How to Build a Webinar Strategy That Drives Results

Improve your webinar game with these 5 tips for success

In today’s remote-work economy, webinars are increasing in popularity as companies look for ways to continue to engage with buyers in a virtual environment.

Webinars can be a great way to develop your company’s brand voice and establish it as a thought leader. They can also drive significant revenue. In fact, 73% of B2B marketing and sales leaders say webinars are the best way to generate high-quality leads (GoToMeeting).

We’re seeing renewed interest in webinars from many of our clients. And that’s not surprising, as in-person events continue to go virtual. If you’re looking to improve your webinar game, these five tips can help you build a strategy that drives results.

Understand your objectives and KPIs

What are you aiming to achieve with webinars? When you establish clear objectives up-front, it’s much easier to plan your webinars and measure success. For example, you’ll want to measure lead conversions if you’re using webinars to help convert existing leads in your pipeline. If you’re aiming to generate new leads, you’ll want to track webinar attendance and repeat visitors.

Webinars can have a place throughout the sales funnel, from awareness and demand generation to lead generation and conversion. But your webinar content, audience and KPIs will differ based on those objectives. When you align your webinar planning process with your goals, you’re more likely to target the right audience with a topic that resonates. You’ll also have a better idea of the measurements to target to determine if your webinar is successful.

Build an audience-focused content pipeline

Have you already done market segmentation work? Are you using buyer personas to target audiences and shape your marketing content? If your answer to these questions is ‘yes,’ then it should be easy to leverage those insights to develop a strong pipeline of relevant webinar topics.

If you don’t have customer segmentation insights or personas to rely on, then you may need to do some extra research to help you understand what topics will draw your audience in. You can start by looking at your content marketing performance. If you see topics that always get high readership in your company blog or newsletter, it’s a good bet that webinar content focused on those themes will be enticing to your buyers as well.

Another great resource for content ideas is your salespeople. Ask them about the most common pain points and questions they hear from customers, and then develop a list of topics based on those insights.

Establish your promotion strategy

You should develop a multi-channel marketing plan to promote your webinars and drive attendance. This could include social media posts and ads, as well as email marketing and digital advertising. The promotion channels you choose will depend on your webinar objectives. Here’s some general guidance on what channels to use and when:

• Social media works well when you have top-of-funnel goals to generate demand and awareness for a broad audience. Don’t forget to leverage your own salespeople in any social media promotion efforts! Their LinkedIn networks are likely to include your target audience.
• Your website and blog help you target buyers who have already expressed an interest in your company and may be researching your products.
• Email campaigns are useful for middle/bottom funnel goals when you’re interested in getting high-quality leads using a current client or prospect list.
• Paid advertising/paid search works best when you want to achieve top-of-funnel objectives to generate awareness and demand. You can also target specific verticals or smaller segments if applicable.

Develop a prepare-and-practice routine

A webinar is typically a live event, which means you’ve only got one shot to get it right. That’s why preparation and practice are critical to ensure that your webinars are successful. The best way to avoid technical issues or speaker mishaps is to rehearse in advance, and plan how you’ll respond to challenges if they arise. Here are some tips for success:

1. Prepare your speaker by making sure they understand the topic, audience and timeframe, and confirm their availability with a calendar invite.
2. Schedule a rehearsal and conduct it using your webinar delivery platform (Zoom, etc.). Be sure to not only include your speaker, but also your technical troubleshooting resource.
3. Minimize technical issues by preparing for worst-case scenarios, like a dropped speaker connection or poor audio/video quality. Using a landline phone and a hardline internet connection (if available) can help minimize these issues.
4. Ask for feedback by surveying your attendees after the event to see what you got right – and what you can do better next time.
5. Record the event to provide a replay so that you can offer the content to those who couldn’t attend. Webinar replays are also great content to re-use on your company blog or website.

Measure and report successes

Depending on what stage of the funnel your webinar activities are supporting, you may start to see a lead pipeline quickly…or it may take some additional nurturing to get there. Once your registration and survey data are available, you can determine what topics are resonating with your audience. Then you can tweak future content to meet their interests based on those indicators.

You’ll also need to share the results with your salespeople, so they can follow up with any leads and leverage the webinar content in their customer interactions. If you’re using account-based marketing, you’ll also want to prioritize any target accounts that attended the webinar.

Webinars are a great way to drive conversations and generate leads. People typically sign up for webinars because they’re interested in the content – so from the start, you’ve got a captive audience. If your webinar delivers something your buyer is looking for, they’re more likely to remember your company – and turn to you for a solution.

Here at GrowthMode Marketing, we can help you build a webinar strategy designed to achieve your objectives and grow your business. Contact us today to learn more.