Since discovering it, we have understood the power of webinars as a marketing tool. We believe they are a major weapon for lead generation, as well as in a lead nurturing strategy. For those who may be unfamiliar with it, the webinar is a contraction of “web + seminar”. In other words, it is the act of speaking to an audience digitally. While it has no physical dimension because everything takes place on the web, this tool nevertheless makes it possible to reach your target audience without digital, geographical, or time limits – since everything can then be viewed on replay. As a result, American companies were quick to make it a major element of their marketing services, turning it into the most popular content format for lead generation.
We chose to bring this practice to France because webinars are a tool that can gather large audiences while benefiting from genuine interaction with them, which is often more active in a webinar than at an in-person conference. Indeed, the relative anonymity that webinars provide encourages discussion and questions, since most people are affected by fear of public speaking.
Yet this interaction is key, because it drives engagement.
What is marketing engagement?
Engagement is the act of taking action in favor of the sender of the message. A company’s goal should be to encourage the prospect to take actions toward you: engage in conversation, make requests, consume content… Generating this engagement makes a fundamental difference, because these are additional proofs of your prospects’ interest in your brand and products. The objectives of these exchanges are twofold: to put yourself in a position to create a constructive dialogue between the different stakeholders, with the aim of building a lasting relationship and developing a form of loyalty toward you. To do this, you must generate action: attract a large audience and create the conditions for them to engage in order to obtain information about the genuine interest you generate.
But once the webinar tool is in place, how can you improve its effectiveness and include it in an overall strategy?
The fusion of marketing automation and webinars
That was when the marriage took place. The idea of connecting marketing automation, which automates marketing campaigns by creating workflows, with webinars, which make it possible to engage audiences, seemed like a tremendous opportunity.
Indeed, marketing automation uses webinars to rehumanize how it works. By integrating webinars into the strategy, the company can establish a connection with the prospect, who, in webinar rooms, will be able to:
- Put faces to a brand
- Interact and experience the company’s expertise
- Build a connection by speaking with the speakers
Engage by answering polls, clicking on calls to action, downloading the company’s content…etc.
Since webinar rooms are designed to generate this interaction, automation benefits from it as well (participant scoring). But webinars also come out ahead from this combination, since they find a central place in a content marketing strategy, which seems, quite obviously, to be their rightful place in our view. Moreover, combining these 2 tools will make it easier to evaluate prospects before & after webinars.
Thus, you will discover how these 2 tools, used together, allow you to shorten your sales cycles while strengthening the relationship with your future customers. You will also learn how to combine these 2 practices in your inbound marketing strategy.
