……97% of those who missed your Webinar are still interested!

Every day, companies all over the world attempt to communicate with their constituents and drive demand via live Web conferencing. Dubbed “Webinars” following their rapid rise in popularity, these Web-based seminars became the darling of marketing professionals everywhere. The program was billed as a low-cost, highly interactive medium ideal for lead generation, customer communications, and training, among other corporate activities.

Unfortunately, audiences were quickly saturated with poorly-produced Webinars. Therefore, interest has waned in recent years – attendees have complained about the cumbersome registration process, inability to easily join the Webinar, boring visuals, a lack of participation by other attendees, poor facilitation by moderators, and poor quality of delivery, to name some of the more common issues (see Goodman Center and 1080 Group).

Today, the economy has forced companies to take a second look at Webinars as a marketing program. According to a Deloitte study, Webinars are now a preferred vehicle for educating peer groups (see Additional Resources). There are 150+ providers of Web conferencing services. There is an entire community of consultants to assist with Webinar production. And now there is the integration with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. This perfect storm has created a true Webinar resurgence.

However, according to our survey, marketers still struggle with the same challenges and difficulties that caused the popularity of Webinars to drop in the first place. Those challenges present a tremendous opportunity for a program or solution that is more robust and more user-friendly than the current offerings on the market.

Specifically, the biggest pain points still associated with Webinars revolve around the areas of interactivity, attendance, and the viewing of replays. Below, we examine each of the areas – and the feedback of our respondents – more closely.

Interactivity

The ability to engage with the presenter is touted as a key benefit of live Webinars. One of the most common refrains by the Webinar host is “…we want to make this session interactive.” However, it turns out that most hosts and participants don’t take full advantage of this capability.

During most Webinars, interactivity is limited to a few pre-ordained polling questions and questions submitted by the viewer to the presenter. This level of interactivity does not leverage the benefits of communicating live, as only the most skilled Webinar presenters can take advantage of a live environment to stimulate interactivity.

Attendance

From the perspective of the Webinar producer, there is still significant concern around the recruitment and registration processes, as well as day-of-event log-in issues – all of which have substantial impact on the attendance and success rates of a Webinar. Surprisingly, the amount of work needed to produce a successful event ranked second in pre-event concerns, and this should not be minimized. We believe that this is a positive trend in that too many Webinars are put together at the last minute with presenters “winging it,” since the perception is that Webinars are fast, simple, and require a lesser amount of effort than other programs – which is simply not true if the producer wants a good finished product.

Our research indicates that 66% prefer to attend a live event than view a replay; however, anywhere from 30-60% will not attend an event for which they registered. Of course, if the purpose is pure lead generation, it may not matter that attendance is low, because the names are acquired during recruitment and can still be followed up on accordingly. However, according to Marketing Profs, increasing awareness and building loyalty rank just behind lead generation as the goal of a Webinar program, and Webinar producers prefer that their audience hear some, if not all, of the content (see Additional Resources). And considering how much time, effort, and cost goes into a successful Webinar program, attendance – or better yet, the retention of information – is important. This is where the replay can play a critical role in a program’s success.

Viewing of Replays

From a Webinar audience perspective, 97% of the people we surveyed said that when they failed to attend a Webinar for which they were registered, it was still very likely that they were interested in the content or the topic – in other words, a “no-show” did not necessarily suggest a lack of interest. Rather, something else may have taken precedence in the moment and prevented them from attending. For this reason, many companies have made the Webinar replay an important, if not mandatory, part of their planning. That replay allows the registrant to listen to the content at their convenience, and even distribute it to others in the organization.

January, 2010
By: Irwin Hipsman
Director of Customer Community
Brainshark, Inc.