5 Best On-Demand Webinar Software Platforms (In-Depth Comparison)
Todd Parmley
If you operate in the B2B business sector, there are two things to think about. The first is fairly obvious: you are working in a fiercely competitive sector. The second is that, unless you run a very localized business, your customers could come from literally anywhere.
When your customers are geographically scattered, you'll need to put in extra effort to reach them. A B2B webinar is a great tool to engage and inform your global customers as well as an opportunity to market your products and generate leads with webinar content.
What is a B2B webinar?
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Most people know what a webinar is but how can it be utilized within the B2B sector?
Webinars can be a very useful part of your marketing strategy in a number of ways. As well as explaining products and services to their audience, the host can generate new leads by answering questions posed by participants regarding particular aspects of the product.
They also serve as a great form of content marketing that widens the reach of your business and raises awareness of the products and services you offer. The sections below will guide you through creating your webinar strategy and promoting the event to attendees.
B2B webinar strategy
If you are going to host webinars regularly, then you need a strategy that informs how you organize and host them. How long your webinars are depends on what you're trying to achieve but feel free to check out our guide on webinar lengths.
Source: ON24
You could have a brief 20-minute webinar that could present your new call center management software, or you could have one that is an hour in length and includes Q&A sessions.
Of course, while you want your webinars to be informative about your products and services, the ultimate goal is to generate new leads or even to capture conversions with a good sales pitch.
With careful planning, your strategy can be a general one that you can customize as needed. Specifically, there's a concrete checklist that you need to complete to get the most out of your webinars.
Generally, you should have a roadmap that contains the following elements:
- The goals or objectives of each webinar.
- Who the target audience is (and what problem they're facing).
- Whether it will be a live webinar or an on-demand webinar.
- The content type and presentation format.
- Whether or not you'll have guest speakers.
- How you will market and promote your webinars.
- Calls to action that generate leads or sales.
- Post-webinar follow-up email sequences.
Promoting B2B webinars
It’s all very well knowing how to create an engaging B2B webinar to help your B2B marketing, but you need an audience to make a successful webinar campaign that generates leads. How do you ensure that you have that audience and you can grow it?
There are several marketing channels and tactics you can employ.
- Existing customers: This can be the foundation of your audience. They may already be customers, but they will want information as well as introductions to new products and services. Your webinar invitations can also include people who have subscribed to your email marketing list but have yet to make a purchase.
- Social media: When you have your target audience identified, look at where you can connect with them to promote your webinars. Look for industry-related groups on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook and market your webinars there to potential attendees.
- Website plugs: Of course, you will want to promote your webinars on your own site. It may even be an idea to have a dedicated section that allows people to see a calendar of upcoming webinars or even access historical ones.
- Paid advertising: Depending on the size of the audience you want to generate, you may want to consider paid ads on social media or similar. It's worth noting that you should always optimize your conversions before risking your money on paid advertising.
- Monetization: Are your webinars free, or do they include a webinar registration fee? If there is a cost, consider advertising early bird offer discounts to regular attendees or incentives for the first few people to arrive at the presentation.
8 B2B webinar tips and best practices
Now that you know what B2B webinars are and how to promote them, let's move on to some best practices!
Source: Enterprise Apps Today
1. Know your audience
Who your B2B audience is will depend on the type of business you operate. You want to identify your demographic target audience whose needs you can fulfill.
Knowing your audience and their needs is going to dictate many aspects of your webinar, from format to content.
If you have an existing audience, listen to them. Carry out regular surveys as to what they would like to see included in your webinars.
2. Cover relevant topics
Your webinar topics should always be relevant to both your business and your audience. You want to show them compelling content that is in some way connected to the products or services you offer.
When investing in anything, a client will want as much information as possible and may also want to ask specific questions. So, your topics should be ones that webinar attendees can take something away from and will help you generate leads.
3. Set clear goals
Source: Marketing Charts
You could view your webinars as important steps in the customer journey, so clearly define your own objectives for each webinar. Working closely with your sales and marketing team not only identifies potential audience members but can also identify your goals.
You may want to raise awareness with educational webinars, move potential buyers further down your sales pipeline with product demonstrations, or start closing actual deals. Know what step in the customer journey your webinar fits into.
4. Make it interactive
With most of your webinars, you want to include a degree of interaction and audience participation. Some of your content may be confusing, and people will want to ask questions to gain more information.
For example, you could host a B2B webinar on the subject of contact center vs call center, and your audience will want to know exactly how each term is defined.
By facilitating a Q&A session as part of the webinar format, you are helping move those people further down your sales funnel.
Read our full guide on How to Make a Webinar Interactive!
5. Call to action
Most people aren't hosting webinars for purely altruistic reasons. You want CTAs that generate new leads, warm existing ones, and, ultimately, close sales. To achieve this, you need a clear process for the end of your webinar or after it’s finished.
Some of your audience may be first-timers, while others may be regular audience members, so you may want to consider some form of audience segmentation. Your calls to action can take various forms.
You could use a tool like an email autoresponder to thank attendees for participating and ask them if they have further questions. You might even personalize the call to action by having one of your sales and marketing team call the customer the day after the webinar.
Or why not have the call to action at the end of the webinar by inviting attendees to contact your sales team?
To learn more, read our full guide on How to Craft High-Converting Webinar CTAs!
6. Repeat and improve
You’re unlikely to get things perfect the first time, especially if you’re hosting different formats of webinars. Post-webinar, you should constantly be improving on the last webinar by asking attendees what they liked/disliked about the presentation they attended.
Better webinars mean a better audience experience, which means better leads and sales. Look closely at what didn’t work and how you can change things for your next B2B webinar based on audience feedback.
7. Optimize scheduling
Hosting successful webinars on a regular basis can help build your audience (and thus generate more qualified leads). Finding the best time to host a webinar is impossible since there will always be leads in other tie zones that you aren't able to reach.
Thus, the only viable approach is to automate your webinar and have it running 24/7.
Our platform, eWebinar, lets you choose from three scheduling options:
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On-demand webinars. On-demand webinars let attendees join right after filling out the registration form. You can set up "just-in-time" sessions for automated webinars that schedule themselves to start a few minutes after a visitor lands on your page.
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Recurring webinars. Having webinars on a recurring schedule will help you capture leads who aren't ready to watch your presentation right that moment. eWebinar has a dynamic time zone feature that adjusts the schedule based on the attendee's location.
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Webinar replays. Webinar replays — which have all the live chat capabilities and interactions of our automated webinars — let attendees pause, play, or skip around in your presentation as if they were watching a YouTube video.
You can even enable all three options simultaneously to increase attendance rates further.
8. Choose the right platform
Before you choose a webinar platform, have a meeting with marketing staff to determine needs over the coming year. You can then choose a webinar solution that meets those needs and is also easily accessible to your audience.
You also need to think about the tools you will use, both in terms of during the webinar itself and in terms of assessing the webinar and how well it worked. Post-webinar tools include things like engagement analytics and email sequences.
See our full list of the Best Webinar Platforms of 2023 to find the right fit for your needs!
Conclusion
A B2B webinar is a great way to raise brand awareness while generating new leads (or nurturing existing ones. If you are new to hosting webinars, it can be a steep learning curve. Defining your goals, knowing your audience, and driving signups are all important.
Constantly striving to improve the presentation quality, attendance rates, and conversion rates will put you on a journey towards driving tons of sales on autopilot. If you'd like to experience the power of on-demand webinars firsthand then watch our demo below!
It’s so easy to get started.
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