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I just ran a survey recently on marketing demand generation ABM techniques and webinars was the number one tactic across the board for B to B marketers to do. I caught up with Tessa Barron who heads Marketing for On24 and asked her a number of questions.
Tessa, what best practices suggestions would you have using webinars these days?
- So I think that the biggest thing I would suggest is stop thinking of webinars as a one off event and something that happens once and then gets thrown away and isn’t integrated as part of your overall buyer’s journey or overall integrated demand gen campaign. We add on 24 no surprise, obviously drink our own Kool-Aid and webinars are far and away our number one tactic when it comes to pipeline and in fact closed one pipeline.
- So I’d actually take your survey results one step further and say it’s not just effective from a generation of MQL standpoint, it’s all the way down the funnel. And so what we’ve really done is evolved our webinar program from just being a single event once a month to being something that is always on and is happening on a day in, day out basis. We do that in a few ways.
- One, we leverage simulive capabilities, which means you can record something once and replay it again and again. So we have a bottom of funnel webinar called our daily demo that happens every single day at 11:00 AM Pacific. So someone can sign up for multiple days in a week. They figure out it’s a no pressure environment to really get an understanding of our product.
- And then way at the top of the funnel, we have a lot of different panels. We work with partners, we bring in other voices. What that allows us to do is broaden our perspective, but that can be difficult from a scheduling standpoint. So we, we often record panels, well I have a recording I think tomorrow. And then we’ll run it at a time that is best for all the different parties involved. So we are able to promote with different people and then have the convenience of the scheduling.
- Think about webinars as being a part of an integrated demand gen campaign. So you can use all your typical demand gen tactics, like your content reports, your blogs, your eBooks, and those should be driving momentum toward a big culmination, a culminating effect and use webinars or field events to drive urgency to get those prospects to convert.
- And also to help drive motion with your outbound SDR or BDR teams and also your AEs. There was nothing better for them to then to be able to use a, a point in time to drive that urgency.
- But if you just think of that as something separate that’s in a silo and not a part of this momentous and has alignment with the other content and messaging you’re pushing, then you’ll lose out on that halo effect that really helps you build that audience over time. And, and pipeline.