Pssst, we’ll let you in on a secret… webinars are the one tool in your market strategy toolbox you’re probably not using enough.
Whether you're talking one-on-one with a business or one-on-many with a group of consumers, webinars create that special spark between a company and their customers that keep them coming back.
What makes webinars such an effective marketing tool is that they offer an impactful way to connect holistically. More specifically, webinars give your brand “agency” by giving it a strong value-based voice. This makes webinars a very effective way to grow brand awareness - and that's not all , webinars continue to generate long term marketing value while simultaneously nurturing qualified prospects along the buying process.
Why are webinars the ‘it girl’ of marketing tools?
1. Increased brand awareness
Think of webinars like influencers. No matter what information they share, or who's involved in the conversation - if there's no brand, there's no money. Webinars are all about engaging with existing or potential consumers, growing business relationships and connecting with people across the market funnel. That means a good webinar makes your brand the star of the show.
2. Lead generation engine and tool
All those people you can influence, chat with or otherwise connect to through webinars? They are leads, potential customers that you’ve started a dialogue with. This type of two-way engagement creates a unique opportunity to generate and nurture potential customers along the marketing funnel by fostering trust.
3.Audience connection
The reason webinars are so versatile as a marketing tool is their ability to engage with consumers. Webinars offer a space for geographically separate businesses to come together, a space for people to learn, to ask questions - in this way webinars offer endless opportunities for people and businesses to easily connect.
In other words, webinars are an investment into your company's current and future growth. Which is probably why research recently published by the Content Marketing Institute shows that 43% of B2B marketers are already using webinar platforms and that webinars are a key content distribution model for 55% of them.
So let’s get into exactly how and why webinars should be part of your next marketing pitch.
Let’s get personal
There’s no denying in-person meetings can be a great way to connect with colleagues and make deeper personal connections with potential business partners.
But, let’s be honest, in the digital age most of these connections are happening online anyway, (aka LinkedIn) and the majority of us are people who think, operate and connect the way you do: virtually.
Webinars make it easy to show and explain exactly why your company is not like other companies. It's an opportunity to say, “ hey this is who we are, this is what we believe in and this is why you should trust us. Any questions?” and then easily respond to those questions, in real time, person to person. Webinars let people get to know your brand, how you function, what you believe in and why you should be trusted. In this way webinars are perfect for growing brand identity, brand awareness and overall brand value. With the flexibility and versatility of webinars, there are countless ways to find new touch points with potential leads and to explore the best ways to collaborate.
If you’re thinking, “hey this whole webinar thing makes a lot of sense for my marketing toolbox”, you wouldn't be alone.
One survey found that 99% of all marketers are already planning to utilise webinars as key marketing strategy. With 72% of these marketers believing webinars have a direct impact on pipeline revenue - this comes as no surprise.
After all, it’s the qualified prospects that take the time to sit down and learn more about your business and engage with you directly. Your company can build a long lasting relationship with potential consumers and create strong business relationships.
Again, this is likely why 89% of marketers believe webinars are the best to channel to grow qualified leads.
Webinars drive tangible value.
Now let's pivot to how webinars themselves continue to deliver value.
By broadcasting or resharing parts of a webinar, businesses can continue to increase brand awareness via recurring traffic to their webpage. In other words, webinars are not only functional - they also contribute to long term marketing content. Infact, according to the Content marketing Institute, webinars produced the best results for their content marketing in the last year according to 58% of their respondents - making them the best content asset.
Post-Webinar content opportunities:
- Video/images
- Blog content
- Whitepapers
- Shareable content for social media
- And so much more (think podcasts etc.)
WIth a little creativity your post-webinar content opportunities are endless. Even better? Webinars that have integrated branding don’t have to spend time (or money) inserting their brand into the content post-webinar, it’s already there!
With many businesses embracing webinars in their marketing activities as we continue to move into a digital first landscape, it can seem like webinars are falling behind in terms of branding. What does this mean? Well, think about the webinars you’ve attended as a marketer…do you remember who hosted each one? We reckon there’s a few you’re not so sure on!
We must say, this isn’t surprising. After all, many companies use the same webinar platforms. These are often impersonal and make you feel like a floating head in an empty landscape. From a marketing standpoint this can make it really hard to stand out amongst your competitors.
Consistent branding has been proven to help grow brand owners and bring in revenue. One survey by Lucidpress found that 68% of respondents reported that brand consistency contributed 10% - to more than 20% of their revenue growth. That’s a lot of growth.
If you utilise a platform with strong brandability not only can you leave a long lasting brand awareness, you can reuse this content in all the ways we ran through earlier.
If your company hosts an educational webinar on a platform that has your branding incorporated every time you reuse a clip or repost a segment of the webinar in your other comms once the webinar has finished, your branding will already be part of the event. This saves your team the need to edit in the branding and organically increases your content marketing.
On demand webinars are considered the most valuable addition to webinars - the low cost of reusing video and content from webinars that have already happened makes them a solid investment with almost guaranteed high ROI.
Still not convinced? 20% to 40% of webinar attendees turn into qualified leads according to recent studies. So what are you waiting for?
If you’re looking to add webinars to your marketing strategy, here at Tame we’ve got all the resources you need to get started. Reach out to us to book in your personalised demo and let us show you all the tools you need to get started with webinars.
We’ll be with you every step of the way!
References
- Content MArketing Institute: “B2B Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends”
- ON24: “ON24 Webinar Benchmarks Report”
- Yahoo!finance: “Global Report Shows Use of Webinars Triples, Driving Digital-First Engagement Across Industries”
- Lucidpress: “The State of Brand Consistency”
- 99FIRMS: “Webinar Statistics”
- Outgrow: “18 Eye-Opening Statistics On Webinars: 2021”
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