Webinars are powerful tools in lead generation. But to generate leads, you have to keep your webinar attendees interested from beginning to end, and even after the webinar ends. One of the things that makes webinars under-produce is if they’re simply boring! Attendees are talked at and told things, and will often drift away to find something else to do before the webinar is over. There are some tips that can help you prevent that.
1. Make the Webinar an Experience
With YouTube videos, online television, and hundreds of thousands of websites that might interest your webinar attendees, you need to make your online meeting something to keep them from jumping to those other things. Plan your webinar to be interesting for even the person in the group with the least interest in what’s being said. How do you make it engaging and interesting? Present the information you have in a lively way. And keep your participants reminded that they’re part of the webinar, not just spectators.
2. Know Your Audience
Having them fill-out surveys or questions in advance to be touched on during the webinar will help engage them. Always ask an open-ended question if you can:
“what is one thing would you like to learn?”
“what is your biggest challenge relating to _______”
3. Engage Your Attendees
Interaction will keep webinar attendees interested. Stop and think–would you rather sit through 30 minutes of slides, or have a couple of sessions in that 30 minutes where you can ask questions or present ideas?
An interactive webinar will naturally be more successful at lead generation than a static one where attendees just listen–or get tired of listening and leave.
Q&A sessions, surveys, and other interactive activities can mean the difference between an unproductive webinar and one that produces leads.
4. Plan Content According to Group Size
It can help you to plan the interactive portions of the webinar–and there should be many–by having a good estimate of how many will be attending. Large groups are by their nature the hardest groups to maintain this interaction level with. Very small groups like 5 to 20 can be treated “family style.” Family style meals have diners sitting around a table, sharing food from the same bowls and passing them around. These small webinars can benefit from that feeling of intimacy; they’re a small group all passing around and sharing ideas and information. Our firm’s webinars are typically in the 10-30 range, and if they are under 15, we will open the line at the end for questions, this is a great way to start a sales conversation.
For larger the groups, the more polished and engaging a speaker should be, and the more important things like surveys and text-based Q&A can help keep the audience involved.
5. Kick Off With Warm & Fuzzy & Ditch the Credientials
I am getting really bored of analyst type calls where it is all credentials, if you want your audience to engage, and you’re not a speaker by nature, make sure you plan a few jokes and trade credentials for honest humility.
If the group size allows and you want this level of interactivity, let attendees introduce themselves before the webinar starts. If there won’t be this level of interaction from attendees, then before the webinar starts is a good time for speaker introductions and entertaining or lively stories and intro information from the speaker or moderator.
6. Have A lead Generation Goal!
While the webinar is your core presentation, it pays to have a clear idea of exactly what you want your ideal attendee to do next. Make sure there’s a way for attendees to get further answers to their questions and keep the sense of connection and conversation going; and after the webinar, a crucial time for lead generation, ensure there is a clear call to action to move them from audience to actual sales leads (ie a free 30 minute consultation etc.).
“If you liked what you saw here today, there are a few ways you can engage with us..
- A Deal: You Can Purchase a Complete Guide on Our Site, We Will Email You A Discount Code…
- A Lead: Let’s have a chat – book free 30 minute consultation with a senior
- Subscriber: join us on twitter
2 Comments
James,
This is an excellent summary of how to run a B2B lead generation webinar. I would stress keeping the webinar to 30 minutes usually. Also, some companies put on weekly webinars. To increase probability of revenue generation from webinars we recommend businesses take two steps following their webinar:
1) Send out an email campaign thanking participants
2) Use lead tracking solutions to measure the ROI of their webinar.
Thanks for the great post.
Good insight. I’d just add a bit to the last paragraph regarding the call to action… Can’t be stressed enough to build up perception of value when making that call. As Claude Hopkins said, “Make an offer so good they would have to be stupid to say no”. This applies equally to B2B as it does to B2C. Cheers!