Between audience acquisition, webinar content development, webinar management and webinar follow-up activities, B2B organizations can spend more than $15K on their webinar marketing efforts. The problem is — very few B2B technology organizations are generating the leads they should be grabbing and even fewer are effectively engaging these leads after the event is over. Here are some ideas on how to use explainer videos to convert webinar registrants into customers
Here’s why many technology B2B webinars do not generate as many qualified leads as they should — and how videos can help
Reason #1: Most B2B technology webinars are nothing more than a demo.
According to webinar expert Mike Agron, when you are trying to attract top of the funnel prospects, the purpose of a webinar should be to get buy-in for some type of change in your prospect’s organization. Your webinar should not be about making a sale or showing a demo or touting product features. Prospects are still in the learning stage so you have to make your webinars case study based where you showcase a new process, strategy or solution that will lead to better business outcomes.
Reason #2: B2B organizations are failing to quickly connect with their targeted audiences needs.
You must remember that the target audiences you invite to a webinar will vary greatly on where they are in the decision process — not just how much they know or care about you and your solutions, but also what they actually need. In any case, many will be very uncertain whether they should put any more time and effort into finding out what you can do for them (which includes signing up for your webinar.) By adding videos as part of the invite process, you can reduce that uncertainty, because viewing a short video is the most painless way to determine your own level of interest in something. Plus, with a good 2-Minute Explainer animated video, you’ll be able to quickly connect the prospect with the problem you’ll be covering in the webinar.
Not only are videos good for your webinar audience acquisition efforts – but also in the lead engagement process. Remember, because someone signed up for a webinar, it does not mean they will be ready to buy immediately afterward. You have to nourish relationships.
Video follow-up? Yes. Yes. And yes.
Companies usually follow up with surveys and a link to download the recorded session and they’ll call the “hottest prospects” and just dump everyone else into their newsletter list. Here’s a better way to follow up with webinar registrants:
If you made your webinar case study based and if you provided real value, then you should have buy-in to a new process or strategy from your webinar attendees. Now, you want to follow up, with a 2 minute explainer that supports these objectives:
Reinforce your message.
Show prospects how your technology supports the strategies and processes described in the webinar and how it will help them overcome the challenges mentioned in your audience acquisition videos. So, in other words, you are connecting the dots for them.
Move the prospect further along in the sales process
Make it easy for your prospect to share information with other buying team members (not in the form of a recorded 45-minute webinar)
A second follow up email can then provide a combination of an in-depth demo and sales pitch like this Brocade Application Resource Broker in Action video. This video is a five-minute presentation that incorporates animations from a (top-of-funnel) 2-Minute Explainer video that was initially used to introduce the product, and a narrated “demo” depicting in detail what it’s like to use the product.
Implications for content marketing
If your content marketing strategy calls for webinars, you should make it easy for the buying team member who attended the webinar to share the positive new things learned with other team members. That means your content strategy for webinars should anticipate the videos that can be used to follow up. These videos include video product introductions, video product demos, video case studies and whatever else you’ve got. Make video part of before and after webinar strategy.
