Like many sales professionals in manufacturing, travel was once a huge part of day-to-day life for Riscure’s Senior Sales Director Global Products, Bartek Gedrojc. A leader in embedded system security tools and services, Gedrojc and his team relied on in-person events and meetings to generate demand and educate customers, prospects, resellers and partners around the world.
“We are in a niche market, and it’s all about the relationships we build,” said Gedrojc. “For over twenty years, we have focused on our relationships because trust is key in our market.”
Without the opportunity to connect in person, the Riscure team knew they would need a digital approach capable of attracting new customers, partners, and resellers; educating existing ones; and keeping business relationships strong.
“We’ve really had to transform our face-to-face events which were key to our success,” said Gedrojc who discovered the ON24 platform through a partnership with another manufacturer. “It (the ON24 platform) was simple and easy to use, or as I like to call it, ‘idiot-proof.’”
The team wasted no time in embarking on what would become a successful digital transformation beginning with their Annual Riscure Workshop, designed to educate resellers, and position them to more effectively sell the company’s security tools and services in their prospective markets.
To simulate the atmosphere and feeling of the live event they broadcasted 17 webcasts, both live and pre-recorded, over the span of two days. For global resellers in various time zones, or prospects unable to attend the live event, all 17 webcasts are made available on-demand via a content library powered by ON24 Target. This makes it possible for event content to continue driving engagement long after the live date. And that’s just the icing on the cake.
To support their resellers, and conserve time and resources, the team rebrands each webcast to support sales through various distribution channels. By offering this kind of support, the team is able to build lasting partnerships and alliances with their resellers. “I believe that seeing us work so closely with our resellers builds trust with prospects, partners and customers.”
To measure the success of their direct sales initiatives, the team monitors digital event and webinar registration, attendance and engagement rates.
“It’s hard to qualify leads in our market because our sales cycles are so long,” said Gedrojc. With ON24 Webcast Elite the team is able to pinpoint each interaction and score, or qualify, attendees based on their level of engagement during the event or webinar.
With ON24 and a digital-first engagement strategy, Riscure has been able to increase the number of engaged attendees by over 2,200% (from 60 to 1400 attendees). But, according to Gedrojc, the best part of making the shift to a digital engagement strategy powered by the ON24 platform has been the ability to collect valuable data and actionable insights that help them fine-tune their outreach and education strategy, while better connecting with their global audiences.
“We can measure everything, and we are still only using 5% of the platform. We have not even begun leveraging all the features available! And that’s why we love ON24 so much.”