Webinars are becoming a very popular way to generate
leads. In the last year, we’ve delivered 29 webinars to over 11,000
people. Availability of web-conferencing technology, reluctance to
travel, and a thirst for free education have accelerated webinars’
popularity. Many companies have used them effectively to reach out and
educate new prospects, but there are a few basic rules that you must follow to
make them successful.
1) Don’t
sell. Do solve problems.Your content should work to solve a
problem rather than push your product or service. The less commercial it
is, the happier the audience will be. They will also be more likely to
engage with you in the future because they will see that you are interested in
benefiting them first, selling second.
2) Don’t
pass directly to sales. Do lead scoring.
The leads from a webinar
aren’t necessarily “Sales Ready.” If you hand all of the leads to sales
and assume the orders will roll in, you’ll be disappointed. Not to
mention you’ll upset prospects and sales people. Instead use this
interaction as a way to begin scoring the leads. Webinars are a great
funnel primer because you can better qualify each attendee with polling
questions and the exit survey. You might have some contacts that are ready
for a call, but most need to be nurtured a bit more before you call in the
sales team.
3) Don’t
wing it. Do prepare more than you think necessary.
Promotion and
practice are key parts of your webinar preparation. You’ll need about 6
weeks to properly promote it through all of your channels. And speaker
preparation is critical. No matter how many times your presenter has done
the presentation, they need to do at least two dress rehearsals to get
comfortable with the technology, and most importantly to get comfortable presenting
to a virtual audience. It just isn’t the same as presenting to a live
audience in person.
You can download a helpful Webinar Preparation Timeline here.
4) Don’t
fly solo. Do have a wingman.
Having another person in the room who
can help with the logistics and put out fires is critical. This allows
the presenter to focus solely on delivering a rock-solid performance. It
also sounds professional to have a moderator or second presenter handle the
introductions, polls, and Q&A. You almost want to go for a radio show
vibe that is lively and keeps the audience interested. For a great
example of this, see how Husky Injection Molding Systems did it on this webinar. The key here is to have someone to help with the logistics and make the webinar
much more entertaining.
5) Don’t
let them go. Do have a follow-up plan.
Make sure you have a
detailed plan for following up with your attendees and no-shows. A great
first step here is to alert them both to the recorded version and download of
the presentation slides. Then you can begin to slice and dice the contacts based
on your scoring and put them into a follow-up plan. Remember the goal of
following up is to steadily increase the level of your relationship to determine
who really is sales-ready. We’ve found that the best way to do this is to
continually offer more value (whitepapers, calculators, etc.), while
continually asking for more information from the prospect.
There are actually many more rules to making a webinar a
success, but these five will get you started in the right direction. If
you’d like to talk more about how webinars can work for you or learn more
tips, contact Josh Dorrell at 800-788-4668 or 307-742-9227 x220.
