Lead Generation Webinars: 40 FAQ’s

Lead Generation Webinars: 40 FAQ’s

White Paper

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White Paper
WEBINARS ARE CHANGING THE WAY WE DO BUSINESS
With the advent of Web 2.0 technology, traditional lead generation methods such as pay-
per-click, organic search, advertising, direct mail, trade show attendance and cold calling
are giving way to a new method of finding qualified prospects. More and more companies–
both large and small – have begun using webinars to generate qualified sales leads.

Lead generation is all about ROI, how much are you spending - and the return on that
investment. Webinars provide a low-cost, easy-to-use method that allows prospects to
step forward and tell you they are interested. These are people that have volunteered to
spend 30 - 45 minutes with your best presenter.

By hosting web events, sales and marketing professionals reach many more prospects at a
fraction of the cost of traditional events and in-person meetings. Such technology also
enables them to determine the strongest leads by tracking attendees’ interest and
participation. Sales pros can fill the sales funnel with high-quality leads and eliminate poor
prospects far earlier in the sales cycle.

Here you will find 40 of the industry’s most asked questions about webinar promotion,
content, technology and sales engagement.

PROMOTION
1. How should we promote our Webinar? A comprehensive approach to promotion is
best. This begins with identifying qualified e-mail databases that fit your target
audience. Other forms of online promotion, such as newsletters, Web sites, banner
advertising, search advertising and social media marketing, also play a role in getting
people to register for your event. If you’re already advertising online, promote your Web
events that way. Do you have a Facebook fan page? Twitter account? Include a link to
registration on your Web site, your e-mail signature and anywhere else you may reach
potential leads. Do you have a newsletter or white papers? Are you active in trade
associations? Look at your advertising calendar. If you have a budget in place for
e-mail advertising, work with a media company that has exposure in your particular
vertical market.

2. Where can we find databases of potential attendees? If you have internal
databases, it certainly makes sense to use them. You can also look externally to
promotion and content partners who might have databases of relevant prospects.
Media partners, as mentioned in the question above, typically bring databases to the
table as part of their packages.

3. How important is custom branding? What are some of the considerations that go
into implementing branding aspects in your registration piece? Branding is
important, and there are definitely opportunities for company branding and product
branding. All of the e-mail communications, microsite and other public-facing parts of
your campaign should be custom branded with logos and the appropriate color palette.

4. On the registration page, how many qualification questions are optimum? The
general rule of thumb is that it should take the registrant no more than 60 seconds to
register for an event. You don’t want to make the registration process too cumbersome;
on the other hand, you want to leverage the opportunity to learn more about the
registrant. Including anywhere from three to five profiling questions strikes this balance.

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PROMOTION (continued) White Paper

5. What is the average rate of registration? Attendance? Industry averages show you
can expect .5% to 1% of those you invite to register for an event; and 30% to 50% of
those who register to attend the live event. That means, for example, if you want 100
people at your event, you’ll need to invite at least 25,000—probably more.

6. Do most registrants respond to the first invitation they receive, or are multiple
communications necessary before someone registers? The first mailing to a
specific list usually generates the largest response. After that, you may want to repeat
the mailing at an appropriate interval, communicating again with those who have not
already registered. Generally, you’ll see additional registration from the second mailing,
although the numbers may not be as high as the first mailing. To make the most of the
second mailing, you may want to analyze the results of the first mailing, and tweak the
creative or the message if your analysis reveals that is appropriate.

7. How much time should we leave before the first invitation and the live event?
You should aim to begin promoting your event at least two weeks before the live event
day, with ongoing communications to registrants once they have signed up to remind
them and keep them engaged. You don’t want to start earlier than that because the
message will get stale. You don’t want to start much later, because you want to give
yourself adequate time to react and make changes mid-campaign.

8. How do I know if HTML or text invitations will work better? Consider a stage for
creative and message testing in your promotion plan. Real-time data collection during
the promotion stage can help you maximize registration and attendance by testing and
refining your communications, even mid-campaign, based on what works. You can test
various invitations and analyze the results. Does your audience respond better to
heavily designed pieces? To certain colors and images? Hold focus groups, if you have
the time and resources. Try stressing various benefits in the subject lines for your
promotions. And remember, as you analyze promotion effectiveness, you’ll want to look
not just at the numbers, but at the QUALITY of leads you are getting.

9. What are the best vehicles for promotion? Online promotion drives the best results,
social media marketing – followed closely by e-mail marketing – are the most effective
of all the online tools. Other forms of online promotion such as newsletters, Web sites,
banner advertising and search advertising can also play a role in getting people to
register for your event. Offline promotions, such as direct mail, telemarketing, and print
and broadcast advertising, are not effective as primary methods of promoting
registration to a Webinar. If you are already doing these for other programs it won’t
hurt. But don’t rely on them to do the heavy lifting.

CONTENT
10. What are the best times and the best days for Webinars and what is the ideal
length and proportion of content vs. question and answer sessions? Tuesdays,
Wednesdays and Thursdays are preferable. People may be overextended on Mondays
and winding down or leaving earlier than usual on Fridays. A midday range is
preferable if you are trying to reach a national audience in an industry that keeps
regular business hours. For an hour long presentation, content should be no longer
than 30–45 minutes, depending on the number of speakers. Q&A should be another
10–15 minutes. The general rule of thumb is simply to keep it succinct and compelling.


CONTENT (continued) White Paper

11. Can we use a demonstration of our product as the main Webinar content? Unless
someone is well into the buying process, they probably don’t want to sit through an
infomercial about your company. Tempting as it might be to talk about your company
and show a demonstration of your product, it’s better to use your Webinar to develop
thought leadership in your industry. The content should speak to the needs and
questions of your audience and address their biggest business problems. Compelling
content helps keep the audience engaged. Later down the line, it makes the segue into
the sales engagement easier, because you are perfectly positioned as the expert and
you’ve built a relationship by helping your prospects.

12. Does a product demonstration have any place in a lead-generation Webinar? If a
product demonstration flows naturally from the event content, offer it at the end of the
event. Let participants know the demonstration will be available after the main
presentation is finished, and be sure to conduct surveys and calls to action before the
demo.

13. If you do not advocate product infomercials, are case studies an acceptable “soft
sell” of the product? Absolutely. Case studies can be a very powerful tool, as long as
the content is relevant.

14. What are some strategies for making a scripted presentation much more
“personal” (like a consultative interaction)? The first step in making your
presentation both personal and compelling is selecting the right speaker. The ideal
speaker blends knowledge with presentation skills. He or she must be articulate in
delivering the information. A speaker who knows his or her stuff but falls flat can make
your event less effective. Some presenters are effective in person but may come
across in a monotone to a virtual audience. Ability to engage is particularly important
during a Q&A session, where a speaker will need to go off script. Hold a rehearsal
before your event in order to practice the presentation and refine presentation skills.

15. Does using a script take away from the human/personal nature of a presentation?
If the speaker is accomplished and comfortable delivering a message without a script,
then of course that’s great. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that when you’re
delivering a message to hundreds of people, a script helps to keep the presentation
moving at an appropriate pace.

16. What are your thoughts about free vs. paid Webinars? Does a small fee help
improve the conversion rate from attendee to lead, because it acts as a qualifier?
If the goal of your campaign is lead generation, you should offer free Webinars to
potential leads. By asking for money, you will turn off some potential leads. And if you
consider that closing the sale from just one lead is typically worth the cost of doing a
Webinar, then the benefit of offering Webinars for free is clear.

17. What type of format for a Webinar attracts the largest audience: a presentation by
the sponsor; an industry speaker; a panel discussion; or a program followed by a
short sponsor presentation? This choice ultimately depends on the subject matter,
but more credible content is likely to create better results. Whether it’s a CEO of a
Fortune 500 company giving the presentation, a respected industry analyst or a
publication that has a strong, respected editorial reputation, the credibility of the content
of the Webinar is key to its success.


CONTENT (continued) White Paper

18. Should we send out the presentation before the live event? Wait until after the
event to send out a copy of the presentation. This builds excitement around the live
event. It also gives you a great touchpoint in your post-event communications.

19. How to I avoid helping my competition through my Webinar content? There is no
way to guarantee your competitors won’t have access to your Webinar. Even domain
blocking—refusing registration to certain e-mails—is not a guarantee, although it can
make it harder for competitors to register. Certainly you should avoid sharing
proprietary information in a Webinar.

LIVE EVENT TECHNOLOGY
20. Can we use polling on the event? Yes. The interface you use should support polls
during the live event, as well as surveys immediately after the event. An engaged
audience is more likely to stay on the live event. Additionally, these vehicles are great
tools to collect data about your prospects’ needs and pain points.

21. How do we inform attendees if Webinars have certain technology requirements?
In post-registration confirmation and participation instruction communications, offer
registrants an easy mechanism which they can test their browser and operating system
to ensure the Webinar will work properly on their system. You can also include a short
announcement at the beginning of the live event reinforcing instructions.

22. What are the advantages and disadvantages of offering a recorded version vs. a
live version of the event? A live event creates a sense of excitement and encourages
interaction. People stay on longer, they ask questions, they’re engaged in a way that
they might not be on a pre-recorded event. The presenter can use live polls and other
interactive tools during the event, and respond to them in real time. That said, you can
certainly benefit from using on-demand (recorded) events as a complement to or
instead of a live event. They offer increased flexibility and can help you maximize ROI
from your campaign by allowing you to use a single event multiple times.

23. When evaluating Webinar implementation vendors, what characteristics should
we be looking for? It’s in your best interest to screen numerous contenders, ask
questions and discuss issues such as:
 Number of participants
 Materials to be presented
 Required services (features such as streaming audio, document sharing, etc.)
 Degree of interactivity
 Technical support needs
 Be sure to ask about your payment options too, because Web conferencing is sold
in a variety of ways:
 Hosted—Vendors “rent” or license Webinar software
 Software—Software is purchased and you become the “host”
 Full service—ConferTel is one of a handful of companies that partner with
clients not only to deliver the required technology tools, but also to work with
them to plan, promote and produce Web events.


SALES ENGAGEMENT White Paper

24. Can you define the key elements involved in successful Webinar follow-up
communication? Your follow-up plan is very important. Timing is everything.
Communicate with participants soon after the event by acknowledging their attendance
or their inability to attend. To those who attend, send an e-mail to thank them for
attending and to promote any additional events, give them more information and invite
them to download the presentation or view an archive of the event. For those who did
not attend, send a different e-mail telling them you are sorry they couldn’t attend and
encourage them to view the archive of the event. These immediate follow-ups can also
be used to fulfill special offers or other promotions. Your sales team should follow up
one-on-one with your hottest leads 24–48 hours after the event. Rank your leads and
communicate with them via phone or e-mail.

25. Can you give an example of how you would engage an attendee in a post-event
communication—beyond driving them to another activity or to your Web site? It
is always a good idea to follow up with attendees within a week of the event, and you
should contact your hottest leads within 24 hours. Consider the following:
 A thank-you e-mail
 Fulfillment—white papers or items you offered in earlier communications
 Announcements—results of drawings

26. How can you harness the post-event thank-you e-mail to build/establish a
personal relationship? The thank-you e-mail is the last opportunity to make a
personal connection before the sales engagement. To that end, it is important to
include highly relevant information, a higher level of personalization and an explicit
statement of your intentions, e.g., “We look forward to following up with you.”

27. You talk a lot about qualifying customers. How can we do this? Within a specific
Webinar campaign, you can use the data that comes from registration and from the
multiple touchpoints that lead up to the event. Some examples of this data include the
size of a registrant’s company as well as whether the registrant is a decision maker or
key influencer. Outside the campaign, you can leverage other tools such as the data
from external marketing intelligence firms, which allows us to get a much broader
picture of a specific company. You can also utilize polling questions and post-event
surveys to further qualify your prospect.

28. Does the 48-hour window to follow up after the Webinar still apply with an
on-demand Webinar vs. a live one? Yes. Often on-demand attendees reach your
event more organically than those for a live event, from your Web site or from a banner
ad; therefore, it is important to follow up, ideally within 24 hours. One of the
disadvantages of an on-demand Webinar is that generally attendees don’t stay on the
event all the way until the end. It is even more important, then, to follow up with them as
quickly as possible.

29. Do you find that Webinars are more effective for simple or complex sales?
Webinars are an effective strategy for both simple and complex sales. They are actually
ideal for complex sales, because you have multiple layers of communication at your
disposal and the time during the actual event to tell your story. Webinars are a highly
effective way to educate potential leads about the value proposition before the sales
team has an actual sales conversation.


SALES ENGAGEMENT White Paper

30. How many leads make for a successful Webinar? This is wholly dependent on the
size of your target audience and the size of your average sale. For a large company
that has made a significant investment, a minimum of 100 leads might be successful.
But for another company, that number might be smaller. If it’s the right number and the
leads move into sales, it’s a huge success.

31. How many Webinars does it take to generate significant leads? This depends on
several factors. If you already have a robust customer database, you’re farther ahead
than if you need to use your Webinars to build up a sparse database. If you have a long
sales cycle, it may take longer to be able to measure success in terms of sales.
Webinars offer the opportunity to pull information from prospects and learn more about
them as you go. You can use this information to get smarter about how you
communicate and engage with them, and that can make the process much more
efficient.

32. In order to justify the ROI, is there a minimum quantity of Webinar participants
required? Success in a lead-generation Webinar isn’t tied to quantity as much as
quality. A small number of high-quality leads that are going to lead to sales is always
better than plenty of leads that don’t match up with your target market and go nowhere.
The focus should be on drawing the right leads to your event and qualifying them in a
way that’s going to help you mine the leads to maximum effect.

33. Can we download lead information from the Webinar to CRM programs?
Reporting is a critical part of the sales engagement for a lead-generation Webinar.
Lead information should be available in a format that is easily imported and integrated
into a variety of systems to enable more efficient follow-up.

GENERAL
34. Is it feasible for a small firm to conduct a marketing/lead-generation Webinar?
Webinars are effective platforms for companies regardless of size. There are many
ways to customize Webinars to make them suit the needs and budget of your company.
In the end, you are reaching a large audience with your message, and that ultimately
drives sales.

35. How often do you recommend producing a lead-generation Webinar? This
depends on your sales objectives in terms of the volume of leads you can support and
how large your addressable market is. Typically, one event every four to six weeks is a
good target for an organization that wants to keep its sales pipeline full.

36. What is usually the ratio of registrants to attendees? Typically, the mid-30% range
of registrants actually attend the Webinar. Some Webinars see in excess of 60% of
registrants to the live event. The key is to keep registrants engaged up until the event to
increase the likelihood they will attend. You can also improve those numbers be
offering a recording of the event to those who could not attend the live event.

37. When we outsource Webinar services, will the information gathered from
attendees remain private or do they typically get added to an outside database?
This is an important consideration, and certainly one to determine with your vendor in
the planning phase. In ConferTels’ business model, all data associated with the
Webinar is owned by the client and is proprietary information.


GENERAL (continued) White Paper

38. How much time does it take to put on a successful Webinar from conception to
completion? Obviously, the planning and production time depend on many factors.
Six to eight weeks from planning through the live event is a comfortable window.

39. Which industries seem to find the most success with Webinars? The high-tech
industry adopted Webinars first and they definitely still make use of them the most.
However, we are beginning to see a shift in Webinar usage from their traditional high-
tech origins. Webinars can be highly successful for B2B companies in the
pharmaceutical, health care, financial services, even food services industries. We have
also seen them demonstrate success in consumer markets.

40. How does acceptance of Webinars vary on a global scale? Webinars are a great
global tactic. They can work well wherever there is broadband connectivity. Webinars
are a great way to address the need for pan-European marketing initiatives. Adoption
has been faster in the UK than in other areas of Europe; this is primarily because a lot
of the existing content is in English. Adoption has not been rapid in Asia.

About ConferTel
ConferTel is a leading provider of fully managed webinar services, delivering educational
programming, training and lead generation webinars for corporations, associations,
government agencies and non-profits. In addition, ConferTel is a software developer of IVR
and web-based information services and communications solutions. Providing a range of
event driven communications applications, including telephone, web and video
conferencing, on demand record/replay, voice/fax broadcast, teleseminars, webinars,
webcasting, online training, e-commerce, event management services, and other custom
IVR and web-based applications.

ConferTel’s innovative products and application development capabilities have helped
thousands of clients save costs, generate income and increase productivity. We offer a
consultative approach to assist you in developing the right solutions for your specific
application and budget.


White Paper
ConferTel’s Fully Managed
Webinar Solution for Lead
Generation
Get your sales people closing rather than cold
calling. Focusing on prospects with a declared
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What You Get:

Branded Online Registration Registration Reminders
ConferTel will handle the Each registrant receives
event registration process for reminder emails to increase
your webinar leaving you to attendance.
focus on the marketing and
content.

Phone & Web Delivery Professional Moderator
Attendees dial a toll-free You can rest assured that
number to join the your call will be handled by a
conference. Our conference courteous and professional
coordinator handles the web meeting specialist who
technology for your presenta- understands the importance
tion so you don’t have to. of your webinar.

Q&A and Polling Survey
With interactive question and In addition to Q&A and
answer sessions and Polling, attendees receive a
participant polling you can survey after the webinar
gain immediate feedback from which helps in further
your attendees. qualifying their interest.

Webinar Marketing Service:
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Lead Generation Webinars: 40 FAQ’s

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Lead Generation Webinars: 40 FAQ’s