I always say that anyone can deliver a mediocre webinar, but to deliver an amazing webinar it takes thoughtful planning, nurturing and execution. To get the results you want from your demand generation webinar efforts, you need to devote the necessary time to get the messaging right, create an engaging, impactful delivery, and attract an audience who will be interested in talking to you after the webinar.
Today, I’m going to show you in detail what it takes to produce successful lead generation webinars by sharing a detailed review of my latest webinar with ReadyTalk. And, I’m going to show you how we overcame 3 key challenges that all lead generation webinars have no matter the industry. The three challenges I uncovered while producing and moderating hundreds of B2B webinars for leading global and emerging brands including Citrix and GE-Intel Care Innovations are:
Challenge #1: Attract the right audience.
Challenge #2: Keep the audience engaged and stimulated with valuable information.
Challenge #3: Inspire the audience to want to have a conversation after the webinar to forge a business relationship.
Here’s How WebAttract & ReadyTalk Attracted the Right Audience
Since our webinar topic was how to manage and deliver webinars, we wanted to attract an audience that was interested in learning best practices. To do that we had to:
- Make sure our webinar topic is a “must have” and not a “nice to have.” We spent hours up front strategically selecting a topic that our audience was hungry to learn about.
- We created a compelling email subject line. Your goal is to have people register! This recent webinar subject line for a client of mine garnered over 1,000 registrants: “Experts reveal 4 critical engineering leadership skills to improve profitability.”
Our email invite copy was focused on the challenge of attracting the right audience. The results to our first online poll prove that we had attracted the right audience.
We asked, “What are your biggest webinar challenges?” With 67% of the audience participating, these were the instant poll results:
- Attracting the right audience — 40%
- Converting prospects to customers — 40%
- Engaging the audience — 20%
- Other — 0%
How I Kept the Audience Engaged During the WebAttract & ReadyTalk Webinar
During the webinar, I moved quickly through my points, using slides to focus on one major point at a time. I used my voice to create a connection with the audience, and I actually smiled and used my hands, just as I would during a face-to-face conversation.
I really cares about my topic and I wanted that to project to my audience. Audiences want to learn something new, and in this particular webinar, we kept them engaged by presenting a step-by-step overview of the webinar planning life cycle and threw in plenty of best practices.
How I Inspire the Audience to Have a Conversation With Me After the Webinar
Webinar attendees are in various stages of the sales cycle. The world of sales keeps evolving, and based on our own observations, as well as conversations with other demand gen experts, it seems today, that a majority of B2B buyers prefer to do their research online before speaking with a live salesperson. The good news is that they might be attending your webinar because they’re interested in your topic and your company. They may be in the initial stage of collecting information, or looking to make a product choice and issue a PO.
When you watch the on-demand recording of the webinar, you’ll see the value I provided. Because we focus on solving specific challenges for our webinar attendees – and not selling our service, and because of the positioning of the information on the webinar that was filled with case studies and because we added a call-to-action at the end, CMOs and other decision makers wanted to have a further conversation with me.
Watch the WebAttract & ReadyTalk webinar now