Webinars or webcasts are hardly a new technology, but they’re still hot in technology marketing. Content marketing as a marketing strategy has breathed new life into the whole idea of webinars and webcasts.
In a new study published by the research organization Silicon Valley Voices, webinars rank highly as a strategy for multiple phases of the content lifecycle:
[Source: Silicon Valley Voices, 2013 Marketing Trends report]
Webinars and lead generation
Webinars are great for lead generation because people are willing give you their email address in exchange for the anticipated value of the webinar. It’s up to you to make sure that the webinar delivers on that expectation.
For lead generation, you need to reach out to people who aren’t already in your internal database. To promote the webinar, be sure to:
- Write keyword-rich and relevant blog posts ahead of the webinar
- Cross-promote with partners if appropriate
- Reach out to your list with shareable links to the webinar – so people can easily share with others who might be interested
The standard practice used to be to promote webinars weeks in advance. Recently I’ve noticed that people often wait until the last minute to register. Be sure to send a reminder email a day or two ahead of time to catch procrastinators.
Webinars have longevity
A recorded webinar can continue delivering and nurturing leads for months to come if you make the most of it. Don’t let it gather dust on the Resources page of your website.
Here are a few ideas for getting more content value from your webinar.
- Create a quick summary of the webinar and offer it to everyone who registered (along with a link to the recorded webinar).
- Pull an interesting idea or two out of the webinar and create a blog post. The post should be of value on its own, but point people to the recorded webinar at the end. (Bonus: this can happen several months after the webinar, potentially reaching a new set of followers.)
- Use the webinar as the basis for a contributed article or white paper.
- Engage existing prospects by asking them to suggest future topics.
I’d love to hear about other creative ways people are getting more ‘juice’ from their webinar investment.
Anne Janzer 
My experience squares with your article, Anne. At GovDelivery in 2012 we hosted three different webinars with 500 or more registrants — in government communications offices. For one webinar, 38% of the registered attendees were not on our invitation list, indicating strong “pass along” of our invitation. And there are lots of downstream opportunities for using summaries, short video snippets, even transcripts for additional value. And all of those content assets have a long shelf life.
Wow, 38% is great. Yes, GovDelivery seems to do things right when it comes to cross-promoting content.