Lead generation and demand generation are the two biggest reasons for producing, hosting and marketing webinars. In fact, according to Content Marketing Institute’s latest study, out of the many different tactics marketers use, webinars are the third most effective method for attracting prospects .

Now, if you tell a compelling story and if you provide your attendees with real informational value, you’ll not only generate more leads but you’ll also achieve a number of other outcomes that will positively affect your bottom line. You see, your B2B organization’s use of webinar marketing should go above and beyond lead generation.

For example, Knovel created a viral effect with a webinar about a new set of performance based standards. As I explain in my “leveraging disruptions” article, Knovel, a web based analytics firm, approaches webinars with a thought leadership mindset. Their goal is to inform and educate their audience of engineering executives on timely topics.

In doing over 16 webinars for Knovel, not one of them was about a product demo or sales pitch on their cloud based applications.  They save that for after the webinar. Instead, they focus on the 3 C’s for webinar success:

  • Content that people CONNECT with
  • Content that creates CONVERSATIONS
  • Content that leads to COMMERCE

Let’s look at this in more detail now.

Knovel’s most successful webinar that provided them with a viral effect, addressed a timely set of performance-based standards regarding the Safety Lifecycle. They had three respected authors with deep expertise discuss and answer questions on  the important attributes for implementing the Safety Lifecycle and how failure to comply can affect their business with unplanned downtime and steep governmental fines.

Now, a CONNECTION was made because:

1. There was a change in standards and regulations and Knovel was providing information that engineers needed to know now!

2.  The panel of experts were able to distill to a very technical audience why the Safety Lifecycle was important to them and their business, how they could verify that their designs met  the integrity level for safety, and, how they could define and document the activities to assure functional safety.

Now, because the webinar was on a timely topic, CONVERSATIONS were started in the different social media circles. Influencers were tweeting and blogging about the webinar and they were creating discussions inside different LinkedIn groups which led to 774 on-demand viewings within three months. This increased their thought leadership position as influencers verified that Knovel is the resource that engineers can trust for up-to-date industry information.

And, because of Knovel’s post-webinar sales and nurturing follow up, it provided an opportunity to introduce the audiences to learn more about their online tools which led to COMMERCE.

So, yes, Knovel’s webinar increased demand and it helped the organization generate hundreds of new leads. But, it also heightened their thought leadership position in the industry as influencers created a viral effect.

Knovel was one of the companies that I featured in my InsideSales.com guest expert blog article, “How 3 Brands Use Webinars to Drive New Business.” Read the article to see how you can be creating a viral effect, positioning your organization as a thought leader in
new categories and earning the right to have one-on-one conversations with decision makers.

Then download my WebinarReady ebook to uncover the actions you need to take before, during and after the webinar to achieve these positive outcomes.

Download my FREE Webinar Ready Ebook now!