Decoding IT Services Marketing with ON24

Decoding IT Services Marketing

A Different Kind of Marketing Animal

The Power Tool in Your IT Services Marketing Toolkit

ON24 Webcast Elite: Designed for Time-crunched Audiences

Our ON24 Technology. Your Strategy.

Simplify Complexity with ON24 Webcast Elite Webinars

Make It Convenient for Over-booked IT

Let the Media Deliver the Message

Your ON24 Data Goldmine

Boost the Value of Your IT Services Webinars

Upgrade IT Services Marketing to ON24

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Decoding IT Services MarketingInformation Technology is having the same impact today

that steam had on the industrial revolution. Even a hands-on

industry like agriculture uses computers.

The fact is, without a highly-functioning IT backbone,

most businesses can’t survive.

Analysts expect the global IT services market to grow at a CAGR of 5.6% during the period 2016 - 2021.1

Only 7% of 1044 marketers recently surveyed say they give “great webinars.”2

Unfortunately, while the target audience for Professional

IT Services Marketing is vast and growing, most marketers

haven’t been able to unlock the potential of the most

powerful tool in their digital toolkit: webinars.

4

Part of the problem is the challenge of promoting an intangible

service, rather than a product, especially when the offering is usually

composed of customized services and solutions, implemented over

time, with SLAs and related contract requirements.

The second challenge is establishing credibility, and eventually trust,

in the vision and core competencies of your firm. This is difficult to

achieve with brochures and websites, but webinars offer opportunities

for interaction with experts, analysts, customers, and other credible

guests, a key factor in building trust.

In the following pages, we explore the unique challenges IT services

marketers face and provide suggestions and solutions to engage and

convert the toughest of all audiences, IT, using the award-winning

ON24 webinar marketing platform.

1 https://www.einpresswire.com/article/362504975/it-services-2017-global-market-expected-togrow-

at-cagr-5-6-and-forecast-to-20212 http://www.redheadmedia.biz/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/5-creative-ideas-to-propel-your-webinars.pdf

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The communication pros at ON24 understand what IT

services marketers are up against. Instead of demonstrating

the virtues of a product with demos, online reviews, use

cases, spec sheets, customer ratings, social media, and so

on, you’re attempting to persuade an audience of intelligent,

usually over-worked, and often skeptical IT pros that your

firm is worth trusting with the engine of their business.

While 87% of tech marketers promote their products via social media, only 25% of IT pros use these channels to learn about new products and services.3

A Different Kind of Marketing Animal

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While it's critical to establish credibility, it's not all push on the part of

marketing. In "How Clients Buy," 85% of buyers reported that the top

mistakes professional services providers made were "not listening"

and "not understanding the client's business and needs."4

This points to the need for more interaction, feedback loops,

surveys, and polls. But it's not enough to simply capture feedback,

marketers must analyze feedback and use it to better understand IT

customers' needs and preferences.

Another preference clearly expressed by IT Services audiences is the

need for facts. These pros don't readily give up an hour of their time

unless they expect to receive information and guidance on topics

that require a great deal, more study and experience than they have

or can access on their own.

So, make the webinars relevant and engaging.

3 https://www.spiceworks.com/marketing/reports/b2b-marketing-strategies-connect-with-itbuyers/4 http://www.accountingweb.com/sites/default/files/How_Clients_Buy_09_-Excerpt-1.pdf

ARE YOU LISTENING?

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The Power Tool in Your IT Services Marketing ToolkitAs IT services marketers, you undoubtedly use webinars to

promote your firm and educate target audiences in the latest

technologies, methods, and best practices.

While many marketers struggle to produce great webinars,

they continue to drive the buying cycle, according to market

research firm SiriusDecisions.5

The question you may be asking now is: if webinars are so

influential, then why do so many marketers (93%) think their

events are less than stellar?7

Webinars rated as the #1 marketing tactic for generating leads by Forrester’s Tech Marketing Planning Guidance.6

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Webinars are the most difficult channel for marketers to measure, according to areport by Millward Brown (gated).8

It could be because many webinar solutions have limited

features and flexibility to customize. Or it could be the webinar

platform is closed and rigid, unable to integrate with popular

systems and data sources. Another reason could be that it takes

too long to master the features and tools needed to make

events memorable and measurable.

Of course, the ON24 team knows that if you have the right

tools and the right content, webinars can power IT services

marketing to dizzying new heights.

5, 6, 7 http://blog.on24.com/webinar-analytics-marketing-automation-optimal-lead-scoring-nurturing/8 https://www.millwardbrowndigital.com/research-insights/getting-digital-right-2016/

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ON24 Webcast Elite: Designed for Time-crunched AudiencesIf your marketing team is going to engage attendees ranging from

LOB (Line of Business) executives to VPs of Architecture, you're going

to need a fail-safe webinar platform that’s loaded with easy-to-use

media tools and features, all guaranteed, reliable and secure.

ON24 Webcast Elite is the only webinar solution purpose-built as a

marketing platform — and the most powerful, scalable, feature-rich,

and intelligent multi-media solution available on planet Earth.

But it's not just about our technology. It's about your strategy: how

you choreograph each webinar to build credibility, demonstrate

competence, and deliver value to each unique IT audience.

ON24 has the best webcasting technology for marketers. The Forrester Wave™

Enterprise Video Platforms And Webcasting; Q1 2015, Forrester Research, Inc.9

The ON24 platform successfully supported more than 80,000 webinars in 2016 and is on track to beat last year's record.

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With ON24 Webcast Elite, you can design and execute

content-rich, multi-media engagement programs at scale with

easy accessibility, unparalleled interactivity, unmatched reliability

and security, and measurable ROI.

And don't think that just because your audience is technical,

they don't enjoy live events, videos, speakers, and interactive

environments. Remember, they bore easily.

The good news for tech marketers is that most humans

(including techies) prefer visual content to the written word.10

And studies show that visual content is also absorbed faster

and more efficiently, especially when delivered via the

attractive and interactive ON24 interface.

THE POWER OF VISUAL CONTENT TO IMPRESS

9 https://11jvfl23vm4l3xirbp1ovizf-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ON24-Excerpt-

Forrester-Webcasting-Wave-Report.pdf10 http://www.t-sciences.com/news/humans-process-visual-data-better

I love the new engagement score. It really helps us pull out the hot leads.

Virginia Moncure, Associate Project Manager, SmartBrief

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We understand that IT audiences can be challenging. That's why you

need a reliable, feature-packed webinar platform to help you execute

your webinar strategy utilizing the entire range of content at your

disposal to:

Convince your IT audience that your firm is knowledgeable,

experienced, and customer-focused, with a short introduction

designed to impress: awards/recognitions, customer

testimonials, analyst reviews, thought leadership articles, etc.

Include links so participants can delve deeper on their own.

Demonstrate your firm's capabilities, core competencies,

knowledge, and processes with live or video demos,

customer stories, and credible guest speakers.

Provide valuable content that is easy to access and re-use

in a variety of formats and from a variety of online sources,

including videos, white papers, benchmark studies, customer

stories, and demos. The list is endless when you use ON24

Webcast Elite.

DELIVER CREDIBILITY, COMPETENCE, AND CONTENT

Our Technology. Your Strategy.

1.

2.

3.

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With Webcast Elite we’re giving our audience the best possible webinar experience. From the platform’s branding and customization to its interactive widgets and social media tools and more, it’s a purposeful investment in our webinar program that’s clearly paying dividends.

Denise Persson, Chief Marketing Officer, Apigee

The challenges don't end once your attendees have left. To

develop an effective webinar strategy, you need a continuous

source of feedback, data, analytics, and industry benchmarks.

Only ON24 provides the interactivity, content management,

and analytics tools you need to optimize your webinar program

and your webinar performance.

CAPTURE DATA TO DRIVE YOUR STRATEGY

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Just because your topic is IT, doesn't mean your webinar has

to be complicated.

Everyone gets stage fright once in a while. But, with ON24

Webcast Elite, anyone on your team can easily create,

customize, and deliver media-rich, fully branded webinars,

events, and videos, all from one unified platform and one

intuitive console.

You enter your webinar with just one click, then move through

slides guided by a userfriendly interface. And it's a snap for any

speaker to present or hop on a webcast without any hands-on

guidance or training.

Worried about technical difficulties? You can count on your ON24

webinar to work all the time: no plug-ins or downloads to install

and no hang-ups or sluggish response times.

Simplify Complexity with ON24 Webcast Elite Webinars

EASY TO LEARN AND USE

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EASY, IMPACTFUL BRANDING

We know you're a team of marketers. With Webcast Elite,

webinars can be completely customized to represent your

brand, corporate colors, images, and top-line messaging,

creating a consistent visual impression every time.

Need to ramp up attendance? Automated email reminders are

a click away. Registered participants are never locked out due

to corporate IT restrictions. And if anyone misses your event,

you can make it available on demand from the ON24 platform.

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Make It Convenient for Over-booked IT

ON24 understands the pressures and time constraints of today's

IT work environment. It's hard to get away without worrying

about fires that need extinguishing, a new security threat, or a

staffing issue. Some people may miss your webinar, but need

and want the information you provide.

ON24 Webcast Elite lets you configure the perfect media

and delivery format for every audience, anytime, anywhere.

Attendees and would-be participants can experience, record,

and engage in your webinars on their schedule with live,

on-demand, simulive, or a combination of formats,

right from their desktops or mobile devices.

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Expand audience reach and webinar ROI by recording a webinar

that can be viewed anytime, anywhere, with full interactivity,

including polls, surveys, Q&A, and more.

With ON24, you can ensure a polished and stress-free

presentation, enabling presenters to focus on engagement or

share content even if they are not available. Just pre-record

your webinar and run it as a live event with full interactivity.

And if you really want to impress, combine simulive and live

portions. As an example, you can have a real-time connection

with the audience by hosting a live Q&A session right after the

simulive presentation is over.

Take your ON24 events to the next level with streaming video,

slides, and interactive tools, including Q&A, polling, Twitter feeds,

and more. With ON24, all live webinars become on-demand

events after the live event is complete, so you can easily reach

audiences that were unable to attend at the scheduled time.

DELIVERY OPTIONS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR AUDIENCE

1. Live Webinars

2. On-demand Webinars

3. Simulive Webinars

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Let the Media Deliver the MessageFrom Q&A, surveys, polls, and social media connections,to on-camera

presenters, live industry updates, and engaging video clips, ON24

Webcast Elite gives you more than 30 interactive tools and rich media

features to ensure your IT attendees are engaged and enjoying every

minute of your webinar.

With ON24 Webcast Elite you are empowered to:

+ Use rich media features like live screen share, webcam, and broadcast video to deliver a complete multi-media experience

+ Promote on-demand webinars, share videos, and turn PDFs into interactive flipbooks

+ Publish the Content Gateway as a stand-alone page on your website or embed it in other pages, emails, and partner sites

+ Select which assets require registration to download or view, and encourage engagement with related content recommendations

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Remember how your grade school teacher would always call on the

person who wasn't paying attention?

With ON24, you can ensure participation through surveys, snap polls,

discussion groups, use case studies, and more. IT professionals are

always interested in peer opinions, experiences, and lessons learned,

so this portion of your webinar could really take off.

Invite experts, analysts, and customers, and don't forget those

front-line IT warriors, fighting the good fight every day to manage

out-of-control infrastructures. We guarantee your IT audience

will appreciate their advice, experience, and knowledge on a

range of technologies, best practices, and products. Use videos,

podcasts, presentations, and white papers as takeaways to the

discussion, available for download during your event or 24/7 on

your Content Gateway.

HOST THOUGHT LEADERS AND IT WARRIORS

INVITE EVERYONE TO JOIN IN

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Your ON24 Data Goldmine

The real gold to be mined from ON24 events is the detailed analytics

and reports that provide insights into the engagement level and

behavior of each audience member, as well as event or

campaign-level metrics.

IDENTIFY YOUR BEST PROSPECTS

SHARE INTELLIGENCE COMPANY-WIDE

Whether your webinar is live or on-demand, ON24’s industry-leading

analytics calculate engagement scores to better qualify leads and to

establish a prospect's level of interest in your offerings. Identify your

best prospects using the detailed analysis of each webinar attendee’s

unique behavior and engagement level.

Maximize the value of your insights by integrating directly with

marketing automation and CRM systems to enable immediate

and effective follow-up by your marketing and sales teams.

I love the built-in engagement score which makes it really easy to see how engaged attendeeswere at a glance.

Jessica Schrader, VP of Marketing, ITG

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HOW ARE YOU DOING?

Check out the intuitive ON24 Intelligence Dashboard for detailed

data and reports on the success of your individual webinars.

Plus, campaign-level analytics aggregate metrics from all of

your webinars, providing trending data on leads generated,

engagement scores, and performance.

ON24 has made it exponentially easier to run webinars. While the platform is intuitive andsimple to use, the analytics we get are more robust than anything we’ve ever had and give great insights into the events we host.

Cari Zoch, Brand Communications Manager, Avention

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Boost the Value of Your IT Services Webinars

Don't waste all the perspiration and dedication you invest in your IT

services webinars. The glory may pass but the gains can drive your sales

funnel and top-line revenue for months, even years after your event.

THE TOOLS YOU NEED TO MAXIMIZE ROI

Leverage 30 types of ON24 metrics to help drive new business and develop

new campaigns and collateral, including campaign data, user registration

information, viewing durations, and data from polls, questions, and surveys.

Customize and extend the content and data from every event and use it

to generate new campaigns, web pages, training seminars, and knowledge

resources. It's as easy as your everyday productivity applications to:

+ Organize all your best content in a single Content Gateway

+ Embed content directly onto any webpage

+ Get in-depth engagement and viewing data on all content from any source

+ Edit and repurpose webinar content for multi-touch micro-campaigns

+ Integrate engagement data into MAS and CRM across the buyer and customer lifecycles to drive sales and marketing revenue opportunities (and yes, it's easy too)

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TRANSFORM EVERY WEBINAR INTO MULTIPLE MULTIMEDIA ASSETS

With ON24, you can easily edit, remix, and re-publish your

webinars wherever you want. While IT pros tend to avoid social

media for technical information, they all have their favorite

blogs, chat rooms, research, and technology vendor sites and

visit them whenever they can see some daylight. Need to know

what sites your IT audiences visit? Now that's a great topic for a

webinar poll or survey.

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Upgrade Your IT Services Marketing to ON24We hope you realize by now how committed ON24 is to helping your

team overcome the unique obstacles and frustrations of marketing

IT services to a critical, smart, but often stressed-out audience. When

you partner with ON24, you not only gain the most powerful webinar

machine in this solar system, you get the support and expertise of our

webinar gurus, who are always ready to help and to learn more about

your business.

We invite you to take advantage of the powerful ON24 Webcast Elite

webinar marketing platform by choosing from a variety of out-of-the-box

solutions, or by working with our ON24 webinar wonks to customize

your fully integrated, customer-focused solution.

We can’t wait to show you how to maximize your IT services webinar

program ROI and deliver the right message to the right audience at the

right time. And be dang proud of every event you host.

Contact us today at....

ABOUT ON24, INC.

ON24 is the leading webinar marketing platform for demand generation, lead qualification

and customer engagement. It's award-winning, patented, cloud-based platform enables

companies of all sizes to deliver engaging live and on-demand webinars. Providing

industry-leading analytics that can be integrated with all leading marketing automation

and CRM platforms, ON24 enables marketers to optimize demand generation, enhance

lead qualification and accelerate sales pipeline opportunities.

Additional applications for the ON24 product portfolio include virtual training, talent

development and town hall meetings. More than 1,000 enterprises rely on ON24,

including IBM, CA Technologies, Merck, JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse, and SAP.

The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices throughout the world.

For more information, visit ON24.com.

ON24, INC.

795 FOLSOM ST.,

FLOOR 3, SAN FRANCISCO,

CA 94107–4226