At one point in the not too distant past, it seemed like every B2B marketing team was busy planning and delivering webinars - surging in popularity during the COVID era but declining thereafter as businesses and delegates return to in-person events. That leaves us with the following questions, are webinars still a useful marketing tool? And if so, how can I (or my business) maximise the opportunity?

They’re both great questions and as event experts, we’re going to provide the answers…

Webinars are still a (very) useful marketing tool🏆

The marketing mix relies on a variety of channels to communicate messaging effectively - within that is the webinar, especially useful for B2B organisations. As we mentioned in our opening comments, webinar adoption surged during COVID as in-person events immediately disappeared leaving webinars as the most logical replacement. Webinar adoption wasn’t always positive as phrases like “I’m Zoomed out” became increasingly common as people attended lacklustre webinar after lacklustre webinar, slowly eroding their faith in the process. That said, the appetite for attending webinars has returned, though it hasn’t reached the dizzying highs it saw during the pandemic… In a nutshell, successful webinars are dependent on a first-class experience in terms of content and technology.

Understand what value the webinar is providing to your audience ⭐

Each and every event should be the subject of a comprehensive plan and a part of that plan is a number of goals and objectives. These goals are usually aimed at the organisation hosting the webinar, such as leads gained and the total number of attendees. While these are completely normal for the business to have these, your audience won’t care at all - they’re only interested in your webinar if it can provide value for them. This means your content and speaker(s) must be providing something beneficial otherwise attending will be a waste of their time and they’ll realise that pretty quickly.

If your webinar isn’t providing value to your audience, don’t run it.

Keep content short, sharp and snappy ⏱️

One of the biggest failings of marketing teams hosting webinars during COVID was that they didn’t adapt their content for webinars. By that, we mean content designed for people sitting at home who are likely to be dealing with loads of distractions. In this scenario, being able to focus on an hour-long talk or presentation is going to be extremely challenging. It’s a straightforward fix though, shorten and break that content down. A one-hour session could become four fifteen-minute sessions for example - of course this isn’t always feasible but it’s something to consider.

Make it interactive 🎮

Webinar technology providers are always adding features and looking at ways to make the virtual meeting space more engaging - adding interactivity is brilliantly simple way to keep audiences engaged, focussed and feeling like part of the conversation. Simple, yet powerful examples are quizzes and questions. Creating a series of relevant questions to ask the audience is a great way to boost interactivity PLUS you get the added bonus of learning more about your audience and their challenges… things every marketer would love to know.

Not only that but questions can also help demonstrate whether a webinar has had the desired effect on an audience, such as influencing behavioural changes or providing valuable insights.

Have one eye on post-event content 📃

A common faux pas when it comes to webinars is the idea that once the event is over, that’s it - the event’s done, therefore we can stop thinking about it. To really make the most of the webinar, it’s important to consider content that can be used once the event is over, such as recordings, whitepapers, blogs, infographics, social media content and surveys.

Content from webinars can

Work with partners and expand your reach 🤝

Working with partners and affiliates to collaborate on a webinar can provide multiple benefits, including added credibility, unique content and an increased audience pool to target.

Deliver a slick experience 😍

With most B2B organisations using various marketing technologies, it can be a challenge to make everything harmonise. Getting your landing page to talk to your CRM while sending out registration confirmation emails and creating an attendee on your webinar tech platform might require initial set-up and testing to ensure it works.

If you’ve put effort into branding your webinar, you’ll definitely want to provide the slickest and most seamless experience you can.

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse! 🎙️

We’re not saying you need to rehearse three times but rehearsing at least once should be a priority. During the rehearsal, invite every speaker and perhaps one or two colleagues from other teams to be audience who can provide meaningful insights.

Rehearsing is crucial for ironing out any potential kinks in the content and technologies while maximising synergies with third-party speakers.

Also, don’t leave it to the day before - you’re just asking for trouble that way.

Post-webinar insight and analysis ✍️

The magic of webinars is that they provide a raft of info and statistics to wade through once the event is over. This is critical for understanding where people dropped off, average view times and to compare attendees against non-attendees. For the non-attendees, you might want to deliver a unique or custom message for example. Once you have the stats and insights, you can use them as a foundation for webinars moving forwards and understand how they’re performing overall.

Our final thought… 🤔

In the post-COVID era, webinars aren’t as common as they once were BUT they’re still an extremely valuable tool for B2B organisations. The trick (as such) to run as successful webinar is to treat it the same as any other event - plan thoroughly and execute seamlessly with your audience’s needs at the core. If you need any support for an upcoming webinar or virtual event, say hello and we’d be more than happy to help.