There's one tool in your marketing repertoire that may not be getting enough attention: your webinars. They are a great way to increase brand awareness and drive lead generation, but they often miss out on fulfilling their full potential by not showcasing your brand due to platform limitations. And this impacts their potential for brand awareness impact and ultimately bringing in more leads!
In this article, we’ll outline how brand awareness impacts all stages of the sales funnel, and how webinars fit into this as a great driver of brand awareness. By the end, you’ll know why webinars are an integral element of a great marketing strategy in order to support your brand awareness efforts.
75% of marketers say that webinars extend their brand reach and brand awareness has consistently proven to positively impact consumer purchase intention and drive repeat purchasing power.
In other words, investing in brand awareness means that you can gain and retain consumers and means money in the bank for you long term.
The marketing funnel
So how exactly do you reach these consumers? And how do you convert that into purchases? This process is called funnel theory, it’s the “process customers go through on the way to purchase.”
Brand awareness lies at the top of the funnel and it works to capture potential consumers by bringing their attention to a product/brand/service relevant to them. If consumers don’t know about your brand and your products they can't buy, and the more they know and the problems it can solve for them and their business, the more likely they are to purchase it.
However, brand awareness extends beyond the simple knowing of a product or service, consumers have to trust it too. That trust is built from a more holistic knowledge: who are the people behind the brand, which values are driving the business, who are they partnering with, which causes do they support and what is the purpose of the brand. Think of mega-brands like Nike or Apple. You’re probably familiar with the voice of Nike, and the feeling of trust and innovation that Apple has built its brand on. This trust is definitely not built overnight, so you have to be committed to proving you are worthy of the trust of your audience through consistently delivering and being honest, human and transparent. Brand generosity with educational content and resources like webinars are a great way to do this, as they highlight your willingness to share insights and expert knowledge with your potential customers.
The marketing funnel is a series of marketing actions that build and nurture consumer interest. At the top of the funnel are brand awareness and interest/information search. This is where marketers not only make sure that consumers know their product or brand exists but also build their brand identity. This happens through events, advertisements, campaigns, and other lead generation tools. At this stage, marketers grow consumer interest by informing them of their product or service. They do this via newsletters or email, targeting relevant consumers.
The next stage is where marketers try to win over consumers by giving them valuable information about their product that helps a consumer make their purchasing decision. This could be done by offering free trials or forwarding relevant case studies. The purpose of this is to create an intent to purchase and to build customer loyalty.
In other words, investing in brand awareness, making sure your customers know your brand’s purpose, is widening the top of your funnel to capture more consumers.
Content marketing and brand awareness
Content marketing is by far one of the most utilised channels for B2B marketers to build brand awareness. According to one study, 89% of B2B businesses do this. With the same study showing that 50% of the content marketing produced by B2B Marketers was for the ‘top-of-the-funnel‘, or generating awareness and interest.
Why are we telling you about the power of content? Well not only is your webinar an excellent form of content marketing, it also provides huge opportunity for you to create a whole bunch of content to use again and again across your communications and channels. The value of a webinar value certainly doesn’t have to end when you hit that ‘end webinar’ button!
Content marketing is a great medium for creating brand awareness, the use of newsletters, articles, videos, or other long-form content gives customers access to your brand as a whole, not only a logo. One study done by the Content Marketing Institute highlighted that 84% of successful content marketing done by B2B companies focused on building loyalty with customers, and 83% nurtured subscribers/audience/leads.
As a matter of fact, the latest data from Content Marketing Institute shows that webinars, online courses & virtual events have produced the best results for content marketing campaigns in the last year. Pretty neat right?
But it is not enough to get customers to notice you. According to Marketo, 96% of visitors that come to your website are not ready to buy. After they're on your site, you only have 8 seconds to persuade your site visitor to stay on your website and take an action. During the consideration stage, part of the middle stage of the funnel, lead generation plays a crucial role in driving conversions or enabling retention of the customer, the bottom of the funnel.
With webinars and online events accounting for 57% of B2B content marketing and 54% of B2B professionals watching webinars every week, it’s a marketing tool you simply cannot afford to miss out on when it comes to brand awareness and potential growth!
Strong, consistent brand expression should be part of any brand strategy - and during webinars is certainly no exception! Luckily with the right platform, this can be a seamless process.
In case you hadn’t already guessed, we’re ready to help you really elevate your brand awareness efforts!
Our platform here at Tame has been designed with your brand awareness and engagement in mind. We believe webinars can drive huge commercial gain for your business and are where marketing teams are losing the chance to show off their wonderful brand.
Drop us a line if you fancy a chat about how your webinars could be delivering you even more value - we’d love to hear from you!
References:
- HubSport: “22 Stats that Make a Case for Using Webinars in Your Marketing Strategy”
- ResearchGate: “Does Brand Awareness Influences Purchase Intention? The Mediation Role of Brand Equity Dimensions”
- ResearchGate: “Brand Awareness Effects on Consumer Decision Making for a Common, Repeat Purchase Product:: A Replication”
- Findstack: “The Ultimate List of Webinar Statistics for 2022”
- Keap: “What is a Sales Funnel? Use Automation Software for Streamlined Sales Funnel Management”
- Content Marketing Institute: “B2B Content Marketing 2020”
- Content Marketing Institute: “B2B Content Marketing 2022”
- Marketo: “Website and SEO for Lead Generation”
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