1. How Webinars Should Fit into Your
Content Marketing & Audience-Building
Efforts
21 ideas for planning, creating, and
leveraging your webinars
2. Today’s team
Todd Lebo Daniel Burstein
Senior Director of Content Director of
and Business Development Editorial Content
@ToddLebo @DanielBurstein
#SherpaWebinar
3. About MECLABS
• More than 10 years of research
• Over 1 billion emails
• 1,300 major experiments
• 10,000 sales paths tested
• Hundreds of publications and conferences
• 5 million phone calls
• 500,000 conversations
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4. MarketingSherpa is a research and publishing
organization serving the marketing community
MarketingSherpa’s
research cycle provides
knowledge for continuous
improvement of marketing
performance
4
#SherpaWebinar
5. How Webinars Should Fit into Your Content
Marketing & Audience-Building Efforts
1 Pre-webinar – developing content and orchestrating pre-
event promotions
2 During the webinar – managing the event in real time, and
engaging your audience
3 Post-webinar – turning viewers into customers, processing
feedback, and reusing content
6. 1 Pre-webinar
Free webinars aren’t free
IDEA #1: Focus on
delivering
value…not selling
#SherpaWebinar
7. 1 Pre-webinar
Is a webinar right for your purposes?
1. How complex is my purchase?
2. Can I help my audience without selling?
“The goal with nurturing is not just always be closing or
always be selling. It’s really, always be helping.”
– Brian Carroll, Executive Director of Revenue Optimization,
MECLABS
IDEA #1:
Focus on
delivering
value…not
selling
#SherpaWebinar
11. 1 Pre-webinar
POLL: What is your level of expertise with
creating and promoting webinars?
1. Haven’t started
2. Beginner
3. Moderate
4. Advanced
5. Move over Dan and Todd, I should be running this thing
#SherpaWebinar
12. 1 Pre-webinar
Who are you targeting?
IDEA #2: Pick
a target
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13. 1 Pre-webinar
Identify buyer personas
What is a buyer persona?
A detailed profile that represents an
actual, real-life group of your target
audience. It includes common interests,
1
motivators and expectations, as well as
demographic and other behavioral
characteristics.
IDEA #2:
Pick a
target
#SherpaWebinar
14. 1 Pre-webinar
Key buyer persona traits
Demographic traits Behaviors
• Job title & responsibilities • Key concerns for purchase
• Organization size / • Interests
department size • Motivation
• Primary market (B2B, B2C, • Expectations
B2B2C) • Decision-making authority
• Industry • Approvals needed for purchase
• Location • Urgency
• Budget • Goals
• Familiarity with product / service
IDEA #2: • Pain points & challenges
Pick a
target • Validation needed for purchase
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15. 1 Pre-webinar
Researching buyer personas
Step 1: Ask customer-facing departments
Qualitative Step 2: Ask prospects
Research Step 3: Ask customers
Step 4: Mine in-house database
What to look for:
• Common traits for ideal customers
Quantitative
– Large deal sizes, short timeframes to purchase, most repeat purchases,
Research etc.
• Common traits for undesirable customers
– Returns or refunds, smallest deal sizes, longest timeframes to purchase
IDEA #2:
Pick a
target
#SherpaWebinar
16. 1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #3:
Segment MarketingSherpa Case Study – SciQuest
your
audience segmented their target audience
Challenge: Weekly webinars
were not generating volume
and quality of leads needed to
meet goals for the
collaborative procurement and
supplier management
solutions company
Approach: Properly identify
and segment the audience to
give them targeted content.
#SherpaWebinar
17. 1 Pre-webinar
Marketing Sherpa Case Study – SciQuest:
Segmentation
Cleaned up the in-house marketing database and got persona-
specific content to the correct audience:
• They recognized inconsistencies in the way contacts’ job
descriptions were recorded.
• They began standardizing the way contacts were identified. A
dozen standard job description categories were created.
• They hired a summer intern to manually examine each
contact and assign them to one of the 12 standard categories.
IDEA #3:
Segment
your
audience
#SherpaWebinar
18. 1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study – SciQuest
• Better segmentation capabilities from their improved
database allowed them to create higher-quality segmented
lists for webinar invites.
• The webinars could now be advertised to the specific
audiences they could benefit.
• An invitation on an advanced webinar for the healthcare
industry, for example, achieved a 4% acceptance rate –
quadrupling the 1% acceptance rate for the company’s basic
webinar invitation…a 300% increase in acceptance rate
IDEA #3:
Segment
your Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30653
audience
#SherpaWebinar
19. 1 Pre-webinar
Pick a webinar topic for your audience
What will your audience find to be:
Relevant?
Urgent?
Important?
Make a choice of topic informed by the questions above and the
research you conducted.
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20. IDEA #4:
Test your
Which title will perform best?
title
• Your first inclination might not produce the best headline
• “Once you have a headline in a certain zone, a certain skill
zone, there’s no way for me to predict which one is going to
win, because I can’t get in the mystery of the audience’s mind
well enough to guess that.” Flint Mclaughlin, CEO said prior to
testing the headlines
• Based on two hypotheses (“Which is better, a fluid statement
or a list?”)
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21. IDEA #4:
Test your
Which title will perform best?
title
Minor Changes, Major Lifts: How button and form optimization
increased conversion 166%
VS.
Minor Changes, Major Lifts: Three case studies, three
discoveries, 166% increase
Which title do you think won?
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22. IDEA #4:
Test your Which title will perform best?
title
Winner:
Minor Changes, Major Lifts: How button and form optimization
increased conversion 166%
Minor Changes, Major Lifts: Three case studies, three
discoveries, 166% increase
Small differences in wording resulted in a 92.2% increase in
conversion
Source: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/blog/analytics-testing/headline-testing.html
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23. 1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #5:
Repurpose MarketingSherpa Case Study—HubSpot:
a proven
topic choosing a topic that draws an audience
Challenge: HubSpot wanted a
high performing topic to be
presented by a presenter with
a proved track record.
Approach: They picked a topic
in the vein of previous
successful events.
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24. 1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study—HubSpot: picked
a topic for their audience and got it right
HubSpot, a marketing software company, produces many
webinars as part of an overall content strategy. One recent
event, "The Science of Timing," garnered just shy of 25,000 sign-
ups and included almost 10,000 attendees.
IDEA #5:
Repurpose a
proven topic
#SherpaWebinar
25. 1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study—HubSpot: knew
their audience liked science-y content
The importance of "The Science of..." series is that previous
events played into the marketing of "The Science of Timing."
Through past attendance metrics, they showed that this
content had interest for HubSpot’s audience:
"The Science of Twitter" with ClickZ had pulled in about 3,000
registrants
IDEA #5:
"The Science of Social Media" had received around
Repurpose a
proven topic 12,000 registrants
#SherpaWebinar
26. 1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study—HubSpot:
answered audience’s burning questions
Jeanne Hopkins, Director of Marketing, HubSpot, explained the
appeal of this event, "'The Science of Timing' kind of combined
'The Science of Twitter' and the science of social media,
Facebook and blogging because it was all about timing…This
webinar was an aggregate of some of the questions that people
really had burning questions to.“
Results: They achieved a record-breaking registartion of 25,000!
IDEA #5:
Repurpose a
proven topic
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31889
#SherpaWebinar
27. 1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #6:
Repurpose
MarketingSherpa Case Study –
live event
content
Fairchild Semiconductor
Challenge: Good content that
got a great audience response
didn’t reach the number of
people they had hoped for in a
live presentation format.
Approach: Repurposed day-
long, in-person seminar into 7
one-hour long pieces, and turn
it into webinars
#SherpaWebinar
28. MarketingSherpa Case Study—Fairchild 1 Pre-webinar
Semiconductor results
30-50% of live webinar registrants actually attended, but of
the remainder, 80% checked in later to access the archive.
A remarkable 75-80% of live webinar attendees stayed
through the entire presentation.
They repurposed content that was already created, so these
webinars were not as hard to make.
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=23547
IDEA #6:
Repurpose
live event
content
#SherpaWebinar
29. 1 Pre-webinar
IDEA #7:
Test MarketingSherpa Case study—SciQuest:
frequency
and timing fewer webinars, more attendees
Challenge: Weekly webinars
were not generating volume
and quality of leads needed to
meet company goals.
Approach: Respect the
audience’s time: avoid
oversaturation and put your
webinar at a time when it’s
easiest for people to watch it.
#SherpaWebinar
30. 1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study– SciQuest: timing
matters
• Events were no longer scheduled for every week, but every
other week.
• Webinar starting time was changed from 2 p.m. to 11 a.m. to
attract prospects in Europe while also reaching West Coast
attendees first thing in the morning.
• Webinar day became Thursday instead of Tuesday.
• No webinars were scheduled for July and August, when
attendance was typically lowest.
IDEA #7: Results: This tactic in combination with others
Test
frequency
and timing increased viewership 422%
Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30653
#SherpaWebinar
31. 1 Pre-webinar
Pre-event promotion
IDEA #8:
Think
beyond the
email
invite
Source: MarketingSherpa
#SherpaWebinar
32. 1 Pre-webinar
Idea #9:
Create a
promotions
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: a
template
framework that produces results
Challenge: IDES, a plastics
industry directory, was making
high-quality webinars that
drew a good audience. They
wanted to expedite the
process and get the same good
results.
Approach: Create easy to use
templates for a webinar
communication plan that can
be used and reused.
#SherpaWebinar
33. Idea #9: 1 Pre-webinar
Create a
promotions
template
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: Promotion
Ads: 6 weeks prior to the webinar, ads placed throughout the
website and link to the webinar platform’s registration page.
Webinars Page: Listing and ad link to the webinar reg page.
Social: They create a blog posting which updates LinkedIn and
Twitter accounts.
#SherpaWebinar
34. 1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: Promotion
Newsletters: Include the upcoming webinar as a featured story
in email newsletters beginning 6 weeks prior to the webinar.
Email Alerts: Have an opt-in list of people who have asked to be
notified of upcoming webinars. Email alerts are sent to this list 1
to 2 days prior to the presentation. Email alerts are also sent to
recipients based on past downloads of white papers from
website and newsletter click tracking on topics associated with
the webinar presentation content.
Idea #9:
Create a
promotions
template
#SherpaWebinar
35. 1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: Promotion
Registration Form: Gathers minimal information: first and last name, email.
Viral: After 5 seconds, the registration page redirects to a Tell-a-Friend page
created with SurveyGizmo. The form also asks if they would like to be added
to our webinar alerts email list.
Idea #9:
Create a
promotions
template
#SherpaWebinar
36. 1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: Promotion
Viral Emails: emails include summary information for the webinar and a link
to register.
Webinar Reminder Emails: Through the webinar platform, reminder emails
are sent 1 day and 1 hour prior to the event. They include connection and
calling instructions, and the ability to add the event to their Outlook Calendar.
All post-webinar items are also produced prior to the webinar: On-demand
video page, Landing page to download slides, Follow up emails to attendees
and non attendees. Recipients receive a link to the webinar recording and
slides within 3 hours of the presentation ending.
Idea #9:
Create a
promotions
template
#SherpaWebinar
37. 1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: Results
• 73% of registrations coming from its email newsletter and
special webinar alert messages
• 24% of registrations coming from Google searches
• 37% attendance rate on live webinars
• "Like all things, the upfront investment is hardest part —
creating all the templates, figuring out the process," says
Nathan Potter, Marketing Manager. "But once it’s a process,
it’s dialed in. One person can handle it and bang it out fast.“
Idea #9:
Create a
promotions Source: https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31672
template
#SherpaWebinar
38. 1 Pre-webinar
MarketingSherpa webinar template
IDEA #9
BONUS:
Use our
promotion
template
http://bit.ly/WebinarTemplate
#SherpaWebinar
39. How Webinars Should Fit into Your Content
Marketing & Audience-Building Efforts
1 Pre-webinar—developing content and orchestrating pre-
event promotions
2 During the webinar – managing the event in real time, and
engaging your audience
3 Post-webinar-- turning viewers into customers, processing
feedback, and reusing content
4 Review
40. 2 Mid-webinar
Continuously provide value
• Your audience has limited
time and even more
limited attention. Present
your content with this in
mind.
Idea #10:
Every slide is
a micro-
conversion
Based on Richard Mayer's research
www.psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/mayer/re
search/research...
#SherpaWebinar
41. 2 Mid-webinar
Help your audience connect with each other
#SherpaWebinar
Idea #11:
Start a
conversation
#SherpaWebinar
42. 2 Mid-webinar
Idea #12: Go
light on the
selling…
http://marketingsherpa.com/b2bsummit
#SherpaWebinar
43. Two tiers of webinars 2 Mid-webinar
Promote sales webinars in a straightforward manner (so your
audience doesn’t confuse them with content webinars.
Focused on sharing your
solution with attendees.
Better for farther down the
Idea #13: …or
funnel.
create a
second tier
Content Sales
Webinar Webinar
Focused on providing value
to potential customers.
Good for higher up in the
funnel.
#SherpaWebinar
44. Two tiers of webinars 2 Mid-webinar
Promote sales webinars in a straightforward manner (so your
audience doesn’t confuse them with content webinars.
Idea #13: …or
create a
second tier
Source: http://www.meclabs.com/engage
#SherpaWebinar
45. 2 Mid-webinar
Engaging + information speakers
From MarketingSherpa case study about IDES
Idea #14:
Presenter: The sponsoring company provides 2
presenters: An Expert and a Personality to add flavor Don’t
and interest. overlook
showmanship
Source: https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31672
#SherpaWebinar
46. 2 Mid-webinar
Engaging + information speakers
Idea #14:
Or in our case… Don’t
overlook
showmanship
Subject Matter Expert Personality/Moderator
Todd Dan
#SherpaWebinar
47. 2 Mid-webinar
Manage the event in real time
Have staff on hand to conduct Q&A through your platform since
you won’t likely have the time to address every question on the
call. Assign staff members to answer attendee questions and
monitor tweets.
Give the staff answers to common problems: Idea #15:
• I can't get in Have a
• I can't register support
• I don't know what the telephone number is team
Encourage the audience members to have a conversation with
each other by using a Twitter hashtag, like #SherpaWebinar.
#SherpaWebinar
48. Before, during, after: a webinar on making good
webinars
1 Pre—developing content and orchestrating pre-event
promotions
2 Mid– managing the event in real time, and engaging your
audience
3 Post-webinar – processing feedback and reusing content
49. 3 Post-webinar
Share the slides
Idea #16: Easiest
way to share slides
is on SlideShare
You can download these slides from
http://www.slideshare.net/marketingexperiments
#SherpaWebinar
50. 3 Post-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study – IDES
Exit Polls: Audience members are automatically directed to a short exit poll
with 2 questions:
• Would you like to receive email alerts for upcoming webinars?
• What topics would you like to see in the future?
On-Demand Video Recording: Recordings are produced and posted. Then
they are embedded onto a page on website optimized for search engines and
available for people to view (and share) anytime from the comfort of their
office.
Idea #17:
Have a
follow up
campaign
#SherpaWebinar
51. 3 Post-webinar
Follow-Up After the Webinar
Email Follow-Up
• Specific emails are sent to attendees and non-attendees providing them
with a link to view the webinar video and download presentation slides.
• These are sent approximately 3 hours after the event, once the on-
demand video recording is available from our website.
• On-Demand Webinars are promoted in future email newsletters. Past
newsletter links are changed – rather than linking to the defunct
registration form, they link to the recorded webinar page.
Idea #17:
Have a
follow up
campaign
#SherpaWebinar
52. 3 Post-webinar
Archive and Persistent Lead Generation
Landing Page: from the on-demand webinar
page, people can click a link to a landing page
where visitors can complete a short form to
download the slides. The form on the landing
page is CRM cookie-based for contact information
– most visitors just see the questions which
include inviting them to join the webinar email
alert list. If a visitor is new, additional contact
data is collected one step prior to the form with
questions.
Than You Page: The customized landing page
links to a downloadable PDF copy of webinar
slides.
Idea #17:
Have a
follow up
campaign
#SherpaWebinar
53. 3 Post-webinar
MarketingSherpa Case Study—IDES: results
55% lead capture rate from visitors who view an archived
presentation
Source: https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31672
Idea #17:
Have a
follow up
campaign
#SherpaWebinar
54. 3 Post-webinar
Reward attendees…while continuing to nurture
and repurpose
Idea #18:
Attendee
thank you
gift
#SherpaWebinar
55. Leverage the second-largest search engine
Idea #19:
Upload
replay to
YouTube
Source: http://www.youtube.com/marketingsherpa
#SherpaWebinar
56. 3 Post-webinar
Repurpose webinar information
• Blog Posts
• Photos
• Podcasts
• Videos
• Presentations
• eBooks Idea #20:
Anywhere you
• News Releases have content,
you can
repurpose
#SherpaWebinar
57. Now that you have all this value in your webinars…
Idea #21:
Communicate
hidden value
Source: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/about-web-clinics.html
#SherpaWebinar
58. Now that you have all this value in your webinars…
Idea #21:
Communicate
hidden value
Source: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/about-web-clinics.html
#SherpaWebinar
