Hacks to Build a Better Webinar13

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B2B marketers are always looking for ways to streamline, optimize, and grow, to increase the output and success of their efforts.

The same applies when it comes to webinars. Simple tactics like selecting quarterly pillars, standing while you present, and polling your audience can go a long way to improving audience engagement and the overall impact of your webinar programs.

Everyone loves a good hack.

From strategy planning to post-event ROI, we’ve gathered 13 insider tips and tricks to help you boost the impact of your webinars to drive increased pipeline and revenue. These hacks help you get a handle on your webinars and turn them into stress-free, fun routines. Happy hacking!

Execution

Live engagement

Strategy & promotion

On-demand success

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Strategy & promotionBefore you run your first webinar, it’s essential to develop a defined strategy that supports the objectives of your webinar programs. When creating your strategy, be sure to address these key areas:

• Why are you running webinars, who will manage it?

• What will your cadence be [number per week/month/quarter]?

• Which geographic regions are you trying to reach?

• Which products/services do you want to highlight?

• How do they fit in your overall content strategy?

• What’s your measurement for success?

• How will you communicate your success?

A solid strategy helps ensure your webinar content remains on point, and it keeps the rest of your organization informed on your content marketing objectives. With a complete strategy in place, you can then start implementing these first two hacks.

Live engagement

On-demand success

Strategy & promotion

Execution

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Recruit partners to co-present webinars.

Partner presentations are one of the all-time greatest webinar hacks. There are numerous benefits to including a partner

or client on a webinar, including:

You’ll spend less time developing the content and presentation. When you team up with an external presenter, they should participate in the creation of the deck and their talking points, so you’ll only have to create your section. (However, it’s important to make sure that the flow is consistent throughout the presentation, in both the visual component and messaging.)

Co-presenting also helps you multiply the reach of your promotions and get in front of new audiences. Your ideal partner should have a similar (but not competing) target buyer, so your content can be exposed to a fresh segment of potential buyers.

Look for a partner who fills a gap in your market reach, expertise, or solution offerings.

Including webinar speakers outside of your company adds a different perspective and voice to your webinar, injecting variety into your content marketing mix. It also helps to validate the quality of your content by providing a third-party endorsement. In general, listening to two or more voices and perspectives makes for a much livelier webinar.

Whether or not you want to establish a formal agreement with each partner, it’s important to at least set mutual expectations and identify roles such as:

• Who will run promotions • When you’ll do dry runs • Who will receive the attendee list• Who will lead or chair the presentation

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Choose quarterly themes/pillar messages to align content.

Selecting an overarching quarterly theme for your webinars gives you a framework for

brainstorming new content topics and ensures your message remains consistent over time. Your themes should be broad enough to plan monthly webinars (at minimum) but specific enough to appeal to your target audience.

For example, if your quarterly theme is “Sales & Marketing Alignment,” you could plan to run webinars such as:

• 5 Signs Your Sales and Marketing Teams Aren’t Aligned

• How to Create Measurable Goals That Both Sales & Marketing Will Love

• Smarketing 101: What It Is & How to Achieve It

Re-use and up-cycle your content. These topics can be repurposed into other content formats to reach more prospects through different channels. For example, you can pull sections of your webinar to create a short report or guide, compile statistics and write five webinar takeaways for

multiple blog posts, or share visuals on social media.

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SocialReportBlog

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ExecutionEven though we focus so much on the live presentation, the success of your webinar truly depends on the pre-event preparation. With a solid strategy and an actionable execution plan, your webinar is destined to shine.

During this stage consider:

• Is a webinar schedule in place?

• Are all activities on the schedule?

• Does everyone have the resources they need?

• Have you relayed all the information participants need to be successful?

• Have you sent all external and internal communications about the webinar?

These three pre-webinar execution tips will make sure your upcoming webinar is staged for success.

On-demand success

Live engagement

Strategy & promotion

Execution

On-demand success

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Schedule dry runs and touch points early with any relevant parties.

Once the agreement is in place, immediately schedule a dry run and send out the calendar

invite for the live event to make sure it’s on every participant’s radar. One of our favorite tools is timeanddate.com to make sure you’re always converting time zones correctly. Make sure the details of the practice run and live event are already in the invites so you have one less thing to worry about. Keep things easy for participants by having links and dial-in information as the first thing they see.

3 Prior to the dry run, provide tools to the presenters that will help them be successful. Share a template they can use for the presentation in case they don’t have one. Send out any relevant resources and provide guidelines or best practices (no more than 4 bullets per slide, for example). Give them a time limit for their portion, and always offer to review the presentation so that you can make sure it meets your expectations.

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Craft your abstract strategically.

4 Along with your webinar title, your abstract serves to persuade your potential audience to register for your event. It’s a space to tell the audience what they’ll learn, explain why they should attend, and showcase your credentials.

Be sure to include all of the must-know details in your abstract, including:

• What topics will you cover • Who will be presenting • Why should people attend

One popular abstract format is to begin with a two to three sentence synopsis, in which you first outline a challenge commonly faced by your target audience then discuss how your presentation will address it. Next, add 3 to 4 bullet point takeaways with what your audience can expect to gain from your presentation.

Executive Roundtable: Marketing Attribution & ROMITom Campbell, Yellowfin, Robyn Forman, Zoomdata; David Pitta, BrightTALK

For most marketers, connecting the dots between campaigns and revenue poses a complex challenge. With extended B2B sales cycles, it’s difficult to track and analyze each touchpoint, and even harder to determine which action was most influential in closing a deal.

As a result, only 22% of marketers believe they’re using the right attribution model, according to Bizible. In this live roundtable, our panel of marketing experts will discuss the current landscape of attribution and ROI, highlighting areas where marketers can improve and fine tune their strategies.

Our panel will weigh in on topics, including:

- Selecting an attribution model that’s right for your organization- Measuring marketing ROI effectively and accurately- Interpreting attribution data to invest in more revenue-generating tactics

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Embed your webinars on your website, blog, and resource centers to expose more prospects to your content.

For attendees, the webinar experience has historically been

separate and detached from the company hosting the event. Often, audience members are asked to download and install third-party software to view the content, dial-in to another number, and enter a long PIN, making for a less-than-ideal prospect experience.

To make sure your webinars have a consistent look and feel, leverage a webinar platform that allows you to embed all of your live, upcoming, and on-demand presentations directly on your website or content hub. Prospects will find it easier and more convenient to explore your website, product pages, and other content.

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Live engagementYou’ve researched, rehearsed, and prepared for this day—it’s time for your live webinar! But even the best presentations can fall flat if the audience isn’t invested in what you’re sharing.

As you prepare for your live event:

• Get a good night’s sleep so you’re rested and alert

• Revisit your slides and give them one last check

• Remove all distractions by turning off your phone and email

You are more than ready to lead your webinar. Remember to follow these four live tips to inspire and engage your audience.

Live engagement

On-demand success

Strategy & promotion

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Stand (and smile) while you’re presenting.

Although your audience can’t see your physical body language during your webinar (unless you’re doing a webcam

interview), it’s easy to pick up on it through your tone of voice. You should come across as energized, interested, and comfortable while presenting, which you can achieve by doing two important things: standing and smiling.

When you stand up while speaking, you sound more confident and engaged in your subject matter. If you sit down—a more relaxed position—you may come across as less interested in the topic you’re discussing.

Even before the webinar, you may want to strike a power pose, where you stand with your feet wide apart, hands on hips, and chin tilted upward. Holding these poses for just two minutes has been proven to boost confidence.

Similarly, smiling while presenting lets you loosen up and makes your audience feel at ease. You want to convey that you enjoy speaking to them and are excited about this opportunity to interact with them on a personal level.

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“ …standing (versus sitting) also increases your levels of energy and well-being. ”

- International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

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Kick things off with an audience poll.

Since the experience of watching or presenting a webinar is largely solo, your attendees will settle into the

presentation differently than they would in person.

To speed up the process, try posing a question to the audience a few minutes into the webinar to get your audience comfortable and engaged.

The question can help you gauge the audience’s interests and knowledge (“How many of you are using predictive analytics?” “How are you currently measuring your content marketing efforts?”

“Has SEO improved your marketing efforts?”) The point is simply to get your audience comfortable with the webinar experience and encourage them to interact throughout the session. You can then display the results so attendees feel that they belong to a larger audience of like-minded peers.

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Always/Frequently

Sometimes

Rarely/Never

Don’t Know/Not Applicable

Q Do you track views/downloads of archived content?

45%

31%

22%

2%

Tell Us Your Thoughts: Audience Poll

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Prepare 3-5 seed questions before your event.

Audience engagement will spice about your webinar. Sadly, it’s challenging. Just like at in-person presentations, webinar

audiences are sometimes shy when it comes time to ask the presenters questions. You can spark their confidence and creativity by posing 2-3 pre-written (“seed”) questions to your speakers.

This gives your attendees more time to formulate their own questions after the presentation—while avoiding awkward silence. But make sure

the question feels and sounds natural. When planted correctly, seed questions can play an important role in making your audience feel more comfortable speaking up.

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Always include contact information on your Q&A slide.

Use this simple swap to drive higher post-event engagement: Instead of hosting your

Q&A session in front of a slide that only says “Questions?” or “Q&A,” include your contact information, website, or a CTA to download your latest report.

9 Many webinar Q&As last 10-15 minutes (if not more), representing a significant portion of your webinar run time. While your speakers are answering questions, your audience’s attention will be drawn to the screen—making it an ideal location to offer them further ways to engage beyond the presentation.

Questions?

Download BrightTALK’s 2017 Webinar Benchmarks Report.

BrightTALKTM

Reach High and Meet Your Webinar Goals

BrightTALK’s 2017 Webinar Benchmarks Report

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On-demand successOne of the greatest benefits of webinars is their long-term lead generation potential. Long after your live event, your content can still generate and nurture qualified leads to fill your pipeline.

You’ll want to consider these post-webinar activities:

• How will you collect post-event viewer data?

• What is your plan to engage with on-demand attendees?

• Who is responsible for following up with requests from attendees?

• How are you tracking attendee requests so you can enhance engagements?

Even though the webinar is over, you still have more to do. These three hacks will help you get more out of your on-demand webinars.

Live engagement

On-demand success

Strategy & promotion

Execution

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Make your content available on-demand immediately

Often, people register for a webinar even if they are unavailable during the live event, with the expectation that

they will receive a link to the recording afterward. Compare webinar habits to television viewing—audiences want to watch when it’s convenient. It’s also common for live attendees to want to share your presentation with colleagues.

Making your webinar on demand should be simple and easy. Publish the recording within an hour after it ends. If you host it in an easy-to-find location, you’ll start accumulating post-event views immediately. Waiting 24-48 hours to post/send the recording can quickly drive away interested viewers and result in a loss of qualified leads.

Another mistake marketers make is to only make a recording available to those who pre-registered. Instead, make your webinar accessible to any new prospects who might be interested in it.

Not only is it important to make your content available quickly, it’s essential that your webinar is available for anytime access, far beyond the live day. As detailed in our 2017 Webinar Benchmarks Report, your recorded webinar will generate views for more than 100 days after the event. Long-term on-demand access should be a fundamental part of your webinar strategy.

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Additional audience gained within # days after live event

2%100 days

90 days

80 days

70 days

60 days

10 days

20 days

30 days

40 days

50 days

2%

2%

3%

3%

4%

6%

10%

24%

47%

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Attach the presentation deck to your webinar.

One of the most requested webinar attachments is always the presentation deck, particularly for on-demand

audiences. Attendees commonly revisit a webinar they’ve already watched to access statistics or charts referenced in the presentation. Including the deck allows them to quickly skim through the essential data to find what they need.

Populate the webinar with useful resources. When arranging your attachments, place your slides at the bottom of the list. This will encourage your viewers to first browse through other related items

(such as additional content assets and product-related information) before they access the deck.

Here’s an example of how to organize your attachments, with the slides at the bottom.

• White paper • Supplier website • Customer success story• Upcoming/on-demand webinars• Presentation deck

“ The top request from webinar attendees is to receive a copy of the presentation deck.”

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Incorporate video to spice up your content mix.

According to Aberdeen, marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. Video is an extremely versatile marketing

medium that can be used in many ways to supplement your webinar programs (ref: Aberdeen Research).

For example, you can create a two-minute teaser video to promote your live or on-demand event, or you can bring life to your roundtable webinar by bringing your panelists together on film. Video adds a vibrant dimension to traditional webinars and can be used to extend the life of your campaigns.

With a BrightTALK Channel, you can host live webinars, and you canadd recorded videos or create live-streamed events with the help of our professional

video team. Learn more at studios.brighttalk.com.

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Have fun!

Along your webinar journey, bumps in the road are inevitable. Maybe your dog started barking in the background or you didn’t

realize you were presenting on mute (oops!).

While webinars can certainly be nerve-wracking, they don’t have to be panic-inducing. Your audience is attending to learn from your presenters. Always remember that your audience wants you to succeed, and they believe in you.

If a slip up happens, don’t sweat it. This human element is exactly what makes webinars one of the most effective ways to connect with prospects.

Once the webinar is over, you can sit back and relax for a bit. Don’t take too long of a break, though, there’s still work to be done post webinar. You will want to track performance statistics, prepare thank you emails, report results to the team and executive management, and continue to engage with attendees.

“ Audiences can tell if you’re enjoying yourself. Let loose and have some fun.”

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These quick hacks are intended to help you streamline content creation and see improved returns from your webinar program. Along with a solid webinar strategy, these

tips can help amplify your efforts and drive sales pipeline.

Looking for a partner to help build out your webinar content and demand generation strategy?

Contact us to request a demo or learn more at business.brighttalk.com.

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To learn how BrightTALK can help you acquire your target audience and accelerate your pipeline success today, visit our marketing solutions page.