Seasoned B2B marketers know a well-executed webinar is a goldmine for sales leads. Just consider these webinar lead generation statistics:
- 79% of buyers say they will share information in exchange for webinars (source)
- 44% of marketers have hosted or participated in a webinar. 87% of those marketers found it to be an effective strategy (source)
Yet, sales-ready leads don’t just pour in the second you decide to hold a webinar. Marketers must be strategic in their approach to webinar lead generation. But, how? Today’s blog post answers this question and more!
Five Webinar Lead Generation Tactics
1. Create a profile of your ideal buyer.
The first step to better leads starts with understanding your ideal webinar audience. Who do you want to register for your webinars? Marketers can answer this important question by creating buyer personas.
In simple terms, a buyer persona is a profile containing the characteristics of your ideal buyer. This profile allows marketers to invite and attract attendees who are not only interested in the webinar itself but who are also qualified to purchase your products or services.
To attract more sales-ready leads, buyer personas must inform your webinar strategy at every level. Use the data you know about the ideal buyer to determine:
- Who to invite
- Topic selection
- The depth at which you explore the topic
- The length of the webinar
- Guest speakers and presenters
- Channels used to promote the webinar
- What date/time you hold the live event
- Key points to highlight on the registration landing page
2. Work to create webinar content that speaks to potential buyers.
Ask yourself, where along the sales funnel is my ideal audience? Although this seems like an obvious step, it’s a critical step toward optimal webinar lead conversion. Think about it this way, just because someone is willing to watch a B2B webinar doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy your product.
For this reason, it’s important to leverage the contents of your webinar to appeal to those who are innately qualified to make a purchase from you. We recommend you consider your buyer personas’ biggest pain points. Then, using your webinar content, position your product as a solution to that problem.
Remember, your job as a marketer isn’t done just because you get people to register for your webinar. Rather than thinking of webinar registrants as the end goal, you must think of the product sales and revenue you’re going to generate as a result of your webinar.
For this reason, it’s critical to develop webinar content before you even attempt to attract attendees. When you know exactly what topic you plan to explore and which pain points you’re going to solve, it’s easier to appeal to your ideal attendee and subsequently convert them to a paying customer.
The next step is to consider which format will resonate most with your ideal buyer. Here are three examples of effective webinar formats to choose from:
Educational webinars:
The educational webinar is popular for a reason: It provides action steps to solve a prospect’s problem. In fact, research shows webinar titles containing a list or the words “how to” drive higher attendance rates, showing the power of practical information to garner new leads (source).
Case studies:
Why are case studies an effective webinar format? Sales-ready leads want concrete details on product ROI and benefits. Case studies provide social proof that your product can deliver. In fact, 42% of B2B buyers find case studies to be valuable in the late stage of the buying process (source).
Product demos:
Later-stage prospects want more in-depth information about your product. Product demos can engage those leads by showing clear solutions to their top challenges. A word of caution here: Steer away from delivering a sales pitch. Instead, keep the webinar informative with tutorials, training, or workshops.
3. Promote your webinar.
If you execute the previous steps correctly, the end result will be a highly strategic and targeted marketing webinar. But, you must still prep your webinar funnel to reach your ideal audience of potential customers. Here are some promotion recommendations:
Email marketing:
Pull a list of email subscribers who match the characteristics of your ideal webinar attendee. Consider the topic you’re covering and the job titles, industries, and job functions this topic will appeal to. Then develop an email cadence and creative promotions to send to this particular list of people.
Paid advertising:
The amount of money you spend advertising your webinar will depend on your specific marketing budget and goals. Consider this example: If you’re holding a webinar with a goal to upsell existing customers on a new feature or product, it wouldn’t make sense to spend money promoting your webinar to people who aren’t customers.
But, if you’re looking to target an audience who doesn’t currently use your products, advertising might be a profitable source of leads and registrants.
Social media:
Work with your design team to develop creative social media promotions for your webinars. Focus your efforts on the channels most commonly used by your ideal buyers—for a B2B company LinkedIn or Twitter might make the most sense. But, don’t be afraid to test different platforms. You never know which will be most effective.
Partner marketing:
If you are partnering with an influencer or company to host your webinar, don’t be afraid to leverage their audience to promote your event. A few weeks prior to your webinar, send over event hashtags, images, and registration links so the necessary parties have all necessary information on hand and readily available.
4. Develop a lead scoring process specific to webinar leads.
Marketers take note: Webinar data provides valuable insights into lead quality. Before handing off leads to your sales team, be sure to use a webinar-specific lead scoring model to qualify leads.
Lead scoring works like this: Marketers determine which criteria or data points indicate a sales qualified lead, then assign numerical point values to each of those criteria. The result is a score that determines a lead’s sales-readiness. When scoring webinar leads, take these important factors into consideration:
Registration data:
The webinar signup information reveals basic details such as job title, department, company size, location, and industry.
Behavioral data:
Behavioral data –also known as engagement data– shows how each lead interacts with your webinar. Ultimately, this data reveals each lead’s interest level in the topic matter. Behavioral data includes things like questions, viewing history, viewing duration, content downloads, survey results, and social media engagement.
Miscellaneous data:
Consider other data points that indicate sales readiness including technographic data, firmographic data, or purchase history. Remember to consult your buyer personas during this process so you don’t forget to include an important data point in your lead scoring model.
If you already have lead scoring in place, consider implementing a lead scoring system specific to webinar attendees. This will incorporate a more robust data set and will provide your B2B sales team with the information they need to close bigger and better deals.
5. Post-webinar lead nurturing and follow-up.
The reality is, not every webinar lead will be ready to buy after each live event. In fact, it’s likely that some registrants won’t even attend your webinar. For this reason, you must develop post-webinar promotion tactics to engage and nurture unqualified leads.
Offer on-demand access:
One-third of all webinar attendees just watch the on-demand event (source). With that in mind, always promote an on-demand version post-event to capture new leads or to allow those who missed the event to catch up on your content.
Provide relevant content post-event:
Use feedback from the live Q&As, downloadable content, and surveys to create new content that resonates with prospects. Keep in mind, content doesn’t have to be brand new. Consider repackaging popular webinar content into an e-book or infographic. Many prospects will appreciate the convenience of webinar information in a downloadable PDF. Promote this targeted content through emails to nurture leads through the sales funnel.
Follow up with attendees:
Following your webinar, send out an email thanking attendees for watching. You can also use this email to collect feedback about the webinar. Then, preserve attendance data and attendee feedback to improve future webinars.
Final Thoughts about Webinar Lead Generation
Webinars are a tried and true marketing tactic, proven to garner new sales leads. But— only if they’re executed strategically. Test out the tips in today’s blog post to improve the quality of leads you generate from marketing webinars.
Contact ZoomInfo today to learn how our contact database can help improve your buyer personas and generate more profitable marketing campaigns.