I receive emails pretty regularly touting the benefits of attending a must-join-or-you’re-missing-out webinar. Because I don’t suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out), I simply delete them. In fact, I haven’t attended a webinar in years, and that got me thinking: Are webinars still relevant for a B2B marketing strategy?
The answer, which surprised me, is yes.
This anecdote in a blog post on Unbounce sums it up nicely:
“In 2013, webinars became our most powerful marketing channel, surpassing our blog, our ecourse and even our ebooks.”
When you think about the overarching benefit of holding a webinar, its value makes sense. A webinar is your chance to share your expertise, connect with your audience, and raise brand awareness.
I also found this statistic in the 2013 MarketingSherpa SEO Marketing Benchmark Survey, which further underscores the importance of using webinars for marketing:
92% of marketers said webinars were very or somewhat effective at achieving marketing objectives.
Show of hands: Who wants to start holding webinars? Yeah, me too! Luckily, the aforementioned Unbounce post includes very detailed instructions on how to set up an effective webinar. I pulled out my favorite tips, but feel free to read the entire post here.
Ask clients for topic ideas
Go right to the source and ask your clients what topics they are most interested in. Then, choose topics that you can tie back to your products or services. When they need a solution, they will likely turn to your first.
Write a killer webinar title
I love this tip: Write an actionable title for your webinar that answers the question, “What will I get by giving you an hour of my time and attention?” Emphasize the benefits of attending in all marketing copy – in your emails, newsletter, and landing page.
Build your own webinar landing page
By creating your own landing page, you’ll be able to integrate your branding and include the valuable details listed in the tip above.
Plan the big promotional push
Start promoting on social media and via email two weeks before the webinar. Choose a hashtag to use on Twitter, create an event on Google+, and definitely share on LinkedIn. The day before, send a “last chance to register” email (Unbounce gets 1/3 of registrants that way).
Make the webinar available on your website
After the webinar, edit it and upload it to YouTube or Vimeo, and create a “get the recording” landing page. Then send a follow-up email to all registrants (not just attendees) with a link to the recording so they can check it out.
Do you use webinars as part of your marketing strategy? Why or why not?
Photo by The Climate Reality Project on Unsplash
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Author information
Monika Jansen
Monika Jansen is a freelance copywriter and editor who helps with companies of all shapes on sizes kick their content up to the next level. You can find her online at www.jansencomm.com.
