It’s one thing to talk about how to execute great B2B marketing for your webinar, but it is another thing to see it in action. If you are looking for a great example, here is one for you brought to us by Michele Linn…
I recently attended the webinar ‘B2B Blogging Basics, Best Practices . . . and Blunders’ from MLT Creative featuring Mark Schaefer. Billy Mitchell and the team at MLT Creative did a fantastic job with the event. But, the thing I wanted to bring to your attention is how the team promoted and followed up from the event. Hats off to Martine Hunter who created the model for promotion and tracking. There are four things I think they did especially well, which may inspire some ideas with you.
Reach out to people during planning
When Mark was planning for the webinar, he called me to explain that he was working on this webcast and asked if I knew of any good B2B blogs. I have no idea if he asked for my ideas by design, but I immediately felt some sort of connection to the event, and I was watching for the announcement. Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback and ideas during planning!
Have a personal promotional strategy
Both Billy and Mark reached out to me personally to inform me of the event: Mark sent me a DM via Twitter and Billy sent me an email through LinkedIn. I have personal connections with both Billy and Mark, so this was very effective. Are there people in your network who would benefit from your event and a personal invitation?
Whatever they did worked: Martine shared some results with me, and she told me they exceeded their goal for registration, and according to their research, they had a higher than standard ratio of final attendees. Even better: they had a good mix of attendees, both brand new contacts that are now qualified prospects, as well as current clients.
Create an eBook using content from the webinar
I LOVED that the team developed an eBook based on the webcast. Not only is the eBook a fantastic complement to webcast, but they used it is as way to continue to generate interest.
All registrants received a direct link to the eBook in the post-event (you can download it, but it requires registration for those who did not register for the event). While most marketers would stop there, they included the option to sign up for MLT Creative’s newsletter on this page. This is a great way to let someone raise their hand to interact more with them.
Additionally, the eBook also references the next piece in their series, “B2B Blogging Beyond the Basics: Elevating Your Blog,” so I know they have a plan to continue the conversation.
Answer questions in your blog following the event
The webinar generated more Q&As than Mark could answer during the event, so the team decided to use their blog to answer these questions following the event. Brilliant idea! Not only did they respond to questions via the blog, but they also reached out to the individual respondent with an email with links to the blog that answered his/her question, which is a great strategy. Martine shared that (so far) they have picked up 60% additional newsletter subscribers and 26% more blog subscribers.
One last note: everything about the event was consistently branded, from the emails to the presentation to the eBook. You could easily tell that this was all tied together. To quote my Savvy Sister, Jamie, the event was very classy.