Heinz Marketing On: The Road to Webinar World 2019

This post was originally published on heinzmarketing.com. Syndicated with permission.

So much of what constitutes sales and marketing today is noise, and while noise may keep prospects busy sifting between what’s important and what’s not, it doesn’t do much to tip the marketing scales in your favor. Noise doesn’t stand out. It doesn’t get noticed. It doesn’t drive interest, engagement, urgency, or, most importantly, action.

But as we all know, creating content that resonates with one persona is hard enough. Doing so for multiple, across companies and industries? Well, that’s another story altogether. When today’s buying committee is made up of at least six people, and one in two consumers completely disregard content they deem irrelevant, what’s needed to drive meaningful, scalable engagement? How can you take into account your targets’ different roles, responsibilities, preferences, and concerns? How can you be sure what you’re sending prospects is actually valuable?

These are just a few of the questions we, as B2B sales and marketing professionals, must consider. But the answers are much harder to find. And while there may not be a silver bullet to solve all of our engagement woes, there is a tactic that can, at the very least, help to point us in the right direction — webinars.

With ON24’s Webinar World right around the corner (which you can get free tickets to using code “Heinz_VIP” at checkout!), we’ve been thinking a lot about the usage and effectiveness of webinars as a means to drive meaningful, scalable, and profitable engagement. In fact, according to ON24’s 2018 Webinar Benchmark Report, 95 percent of practitioners agree webinars represent a key part of their marketing and lead generation efforts, as well as:

• 76% reporting webinars enable them to reach more leads
• Over one-third (38%) considering webinars to be ‘critical’ to their digital communications
• Half of those surveyed consider the quality of leads generated through their webinars to be above average
• And eight in ten respondents report webinars help lower their cost-per-lead

Clearly, webinars possess a lot of value. The question now is: What are the different plays, tactics, and strategies around webinars you can utilize to uncover this value for yourself?

To help you get (and stay) on the right path to achieving webinar success, we’re excited to announce our new blog series — The Road to Webinar World 2019. Over the next eight weeks, we’ll share with you a new webinar tactic to help you do everything from planning, measuring success, and integrating a webinar program into your larger marketing strategy.

Here’s a calendar of what you can expect:

• 2/20 The Power of Panel Webinars
• 2/26 Streamlining Webinar Operations with Integrated Technologies
• 3/05 Driving Webinar Success with Your Internal Teams
• 3/12 Building an ABM Program with Webinars
• 3/19 Using Webinar Data for Research and New Content
• 3/26 Tracking Webinar Performance
• 4/02 Extending the Life of Your In-Person Conferences
• 4/09 Developing Webinars for Key Opinion Leaders (KOL)

Keep an eye on this space, the ON24 Blog, for these posts and more as we head into Webinar World 2019 and beyond.