Webinars and virtual events are increasingly the way that businesses in the B2B software and tech sector are engaging with prospects, generating leads and converting them to paying customers. With the growth of remote work as the result of COVID-19, combined with the ongoing digital transformation of business, holding webinars and virtual events is the best approach to communicating the value proposition of a business, educating its audience as to the product or service they provide, and displaying expertise in their category.
We’ll explore here why webinars and virtual events are so important to B2B software and tech marketing, as well as how to get the most out of them.
Webinars and virtual events are cornerstone components to B2B software and tech marketing strategies – they allow companies to connect with a very targeted audience and effectively deliver important, valuable content – decoding the confusingly jargonous gobbledygook that accompany software and tech methodologies – to them. These virtual events also give businesses the ability to scale their audience significantly more, with the virtual part allowing them to traverse geographical boundaries, and they can provide a much more combined, engaging and interactive experience.
This blog post aims to provide B2B software and tech marketers with useful strategies that will help them get the most out of their webinars and virtual events. After reading this blog post tech and software businesses will have learned how to better make a name for themselves, score leads and nurture relationships that get more hot and heavy over time — all of which leads to more customers. It is extremely important for software and any tech companies to make a go for webinars and virtual events as part of the marketing mix, but they don’t run cheap. A successful program should arm companies with the know-how to get audiences to come in droves. Once these audiences have been captured, companies should have the ability to put on a show that they won’t soon forget. This would involve interactions, giveaways, top-tier content, etc… and most importantly, calls-to-action.
Pre-Event Strategies
The topic of your webinar is vital in attracting the right crowd; make sure your topic addresses the problems or provides the insights directly related to what your target market is interested in.
Once you’ve selected your topic, it’s important to keep your ideal customer in mind while creating all of the webinar content and marketing efforts; who are they and what challenges are unique to that crowd and how can you help them face those problems head on? What peaks their interests?
Promoting your event via social and email is key to filling your virtual seats (yes, you have them). Start to create buzz around the event by spreading the world via all social platforms your team uses regularly. Also, email your company’s lists to let them know the good news (i.e. “the event’s free”; this should get a reaction on all fronts).
Content for the event should be boundary-pushing; nothing ho-hum. The stakes start to go through the roof for those coming in droves. Incorporate every feature available; let the people take control, let them win something, let them hear it, see it — never forget that oftentimes, nothing trumps a good story.
Preparing to Host the Virtual Event
- As you prepare to host a virtual event, consider the expertise of your presenters and speakers. You need speakers who are knowledgeable and experienced in your industry, but choosing the right speakers offers a real opportunity to add to the overall credibility and value of your webinar or virtual event. Look for subject matter experts who can share timely insights and connect with your audience in a meaningful way.
- Another key consideration is the platform. Choose a reliable virtual event platform with robust features that is also flexible and can be set up quickly, to meet the needs of both your audience and your internal team. You may also want to partner with an event production organization that can help you produce a professional online event.
- Tapping your internal resources is a great way to share the workload of hosting a virtual event. Leverage your marketing automation system to promote your virtual event and track audience engagement so you can score leads during the event in real time.
- Your webinar or virtual event will require a reliable internet connection. Make sure your internet service is robust enough to support a sustained video stream. It should be able to handle the bandwidth of all presenters’ video streams as well as interactions such as polling, Q&A and chat.
- It’s important for all elements of your virtual event to work together. Test your webcam, microphone and screen sharing capabilities. Run a full run-through of your presentation to check slide transitions, video playback and interactive features. Finally, develop a back-up plan in case anything goes wrong.
Staffing the Virtual Event
If you’ve followed best practices to promote your virtual event, you should have a healthy audience. Be prepared to support them! Staff your event with resources who can handle the different needs of your audience, from live-chatting questions during Q&A, to troubleshooting bandwidth issues with your viewers.
Technical expertise should be at the ready to assist with any issues that may arise. Educate support team members on the basics of your chosen virtual event platform and make sure they understand where to get help or escalate an issue.
Finally, a backup phone is always a critical item as well. With live events, you will often see presenters using 400,000 different devices to access a live event. I’ve seen them use mobile hotspots to get a connection, for example, but then walk right into a room with no cell service – through no fault of the platform. Acquiring a backup device can really be a lifesaver.
Technical Considerations
- Select the best platform for your webinar or virtual event. Does it scale for big crowds? Is it user-friendly? Does it offer different interactive options such as polling, asking a question, or chat? Does it include the ability to track the attendees not only when they log in but throughout the live event? Can you create analytics from this data? And of course, does it play nice with your marketing automation and CRM platforms?
- No doubt that internet connection will be vitally important. A cloud-based service, for example, is very dependent on the upstream bandwidth (the weakest link). It’s necessary to have bandwidth to support the video stream. But it’s also needed for the presenters to do things like practice, create polls, or discuss questions. You don’t want them competing with viewers for precious bandwidth!
- The rule of thumb in all of tech is that you check everything first. All of the key presenters as well as your events team should check webcams, microphones, and software compatibility first. This gives everyone time to address a possible problem – on your computer, their computer, or the network – well before it starts. The final presentation should also be checked. If appropriate, the webinar platform should have all of the features required tested. This would include slide transitions, video playback and interactive features
- Setting up and hosting a live event can be complex and detailed. The key is to check everything and plan everything over and over. In a live environment – in a studio or at a virtual event – you generally don’t get a second chance. Webinars are easier to repeat, but in many ways harder to get right the first time. Large virtual events can be especially challenging because of the number of elements. It’s easy to focus on the heavy lift of a live system. But those two days include any amount of work before, including to be fought through, programmed, rehearsed and then rehearsed again. A presentation can be shifted into cloud or downloaded, but the likelihood is that a virtual event runs online so you can anticipate being on the call and live with the rest of the entire learning curve. A run-through of the entire event from the open to the close, even including any marketing messages/exhibits, but the truth is that you have to do this many times with every single part of the event because of both the multiple transitions and because the service provider is likely speaking through a different platform. You also need to allow time in any plan for problems such as internet, on-demand recordings, turning a recorded event into an on-demand event, or just “in real time”, because every service or even private connection is not the same.
- It’s important for all elements of your virtual event to work together. Test your webcam, microphone and screen sharing capabilities. Run a full run-through of your presentation to check slide transitions, video playback and interactive features. Finally, develop a back-up plan in case anything goes wrong.
During the Event
- Keep attendees interested and active throughout your event as you would any other virtual or in-person conversation. Utilize features like polls, quizzes and live chat to foster participation and further engagement.
- Host Q&A sessions and post polls to keep the conversation going. Address attendees’ needs directly and use real-time insights for better audience engagement. Use the opportunity to directly engage attendees by opening up the floor for them to ask the panel questions and encouraging all attendees to interact with one another in a live chat.
- In order to establish thought leadership and trust with your audience, it’s crucial to surface content that is valuable and resonates with them. An event is not the time for a sales pitch — focus on providing your audience with actionable insights, case studies and industry trends that they can apply to their business.
- The sales process isn’t over when your event ends — in fact this is where it might just pick up. Avoid making your content too salesy — no one wants to feel like they’re being sold to — but, be strategic if and when the opportunity arises. Your event attendees are serious about the challenges you’re discussing, so use it to your advantage and show rather than tell how your offering fits the bill.
Post Event Strategies
- Following up with attendees is essential for nurturing those leads into future customers. Send personalized thank you messages to everyone who attended. Ensure that they have access to any post-event resources you might offer. And, provide opportunities for further engagement, like a recorded demonstration for a product or invite them to a trial of a service.
- Measuring the success of your webinar or virtual event is dependent on the metrics and insights that you use. Registration rates, attendee engagement, audience feedback, and conversion metrics provide insights into how effective you have been in engaging your audience and meeting your goals.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the webinar or virtual event. What was the feedback from attendees, speakers, and stakeholders? Was the webinar or virtual event good for the overall business?
- Use insights to optimize future event strategies. Your last event’s insights about your content, your promotional strategies, and the overall event experience can help you optimize your post-event marketing to continuously improve the value of the B2B event for the audience and for your business.
B2B SEO for Success
B2B SEO plays an enormous role in increasing the reach and visibility of your webinars and virtual events. After all, you want your landing page optimized for organic search, you want the event title and description to come up in search results, as well as other important elements.
One important component helping with B2B SEO is optimizing your event’s landing page. You should strategically include targeted keywords throughout the page that your audience is likely searching for when trying to find similar events, or information surrounding your event and your industry. By building on these keywords, search engines such as Google are able to better understand the relevance and value of your event, which will allow your event’s landing page to rise in search rankings.
An additional way to increase your event’s visibility in search is by optimizing the event title and description with these keywords as well. In addition to using these keyword-rich descriptions to explain the overall value of your event and why the content is relevant, you also increase the chances of search engines picking these up as effective search results for the user. When done correctly, users are able to easily read what your event is about and the value they will take away when they click onto the link.
Another efficient B2B SEO strategy is to get backlinks. By getting other credible websites, such as industry influencers and other reputable companies, to link back to your event’s landing page, you can increase your event’s competitiveness in search rankings. You can find ways to do this in a number of ways, including identifying influencers and other industry companies, working with complementary businesses or other associations, or submitting to directories. Since search engines see backlinks from other authoritative platforms as a clear signal, these will only help in driving traffic directly back to your event by getting in front of interested individuals.
Lastly, use social media promotion to increase the discoverability of your event and ensure high attendance. Craft engaging posts about your event to share across your social media platforms and use relevant keywords, hashtags, and compelling imagery to increase the reach and impact of your posts. Encourage your audience to share your event with their own networks to further extend the reach and increase attendance.
By adding these B2B SEO techniques and working with a professional B2B SEO agency like Nine Peaks, you can be sure that your webinars and virtual events won’t fall victim to low discoverability, because your prospects will know where to find them and will be excited to attend.
Conclusion
Webinars and virtual events have become critical components of B2B software and tech marketing strategies. By implementing the pre-event, technical, during-event and post-event strategies in this blog post, you will maximize the impact that your virtual events can have. But remember, focus on delivering value and your audience, along with the relationships you are nurturing, and the results will come with time. Combining webinars and virtual events with a comprehensive and strategic approach, B2B businesses will effectively utilize webinars and virtual events to build brand awareness, generate leads and drive conversions in an immensely competitive B2B software and tech market. Contact Red Beach Advisors for guidance in your product and tech marketing