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Webinar Best Practices Series: 5 Trends to Look Forward to in 2018

January 24th, 2018 Mark Bornstein

Looking for 2018’s webinar predictions? You can catch the on-demand version of the event right here. Happy webinerding. 

Hi there, folks! I hope you had a wonderful and relaxing holiday season and are getting back into the swing of things at work (I know it’s taking me some time).

Since it’s the beginning of the new year, and since we just produced a webinar on the subject, I figured it’s a worthwhile endeavor to take a quick look at what I think 2018 will have in store for webinars (hint: a lot of great developments).

But, just before we begin, a few house-keeping items. First, if you want to get the full webinar experience, head on over to our on-demand section to watch the very event this post is based on.

Second — and a bit more fun — I wanted to let you know our annual conference, Webinar World, is right around the corner! We’re hosting our second conference from March 5-7 at the Westin Saint Francis in downtown San Francisco. It’ll be here sooner than you realize, so head on over to our landing page to learn about who’ll be speaking (including yours truly) and to book your tickets. Can’t wait to see you there!

So, without further ado, here’s what’s in store for webinars in 2018:

Webinar success will be judged on lead quality

The original lead process for webinars was simple: collect as many names as possible and reach out for more. Effective, but this method is burdensome on SDRs. In 2018, marketers are going to use the engagement metrics they have to identifying better leads for sales and — hopefully — conversions. When executed with evaluation models, personas and easily accessible conversion forms, marketers can easily identify the low-hanging fruits for targeting.

Emerging marketing technologies will enhance webinar success

There are a lot of MarTech solutions out there and few ways to get them to talk to one another. In fact, a lot of marketers think of MarTech as independent spheres; They’re kinda related, but don’t always work with each other in mind. Webinars change that equation. Webinars can unite a great deal of MarTech capabilities around the webinar. For example, marketers can use predictive analytics to drive additional attendees or inform you of which nurture stream an attendee should be guided towards while they’re actively participating in a webinar. Expect to see a boost in trying different technologies and methods to the content around webinars.

Webinars will go Netflix

One of the best things about Netflix is binging. One of the best things about webinars is enabling on-demand. There’s no reason why marketers can’t build their own binge-worthy webinar libraries. This customer-centric approach helps marketers share content with their audience on their audience’s terms. Better yet, just like Netflix, webinars and related content can easily be sorted by topic and skill level, letting viewers sit back, relax and enjoy the webinars they want to consume in one sitting without the need to constantly search for relevant broadcasts. Think “webinars and binge” in 2018.

Demo webinars will replace static demos

The experience we deliver at the bottom of the funnel needs to change. Canned, static demos where viewers sit passively will no longer be enough to get people over the finish line. Instead, static demos will be phased out in favor of dynamic webinars where broadcasters can show their product off. In fact, they can demonstrate how customers use it, respond to questions in real-time and show how their product responds to customer cases on the fly. It’s time for demos that show, don’t tell.

Webinars will drive ABM success

Everyone does ABM, but not everyone does it well. Often, ABM goes off the rails towards the end of the process, where campaigns need to deliver actual engagement. Landing pages don’t deliver like they used to, but webinars — oh boy. I think 2018 will be the year of account-specific webinars, where easy-to-scale and easy-to-adapt presentations are used in a highly-interactive and highly-targeted method for driving prospects to specific locations. It’s a great way to bring together the prospects and the content they’re interested in one place.

Now, of course, these are only predictions. We’re going to have to wait a whole year to see what’s right and what’s a little off-base. If you have any predictions, sound-out in the comments below or tweet at us at @ON24 on Twitter.

Don’t forget to tune into our next webinar, An SMB Marketer’s Confession: Why I Blew My Budget On Webinars (And How I’m Still Employed).