I’ll be honest, there are a lot of bad webcasts/webinars out there. I mean, A LOT. And the thing is, it’s completely avoidable. For you marketers out there trying to create best practices for your webcasting strategy in 2015, don’t do the following:
- Very Short Promotion Window – I see too many companies out there that are promoting their webcasts for 1-2 weeks, are only doing it with a single email blast to their database, and wonder why they’re not driving traffic and seeing ROI from their webcasting investment. I’m a proponent of a 3-4 week promotion email, sending multiple emails to your list, running a press release, promoting it through social media, etc. It’s an event, so treat it as such. Leveraging partner lists and industry publications are good sources to drive traffic as well
- Bland Registration Pages – the registration page sets the tone. Create a registration page that pops with your imagery, logos and call to action. Create a webcast description that clearly depicts who the target audience is and what they’ll learn by taking 30, 40, 50 minutes out of their day to hear what you have to say. What’s in it for them? Also, optimize your registration page with tools that allow registrants to save your webcast on their calendar. This increases the likelihood of them not forgetting and actually attending. Finally, integrate to social media platforms to allow your registrants the ability to share with their network, increasing your reach
- PRODUCT, PRODUCT, PRODUCT!!! – there seems to be a sudden phenomenon amongst some companies that believe their audience wants to take an hour out of their day to watch you share your screen, show them your new dashboard features and talk about how the new dashboard was written in XYZ code. There’s a time and a place for screen sharing and demoing your product, and it’s something our platform offers, but for God’ sake talk about business challenges. Talk about the pain points and business issues that you see in the marketplace every day, and elaborate on what you believe is the best approach to tackling them. Keeping an objective tone is the key. After the webcast is done, look at your list of attendees and start with the low hanging fruit – the folks that watched the whole webcast, were engaged, asked questions, etc. Then start the demo process, one on one
- Bringing in a 3rd Party Isn’t Important – I know that bringing in a customer is not always the easiest thing to do. They can be weird about what they want to divulge in terms of the value your company delivered to them. But there are other sources you can leverage – partners, industry experts, academics, etc. Sometimes bringing in a 3rd party isn’t possible, and I understand that. I’ve seen a lot of good webcasts in my day that had a moderator and one presenter. But there’s something about bringing in a 3rd party that just speaks to more credibility
- Not Having an On-Demand Strategy – the great thing about a live webcast is that it’s just the beginning. Unlike an in-person event, that once it’s over it ceases to exist, an on-demand webcast can act as a lead-gen machine for your sales force for a long period of time. They’re like a fine Bordeaux…they get better with age. Unfortunately, a lot of marketing teams forget this. Archive your events and make them available on-demand to maximize ROI. When the webcast is over, send a follow-up email to registrants and attendees, letting them know it will be available on-demand (on your site, the platform provider’s site, or both). For everyone that you marketed to, but didn’t register, do the same thing. Plug your on-demand webcasts in your blogs, through your various social media channels, etc. Once you see the leads continuing to come through the door, you’ll be glad you did
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