won’t even know they’re on a list.


You want more measurable ROI, don’t you?

Posted on Oct 7, 2016 by .

roi_banner

As marketers start looking at their 2017 plans (can’t believe it’s right around the corner), the tools and methods they have at their disposal to drive leads and pipeline growth are greater than ever before. Whereas it used to be limited to cold calls, marketing emails, and conferences/trade shows, it’s now expanding to include videos, eBooks, infographics, SEO/SEM/PPC, social, account-based marketing, etc. It’s a good thing in the sense that there are more options available, but it’s a bad thing at the same time because too many marketers think ‘If I can just do a little bit of everything, we’ll hit our goals.’

Today’s buyer has more power to do the homework themselves – and when you combine that with the fact that there are thousands of other marketers vying for their attention, it’s vital to make each interaction that much more impactful. You have to create competitive differentiation and leverage tools that allow you to truly measure ROI.

Too many marketers keep doing the same thing every year and expect a different result – AKA, the definition of insanity. Going into 2017, think about how you’ve interacted with your prospects in the past. You created an incredible eBook or infographic that gave you a ton of downloads; you spent a fortune at an industry trade show, had some conversations and got a good list of names; you created a series of sexy videos and got a number of people to watch them. That’s great, but outside of the downloads, lists of names, and views, what did you really learn about your buyer? Are you able to measure that ROI?

For today’s marketer, the best way to measure ROI is through audience engagement. Webinars (and virtual events in general) provide more measurable data than any tool available. Think about it. You get 45 minutes to an hour to present to your audience in a number of different ways. It’s not just about audio and slides or video and slides anymore. It’s about creating an interactive, truly engaging experience that can provide powerful metrics on the back end. So not just knowing that they attended, but having visibility into what they did over the course of the webinar – how long they attended, questions they asked and group chats they participated in, content they downloaded, polls and surveys they responded to, social platforms they shared it through, etc.

This is the kind of data that allows marketers to trim the fat and separate the pretenders from the contenders, and keep their sales counterparts fat and happy. Can your fancy expensive videos or even more expensive tradeshow sponsorships measure engagement like that? Nope. However, webinars on the Elastic Solutions webcasting platform, Elastic Meetings, can deliver that and more. We specialize in putting together customized webinar strategies that drive awareness, generate more qualified leads and close more business.

So as you plan for 2017, think about all of the expensive marketing tactics you’ve traditionally leveraged and ask yourself if they’re truly worth it. Think about programs that generate the best leads and the most bang for your buck. Think about ramping up your webinar strategy.


Your Webinar Doesn’t HAVE to be Live

Posted on Sep 22, 2016 by .

on24-live-and-on-demand-webinars-300x261

Your registration page looks perfect. A multi-pronged promotional strategy is driving registrations left and right and you’re going to have a big audience the day of the event. Your presenters are prepped and ready to go. The slides look beautiful. Your webinar starts is 3, 2, 1 and…total mayhem. Your internet connection is all of a sudden spotty. The audio is in and out or the video isn’t working properly. Your slides aren’t navigating like they should. There’s a guy outside cleaning your office window making all kinds of noise. Your attendees are messaging that they can’t hear you. You see your live attendee number dwindle down to nothing. It’s a total disaster. Do you have options to avoid this happening to you?

Enter the Simu-Live Webinar

I promise, we’re not making this up. Simu-Live webinars are actually ‘a thing.’ It’s where you pre-record the webinar and broadcast it as a live event with live elements such as Q&A, chat, content downloading, social sharing and interaction, polling, surveys, etc.

So, what are the benefits?

1. Flexibility…

If you have presenters in different time zones, Simu-Live can prevent major headaches. It’s already a challenge to align everyone’s schedules to set time aside for the day-of, which is why pre-recording is preferred with a lot of our clients. The misconception, though, is that by recording your webinar ahead of time, you’ll miss out on the live interaction with your attendees. It’s actually the opposite! By pre-recording the meat of your presentation, you actually have more flexibility to focus on attendee involvement with questions, chats, polls, surveys, etc. to make sure the webinar experience is as interactive as possible.

2. Quality Control

As mentioned in our most recent webinar, 11 Steps to Making Webinars GREAT Again! (link to reg page), “it’s quality, not quantity.” Pre-recording allows you to review and edit the webinar before the live date, ensuring that your presentation is a slam dunk. Many times in a live environment, presenters get off script, go on a tangent and lose the audience. Simu-Live ensures you stay on course and deliver a webinar experience that will keep your audience engaged. Remember, one of the key metrics of a successful webinar is audience engagement.

3. Calm your nerves

As awesome as live webinars are, some people don’t do well under pressure… especially first-time speakers. Recording your webinar ahead of the live date will calm everyone’s nerves. Presenters will be more comfortable knowing that a tongue-tied stumble isn’t the end of the world, and you will be at ease with knowing your webinar will be executed exactly how you envisioned.

4. Eliminate What’s Out Of Your Control

As we mentioned above, some things are simply out of your control. A speaker suddenly can’t navigate the slides because he/she has spotty internet connection. The sound quality suddenly becomes poor. Or how about when a presenter has an emergency at the last minute and can’t participate? We’ve seen it happen before. Simu-Live simply throws these things out the window and truly puts you in control when it comes to your audience’s webinar experience

We’re not bashing live webinars…the majority of our clients still prefer them. However, there is another way. If you’ve ever been faced with any of these scenarios and it blew your webinar to pieces and wasted your attendee’s time, you should consider the Simu-Live alternative.


A Research-Driven Approach to Lead Generation

Posted on Aug 25, 2016 by .

lol

A lot of today’s sales and marketers reach out and tell their audience how great they are. “We help companies do XYZ via a cloud-based solution that does XYZ and the end result is XYZ. Let me know when we can schedule 20 minutes to chat about how we can do the same for you.” Guess what? Your prospects are getting thousands upon thousands of those emails from sales and marketers all over the world. So how do you create competitive differentiation?

One of the things that has been very successful for us, and our clients, is a letting the market dictate how they want to be sold to. And we get to that point by taking a research-driven approach to lead generation. Too many B2B organizations are too busy telling their prospects how awesome they are, and not taking enough time to understand what’s keeping the market up at night. Selling to a prospect’s challenges is Sales 101, I know, but companies have gotten away from that. Here at Elastic, there are two ways we go about it:

Industry Studies/Surveys – you’d be amazed how much your prospects will divulge to you in a 15 question survey. It’s mind-boggling. They’ll tell you where they’re good, where they’re great and where they’re doing crappy and need help. Your sales and marketing teams can use this info in their follow-ups, in their lead nurturing and drip marketing campaigns, and in your messaging for that specific market. You can then use all of this data to build a piece of content that simply regurgitates what your prospects told you. And when you promote a piece of content and let your prospects know that this is the result of responses from hundreds of their peers, your download rate will be much higher compared to literature that isn’t based on research. Your prospects love to hear what they’re peers in the space are doing and how they measure up. It’s a powerful way to drive leads

Webinars – webinars are a great way to summarize the findings of a market research campaign. As opposed to your audience just reading the results on paper, actually hearing/seeing the people that executed the research brings more credibility to the overall campaign. Webinars offer an interactive environment to take your research to the next level. And guess what? Webinars can also serve as the foundation for your next piece of content. If you’re working with the right webcasting provider, your platform should be able to measure attendee engagement a number of different ways. How long did they attend? What questions were asked and what occurred in group chat? How did they respond to poll questions and surveys? What content did they download and how many times was the webinar shared through social mediums? What parts of the webinar received the most engagement? Like I’ve always said, webinars are so much more than just the presentation itself All of this data will help you:

1.  Determine what your audience is most interested in. So when you follow-up post event, you can trim the fat and get down to what really matters to them.

2.  Dictate what your next piece of content will be. Perhaps the audience feedback gives you an idea for what your next webinar topic should be. Or perhaps you have enough data to build a top-notch piece of content – highlight reels from the webinar, eBooks, whitepapers, etc.

Stop telling your prospects what you THINK they need. Put the tools in place that enable them to tell you what they’re interested in and what they actually DO need. Then use this feedback to tighten your lead generation approach, drive more opportunities and close more sales.


Driving Value Every Step of the Webinar Process

Posted on Aug 3, 2016 by .


content-marketing-meme-valuable

 

The most important thing any webinar can provide for its attendees is VALUE. How are they going to be better off taking 45 minutes out of their hectic schedule to hear what you have to say? If you can’t answer that question, you don’t have a webinar worth delivering. But the presentation itself isn’t the only place where you need to drive value. A successful webinar campaign is so much more than the presentation itself…

 

 

Registration Page:

This is where it all starts. Your abstract needs to immediately tell a story that resonates with your audience. Take away the fluff and focus on what the webinar is going to cover. What challenges in the marketplace are going to be addressed in this webinar? What educational benefits are folks going to get out of attending? Customize the page to meet your message – banners, logos, pictures, videos, etc. – and optimize it to reach a larger audience and improve registration to attendee conversions (social media integration, save to Outlook and Google calendars, etc.).

Emails:

As soon as people register they should receive a confirmation email with webinar details – links, dates, times, test your system instructions, etc. You should also send them two reminder emails – typically a week before and the morning of. But how about being a little different? Instead of just sending them a boring instruction manual on how to access the webinar and view it optimally, why not include a piece of content that will give them value and touches on some of the points that your upcoming webinar is going to cover? It could be a link to an on-demand webinar, a link to your blogs, a collection of videos or pieces of literature that support what you’re going to be speaking about during the webinar (eBooks, Whitepapers, etc.). These emails should be seen as an extra way to provide value for a prospect that has already shown interest by registering for your webinar. They’ve entered the funnel, not it’s time to nurture them.

Webinar:

The big day is here, but just don’t give them a presentation. Provide an engaging experience. The content has to be top-notch, yes, but give them access to other forms of content within the webinar environment. This provides you with more touch points and more ways to measure their engagement. Q&A is a given, but provide other engagement options. Conduct polls and surveys, providing instant feedback so they can see how they stack up against their peers. Provide the ability to download content related to the presentation – webinar slides, literature, videos, blogs, etc. Give them the ability to automatically register for your next webinar while they’re watching your current webinar. This is a great way to increase attendance for future events and provides an easier way for folks to attend your upcoming webinars. They’re watching your webinar and like what they’re hearing…why wouldn’t they want to see what you have in store for your next event? Give them more value than they bargained for.

On-Demand:

It drives me absolutely crazy how overlooked this part of the process is. Don’t just send them a “Thank You” or “Sorry we missed you” email with a link to the on-demand version. Do that PLUS provide access to the slide deck (if they attended); drive them to your blogs and social media pages; give them a great piece of follow-up content and provide access to the resource library on your site; if they haven’t already registered for your next webinar, take them to a place where they can easily sign up for any of your upcoming webinars. You’ve got your prospects at a place where they’re a sponge…give them access to quality content and allow them to soak in all of the value you can drive for them and their organization.


Four Steps to Lead-Gen Bliss in 2H 2016

Posted on Jul 22, 2016 by .

lionel-meme

Q3 is now here (can you believe it??!!). The first half of 2016, good or bad, is now behind us and you have 6 months (really a little over 5 if you take out the holidays) to hit those numbers you were so sure were attainable back in January. Follow this four step guide to drive more demand for your business and greater pipeline value so you look like a marketing all-star for your year-end review:

1. Content is KING

AAEAAQAAAAAAAAJfAAAAJGJkMjY0NzI5LWI5MTItNGJkZS1iZGFhLThjOTZkOTQ5Y2ZkOQ

This isn’t going to be jaw-dropping information that you don’t already know, but content is king in the digital world. Whitepapers, eBooks, and infographics are all well and good, but today’s audience is interaction-centric and there are mediums out there to deliver this content in a more interactive way. Webinars and virtual environments are the perfect tools to re-purpose your content to where it works harder for you and drives lead generation for a longer period of time. Not only are they interactive (and perpetually available on-demand), but you can measure end-user engagement, connect and interact with your peers, and qualify leads all at the same time. They ultimately provide you with more touch points and ways to drive pipeline than just sending out a single piece of content.

2. Recycle, Re-purpose, Reuse 

Blood, sweat, and tears went into your content (well, hopefully not blood but we’re not judging…), so milk ‘em for all they’ve got. Use existing blogs, whitepapers, videos and other valuable content as the foundation of your webinar strategy. You can and should re-purpose your webinars as well by making them available on-demand. There are endless ways to extend the shelf-life of your webinars, so don’t let your hard work be in vain. And what about the other way around – using webinars to build whitepapers, eBooks, etc.? Just a thought…

3. Stay in Front of Prospects that aren’t ‘Sales Ready’

Not every lead you generate is going to be ‘sales ready.’ They have a challenge, they like what you’re selling to make them sleep easier at night, but they’re simply not at a point where they can sign on the dotted line and get started. This is where having a solid lead nurturing/drip marketing campaign in place are essential to today’s B2B marketer. Drip on them with content that meets the challenge they’re facing and where they are in the buying cycle. And remember, webinars aren’t just for lead generation anymore. You should also use them as an effective tool to continually educate your pipeline and move them through the sales funnel. Before you know it, you’re using webinars as a tool to close business, not just to generate demand.

4. Humanize and Personalize Your Approach

The other person you’re talking to at the end of the line is a business person, yes. But they’re also human. They leave work, maybe hit a happy hour and have a cold beer, go home and eat dinner with their family, play with their kids, watch Sportcenter or the Real Housewives of God knows what city now, etc. They’re not robots, so don’t talk to them as such. Using fancy buzzwords isn’t going to enhance what your company can do for them. Humanize your approach and be straightforward. You’ll take away the risk of confusing your prospects or having them completely misunderstand what you’re trying to say.

And while we’re on the topic, personalize your message. Stop sending crap that doesn’t meet what your prospect is looking for. Do some homework on your prospects, what they like and don’t like, what their role is, what drives them, etc., and then craft a message that’s meant for them.

Now that you have a fresh approach to your strategy…


7 Ways to Optimize Your Webinar Registration Page

Posted on Jun 30, 2016 by .

sell-sides-task-optimize-buy-side-trading

There are a number of motivations for a webinar – establish brand awareness, enhance credibility and thought leadership, educate your audience, build a business case for your solution/services, drive qualified leads for your sales force to pursue, etc., etc., etc.; but none of that means a thing if you can’t get an audience, and the only way to build that audience is to get registrants. If you have made the effort to get people to your registration page, you need to do all you can to convert them into registrants. Optimize your page so that your visitors have no reason to leave without registering. These tips will help increase registrations, attendees and your overall webcasting ROI.

1. Submission Form Design

When designing your submission form, less is more. The optimal number of fields for your submission form is from 4 to 7. Each additional field you add causes a higher percentage of people to leave without registering. You should only require a field if it makes a direct impact on your follow-up campaigns. Also, be sure to have fields aligned in one column, preferably on the right side of the page. Placing the form on the right side instead of the left side can increase conversions by 24%. When designing the page, make sure the “Submit” button is contrasted with its surroundings and make it as noticeable as possible.

2. Provide Incentive

If you are trying to get registrants to sign up in advance for your webinar, give them a reason to sign up now instead of hoping they come back later. Try providing teaser content that is related to what the webinar is about, such as an eBook, email, or whitepaper. Something that has worked really well for us and our clients is to leverage video on the registration page, essentially using it as a webinar trailer of sorts. It’s extremely effective! That’s not surprising when you consider that video is consistently ranked among the top two content marketing tools on the market today (along with webinars!).

3. Page Content

Your page content should be limited to a brief description of the webinar and what your audience will learn by attending. Think like a registrant – anticipate any questions your audience may want answered before they decide to register. What value are you providing that will make your audience want to take 45-50 minutes out of their day to hear what you have to say? Repeat after me: “short and sweet.”

4. Show Registrant Count

Providing the number of registrants you have shows potential registrants the demand for the webinar and can help influence them to sign up. You can get folks asking themselves the question, “If my colleagues are signing up, am I missing something by not doing the same?” Creating legitimacy is important to snag those visitors and convert them into registrants.

5. Sharing is Caring

Provide social media share icons to enable your webinar content to be shared with ease. This is a hassle-free way to drive additional registrations. Also, provide the ability to add the webinar to your personal calendar. This helps increase your registration to attendee ratio, which for some companies is quite poor.

6. Keep ‘em while you got ‘em

If you’ve driven a visitor to your registration page, design the page so they are less likely to wander off. Customize the page with company logos, color schemes and pictures related to the webinar. As mentioned earlier, leverage video when you can. Registration pages are like a plate of food; if it looks great, you’re much more likely to dig in. If you’re using a webinar provider that doesn’t allow this level of customization, you’re with the wrong provider. Limit menu dropdowns and any other distracting elements that are not directly related to the webinar. Keep them focused on the webinar, and be sure to have your call to action throughout the page such as, “Register now to learn about…” or “By registering today, you will receive our free eBook…”

7. Get personal

Let the visitors know who the webinar speaker(s) are. Provide pictures, names, titles, bios, etc. This enhances credibility and makes the webinar a more personable experience, as opposed to “some person” that will be presenting information to them. If your presenters are willing to take it a step further, ask them if they’re willing to provide their email or a virtual business card on the page.

Give it a try! Play with the theme, wording, placement… mix it up until you find the perfect balance. Now watch your registration numbers climb and do your happy dance.

 


Three Words That Annoy Your Prospects

Posted on Jun 23, 2016 by .

annoyed-guyWe’re all guilty of it. I’m a big preacher against it, but sometimes even I have to remind myself not to do it. What am I talking about? I’m talking about “just touching base” or “just checking in.”

We’ve all had opportunities that get stuck in the pipeline. We thought we did everything right – we dug for business pain and how it was affecting the prospect’s ability to execute their job effectively, we built the business case, and then put a proposal against that business case that solved the challenge that prospect was facing. We thought it was a done deal and that signed contract would be in our inbox any day. But it hasn’t come through and even worse, your prospect hasn’t responded to your calls and emails for a few weeks, if not longer. And you’re not helping your chances when you lead with “just touching base.” It annoys the hell out of them. They’ve got a lot of people vying for their time and competing for their business, and only the folks that bring real value every step of the way are going to earn it. Here are a few things you can do to stop the awkward silence and get that contract through the door:

Reiterate the Business Case

If you’ve built a strong value proposition and the deal is looking like it’s stuck and quiet on the other end, reiterate why you and the prospect got to this stage in the first place and why your solution will solve their challenges. There’s a lot of value in saying, “Jim, when we first got together you mentioned that driving qualified leads into the pipeline was your biggest challenge. You’ve worked with organizations that drove ‘leads’ for you, but they rarely met your defined criteria of what a qualified lead should be, and thus you were wasting your time on contacts that either weren’t the right fit or they weren’t close to a buying cycle. You told me this was killing your pipeline and that your sales team was becoming frustrated. We came up with a solution that would get you in front of ‘sales ready’ leads and increase your pipeline value 5 X. I wanted to make sure that solving this challenge and increasing pipeline value is still important to you, and that you’re ready to do something about it by moving forward with our solution.” How much better is that than “Just checking in?” Another road to take would be to state the risk they’re facing by not doing something.

Find an Article/Case Study, etc. that will Resonate

I always tell our sales folks to do their homework and study the industry. Be on the lookout for articles, case studies, research reports, etc., that they can use as ammo to accelerate opportunities through the pipeline more effectively. Instead of “just touching base,” taking an approach of “Sarah, I came across this article and thought you would find it interesting. I believe it speaks to the challenges you are currently faced with and best practices for solving them. I hope you find it valuable” brings a lot more value. It shows your prospect that you’re thinking about them and doing your homework. They respect that so much more

Provide a Piece of Content/Invite Them to an Event

As a provider of webinar-based marketing solutions, I believe that webinars are a great tool to accelerate opportunities through the pipeline more effectively. Webinars are no longer just a tool to educate your audience and drive more qualified leads. They’re a fantastic weapon to help you close business. When it makes sense, we often use on-demand webinars as tools to get a prospect moving. Or if we have an upcoming webinar, take The Seven Costly Sins of Lead Generation for instance, that’s going to cover a lot of issues that one of our key prospects is faced with, we’ll send them a personal invitation. “Dave, we have a webinar coming up next week where we’ll cover a lot of the ideas that you and I have brainstormed together over the last few months. Here’s a link to register…I hope you can make it.” Value, value, value.

I know it sounds simple, but not enough sales reps do it. If you can do your due diligence and provide value during every stage of the funnel, you’re going to break that awkward prospect silence and get more signed contracts in your inbox.

If you’re compelled, please share your feedback below. Talk soon!

Jason Stegent is the Founder & President of Elastic Solutions. Email him @ jstegent@elasticroi.com


Are Your Events Reaching Enough of Your Target Audience?

Posted on May 2, 2016 by .

the-role-of-hybrid-events-in-the-future-of-the-events-industryWith all of the different marketing tactics available today to drive pipeline – and there are a TON of them – live, physical events remain one of the most important pieces of the marketing puzzle for many organizations. For some, it is THE most important marketing technique and the one that swallows up most of their budget. With that said, these organizations could be doing so much more to touch a larger piece of their target audience and maximize their investment… enter the Hybrid Event!

Across all industries, Virtual Events are becoming more and more popular due to their cost-effectiveness and ability to cast a wider net and drive more measurable response on the backend. A hybrid event is simply a conference/tradeshow/summit/workshop, etc. that combines an in-person event with a virtual/online extension. The bottom line is that the majority of the people you invite to your in-person events aren’t going to attend, and it’s not because they’re not interested. Studies have shown that 90% of the time the reason your target audience doesn’t attend your events is because they can’t justify the cost and/or time away from the office. This means that more than likely they want to hear what you have to say, there are just obstacles that won’t allow them to be there in-person. Hybrid events provide a medium for you to reach these folks, interact with them and measure their engagement. There are a number of advantages to adding hybrid events to your strategy, and here are a few that I believe are incredibly compelling for any organization:

Extending the reach of your events – as mentioned above, the majority of your audience is not going to attend your in-person events because of cost, time and travel restrictions. Too many companies make no effort to touch these folks and that’s a huge mistake. Adding a virtual component allows you to engage with this piece of your audience that you’re currently missing out on.

• Extending the shelf-life of your events – you’ve done all of this hard work to build an impressive list of presenters and a stack of fantastic content for your event. Unfortunately for too many organizations, once an event is over, it’s over. They don’t do anything to extend the shelf-life of their event’s content. By adding virtual to the mix, you can essentially capture the event and offer it on-demand, extending the life span of the event and allowing it to keep working for you as a lead generator for months to come.

• Creating new revenue streams for your business – many companies are starting to realize the revenue potential that hybrid events bring with them. Some examples include:
1) Additional sponsorship revenue from your in-person sponsors/partners by telling them they can gain access to an online audience by sponsoring the virtual component of the event.
2) Registration revenue from your virtual attendees. As a best practice, many companies that charge for their events will offer 50% off for online attendees. And NO, this model is not going to cannibalize attendance of your in-person events. If anything, giving them the opportunity to see what they’re missing in person will increase the likelihood of them attending your event next year…if they deem your content valuable, of course!
3) Assuming the event is for marketing purposes, adding a virtual extension allows you to get engaged with more prospects, which will allow you to drive more qualified leads, which will lead to more pipeline value…you get the picture.

• Measurability, Measurability, Measurability – Along with cost and time and driving more traffic, perhaps the most compelling reason to add an online piece to any event strategy is the fact that you can measure end user engagement more effectively, ultimately giving you a better sense of event ROI. The fact is there are certain things that can’t be done with in-person events in terms of measurability. Adding a virtual extension gives you more visibility into what all of your attendees are doing, allowing you to essentially score your prospects based on engagement and focus on the lowest hanging fruit.

If you’re compelled, please share your feedback below. Talk soon!

Jason Stegent is the Founder & President of Elastic Solutions. Email him @ jstegent@elasticroi.com


A Great Webinar is Just the Beginning!

Posted on Apr 13, 2016 by .

new-beginning-1024x683

As most marketers can tell you, webinars have become the most important tool businesses have today to tell a story, generate demand and drive pipeline value. And when everything is done properly – from a top-notch registration page, to an integrated promotional strategy that drives optimal traffic, to speakers that are engaging and bring a ton of value to the audience – the end result is a great webinar and a lot of quality prospects for your sales force to follow up with. But why stop there?

In a recent webinar of ours – The Five Keys to a Pipeline Boosting Webinar Strategy – we discussed the five essential elements of any effective webinar plan. And perhaps the most overlooked by most marketers is having an actionable on-demand strategy that drives results. You’ve put all of this hard work into delivering a world-class webinar, and now you’re not going to do anything else with it? That thinking is for the birds. An on-demand webinar is content marketing gold, and there are a number of ways you can bend and stretch it so it can be leveraged as a lead generator for months to come. Here are just a few ideas around how to re-purpose your webinar content:

Build an Event: Marketers are always looking for ways to execute events that are more cost-effective, drive more traffic and offer more measurable results on the back-end. The problem is, they keep looking to the same places and aren’t getting the results they’re looking for. If you have a robust webinar strategy where you have a lot of on-demand webinars, using them as the foundation of a virtual event is a great way to re-purpose them and drive new leads. You can set them up against scheduled times so they could act as ‘live webinars’, and leverage other content you have (whitepapers, case studies, videos, blogs, etc.) to fill out the rest of the event. I can’t tell you how many marketers I’ve spoken to that tell me they want to execute an event, but they don’t feel they have the content. If they only knew that re-purposing existing content could be the solution they’re looking for

Create a New Whitepaper or Case Study: The norm is to write a case study, whitepaper, eBook, blog, etc. and leverage it as the foundation of a webinar or webinar series. Great approach…we do it too and love it. But what about the idea of leveraging a webinar as the foundation for a top-notch piece of literature? That’s exactly what we’re doing for our last webinar, The Seven Costly Sins of Lead Generation. We already have the content essentially built, so writing the whitepaper will be a cinch

Use it as the Foundation for your Outbound Efforts: As everyone knows, sales people like leads. And when they don’t have leads being handed to them on a silver platter, they like to be equipped with ammo to make their outbound efforts more fruitful. One way to do this is to tell them to promote the on-demand version of webinars that make sense to their prospects. Tell them to mention it in their voicemail, their conversations with prospects, and in their emails. Have them put a link to a recent webinar in their signature. The person on the other end of the line wants some value, and providing them some education in the form of an on-demand webinar could be just the thing to peak their interest

The Rise of Video: leveraging video is more realistic and cost-effective than it’s ever been. If you’re using the right webinar provider, you should be able to get an MP4 (complete media capture) of the webinar. Take that MP4 and upload it on your site, behind a registration form, so you can host it for perpetuity. Then upload it on your YouTube channel as well. But also be cognizant of the fact that on-demand webinars have shorter viewing times than live webinars, meaning it’s less likely your audience is going to watch the entire recording. With that in mind, turn your webinar into a 4-5 minute highlight reel. Post it on your website, through YouTube and other social channels. Chances are this will give you more traction in terms shares and likes than an entire webinar recording will.


Four Ways to Lose a Webinar Audience

Posted on Mar 28, 2016 by .

lack-clipart-clip-art-sleeping-760851

No matter what you hear from other vendors in the marketplace, pulling off a top-notch webinar strategy isn’t easy. It takes a well thought out approach, from registration page creation to event archive, to turn your webinars into what we like to call ‘sales accelerating weapons.’ When executed properly, it’s a beautiful thing. When done poorly, you can lose an audience forever, so making sure you nail your presentation IS that important. Here are four ways you can lose a webinar audience:

1. Registration Page: Most people don’t even know that they’ve lost their webinar audience before it even started. If there’s one thing your registration page needs to do, it needs to tell your audience why they should take 30, 40, 50 minutes out of their day to hear what you have to say. What value are they going to get out of it? What are they going to learn and how is it going to make them better? Telling them how great your product and solutions are won’t do the trick. Either is telling them that the majority of the presentation is going to be a demo (see more on that below). And while you have them on the registration page, make sure it’s optimized so they can save it to their calendar and share it amongst their peers. If they like what you’re cooking, they’ll serve it throughout their network as well

2. Downloads and Plugins: If your audience has to download a plugin to view your webinar on their desktop, two things are most likely true:
1 – You’re not using a webinar/webcasting solution…you’re using a meeting tool that limits you in a variety of ways.
2 – A number of your prospective registrants aren’t going to bother downloading software. It annoys them and they simply don’t have the time because your audience has less patience for this type of stuff than ever before. Look for a browser-based solution where no plug-ins are required. When you see the difference in registration, you’ll be glad you did.

3. Lack of Engagement: If you’re using the right webinar tool, there are so many things you should be able to do to keep your audience engaged – live Q&A, group chat and one-on-one chat, polling, surveys, content downloads, sharing and email options, etc. These are all things you should be considering to not only keep your audience engaged, but to measure their interest at the end of an event. Having insight into how engaged your audience is allows you to trim the fat and make your webinar follow-ups a lot more laser-focused. Trust me, your sales force will thank you for providing them with this insight. It makes their job that much easier

4. Death by Demo: I get it. People are proud of their products. They’ve invested a lot of blood, sweat and tears to develop what they consider to be a world-class solution. Problem is, your audience doesn’t care unless your demo speaks to where they are in their buying journey. In today’s world of ‘Content is King,’ you should know by now that it’s Content Marketing 101 to give your audience the content they want, when they want it. The problem with executing demos in webinar environments is that your audiences have different needs and are at different stages of the buying cycle. In my opinion, you should NEVER do a demo for top of the funnel webinars. You should focus on industry challenges and your company’s approach to solving those challenges. If you’re ever going to demo, do so when you can customize a demo to meet your attendee’s needs. This should be geared for folks that are much further down the funnel.