Buyers’ Online Event Fatigue

Buyers’ Online Event Fatigue

By: Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect

In 2020, companies and businesses turned to online events as an alternative to in-person events due to COVID-19. With those who previously held face-to-face events, 4 in 5 or 78% of people converted to online. Although online events were successful, people are starting to feel burnt out from them.

According to Activate Marketing Services in partnership with MarketingCharts, 9 in 10 or 90% of Demand Gen marketers agree that buyers are becoming fatigued with online events.

We all had to pivot last year to replace in-person events (tradeshows, association and industry meetings) … and most of us tried to fill the gap by replacing them with some sort of online/virtual event. With buyers becoming fatigued, and that will only be growing, companies are starting to redirect their focus. Instead, high-quality lead programs have risen up the ranks when respondents were asked to choose their top 3 options. That being said, companies are starting to focus more on content and engagement with their audience.

This doesn’t mean virtual events are going away anytime soon. Although I don’t know about you, but most of the online events I attended were pretty much busts.

What does your company have planned for the remainder of the year? Any in-person events? I know I’m scheduled to attend at least half a dozen trade shows between now and the end of the year and I can’t wait to continue to see people “live” and in person!

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Making the Most of Your Upcoming Webinar

by Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect

As more companies are utilizing webinars as part of their overall marketing strategy, there are some critical steps to help maximize success. ON24 has some great resources on their website, including their step-by-step webinar best practices guide.

Here are some key highlights from their five steps

1) Planning and Strategy: This includes setting your goals and identifying your audience, developing your team and creating killer content.

2) Driving Registration: It’s important to plan ahead. Email is essential. While other marketing tools help widen your reach, 80% of webinar registration is generated by email promotions. Don’t forget to simplify the registration form. Only ask for the basics and don’t scare registrants off by asking for too many details.

3) Before Your Webinar: Design a presentation that resonates. Keep slides clean with no more than three bullet points per slide. Make sure your team is equipped with the appropriate audio and video technology.

4) During Your Webinar: Your presenter should be well-rehearsed, energetic and engaging. Also, invite your audience to get involved by using polls and surveys and take advantage of feedback during a Q&A.

5) After Your Webinar: Having the right “on-demand” strategy will ensure your webinar lives on. But, also make sure you follow up with the attendees and have an effective post-webinar strategy in place.

There are a lot of moving parts that go into putting together a great webinar. It takes planning, people and technology, all working together to create the perfect event. What are some of your webinar best practices?

Want more content on the topic of webinars? Visit these blog posts.

Marketing Minute: Preparing for a 2021 Without In-Person Events

10 Tips to Ensure a Successful Webinar Targeted at the Professional Tradesmen

Webinars are an Option for Continued Learning

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Marketing Minute: Preparing for a 2021 Without In-Person Events

While we wait for the return of trade shows and other in-person events, join Matt Sonnhalter for a Marketing Minute to learn about some of the ways your company can utilize the latest digital technology to effectively reach your customers, distributors and employees in 2021. He outlines three tactics to consider–social media, virtual training and webinars–and offers some tips for success when using virtual platforms.

 

To view other videos from Sonnhalter, visit our YouTube channel here and let us know if there’s a B2T marketing topic you’d like us to cover.

 

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Webinars are an Option for Continued Learning

WebinarxBy Sandy Bucher, Media Engineer

If you’re interested in learning about a particular topic related to your profession, many publications, groups and associations offer webinars, or webcasts, for free or for a minimal charge, or they are included in association membership fees. Some may also be eligible for CEU credits.

Webinars are usually one hour or less in length and can be accessed with a computer or mobile device. Most webinars are presented live on a particular date. If you are unable to attend the webinar on the date it is scheduled, most webinars are housed for a period of time after the event and are available on demand, where you can watch it at your leisure. All webinars require the attendee to register with name and contact information, and a few questions related to the topic of the webinar may be asked as well.

The topics vary greatly, and depending on your interest, there are numerous sources for webinars and webcasts. You can easily do an internet search for a topic, or if there is a particular publication that you read every month, check out their website for any webinars that you would be interested in attending. You may even be able to get on a list to be notified of upcoming webinars. Or, if you belong to an association, watch for announcements of future webinars in any newsletters.

Following are some links to webinars that may be of interest to you for the plumbing, HVAC, electrical, industrial MRO and construction markets:

PLUMBING
Plumbing & Mechanical

HVAC
Contracting Business

ELECTRICAL
EC&M

INDUSTRIAL MRO
Plant Engineering
Plant Services

CONSTRUCTION
Associated Builders & Contractors

So if you have some downtime and want to increase your knowledge in the area of your profession, try attending a webinar presentation.

And if you are interested in presenting your own webinar, here are some posts you may be interested in:

Why Webinars Are a Good Marketing Tool To Reach Tradesmen

Tips for Putting on a Successful B-to-B Webinar

Webinars: Tips on How to Promote Using Email

10 Tips to Ensure a Successful Webinar Targeted at the Professional Tradesmen

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Tips for Putting on a Successful B-to-B Webinar

We have found that webinars are a very useful method of communicating, not only with customers, but with prospects as well. They are not hard to do and there are several services out there (we use Go To Webinar) that can help you put them on. The key is being organized and keeping the subject matter focused.

Here are some tips that might help:

  • Make sure the topic is relevant. Not to you, but to your audience. If your topic isn’t important and timely to your audience, it’s going to be difficult to engage them.
  • Show that you have a solution. In other words, answer the question of what’s in it for me from the partipant’s view. This can be done with pre-webinar promotions and it could be as simple as the webinar title.
  • Keep the topic focused and precise. Make sure your presentation is meaningful, and from a time element, it should be no longer than 30-40 minutes.
  • Engage them during the webinar. Ask questions, take surveys, keep them involved.
  • Give them a way to ask questions. If you have a big audience, it’s probably wise to limit questions to e-mail questions. If the group is smaller than 10, I have found that opening up the microphone for actual questions works better.
  • Follow up after the session. Thank them for participating. Ask them to rate your performance. Ask them if they have any specific issues/questions they’d like to talk about and give them a way to contact you. People who come and invest an hour of their time on a subject that they are interested in is obviously a qualified prospect. Keep the conversation going.

If you like this post, you may want to read:

Webinars-Tips on How to Promote Using E-mail.

Why Webinars are a Good Marketing Tool to Reach Professional Tradesmen

Those are some of my tips. I’d like to hear what works for you.

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