How to do Lead Generation with a Webinar (and turn leads into customers)

The webinar in the context of a lead generation strategy

The acquisition of contact in exchange for information content (called Lead Magnet) is a typical (though often abused or misinterpreted) strategy in the context of the acquisition of cold" leadsi.e. far from becoming a customer, at an early stage of the funnel of sale.

In this context the lead magnet often takes the form of ebooks or whitepapers, sometimes videos or even, in the case of productive activities (such as software or professionals) a trial version of their products or services.

The Lead Magnet therefore takes on the function of a "bargaining chip" in exchange for the user's contact details, but not only: What we give in return is first and foremost content that says something about our brand, our product or service. Warning: "says" in the sense that it communicates something to the potential customer..

The point is: what should you communicate to your potential customer at an early stage of their buying process? In a phase in which you are about to start a relationship (albeit virtual) where you will communicate something about your brand, product or service (often via email and in an automated way, since typically the acquisition of the lead in this context is followed by a workflow of Email Marketing Automation)?

It could be information, especially if your potential customer at this stage of the buying process needs more information. Or, if you're a professional, next to information, you may have to convey confidence. Confidence conveyed how? By "showing off" your skills and putting your face to it.

The use of webinars as a strategy for Lead Generation fits right into this context: a webinar is in fact a tool with a number of advantages for lead generation. Let's see them together.

4 Benefits of Webinars for Lead Generation

Webinar:

  • acts as a "Lead Magnet", an informational content for lead acquisition;
  • conveys information with an advantage: the speaker puts his face to it, conveying trust, competence and credibility;
  • can accompany the potential customer along all the stages of the funnel sales, from a phase of initial awareness of the problem that is solved with the product or service that is the subject of the webinar and with the communications (nurturing) that follow;
  • Although it is used extensively in B2B, it is also useful in B2C (in my site you can find 2 case studies one in B2C and one in B2B).

One On24's 2019 study confirms how webinars are a tool for acquiring more leads, as well as spreading the brand, scaling your marketing efforts, looking more professional and reaching your target audience.

lead generation webinar benefits

A to W of Webinars: What you need

Once we've clarified what the webinar is for within a lead generation strategy and 4 reasons to prefer it to other (ab)often used forms of Lead Magnet, let's take a look at the toolbox to understand what tools we need to acquire leads with a webinar.

You're gonna need it:

  • defining the topic and target audience of the webinar; choosing traffic sources to drive to the webinar registration page;
  • a landing page (landing page) to collect registrations a possible tool to hold the webinar (if live) or a recorded video (if "evergreen");
  • Setting up an automation and related email marketing workflow to communicate with the registrant after the webinar;
  • Some KPIs to understand webinar performance.

Let's look at these points one by one.

Define webinar topic and target audience

The first step in implementing a strategy that uses webinars for lead generation is to define the topic of the webinar and its target audience o Buyer Person.

This last aspect in particular is fundamental, not only in this particular context but more generally in a web marketing strategy, as the need to reach a specific potential customer profile will determine the choices you will make in the following steps.

Example? For 2 clients for whom I used the webinar as a lead generation strategy I had 2 completely different targets: on one hand parents of children in a certain age group, on the other hand HR managers of companies above 50 employees and in certain industries.

Completely different targets imply different communication methods, both in the advertising and in the Landing Page, and different traffic sources: let's talk about traffic sources.

Traffic Sources

If you want people to sign up for a webinar, you need to:

  • know who might be interested and know what to say to them (as we saw in the previous paragraph);
  • know how to reach these people online;
  • get them to click on your ad and get them to the registration page.

Let's talk about the second aspect: what are the traffic sources, i.e. the online tools that can allow us to direct potentially interested visitors to the webinar registration page?

Think about it: this is in the context of latent question. What does that mean? It means that I don't wake up in the morning and the first thing I think is: damn, I'd really like to attend a good webinar! Joking aside, I hope you got the point: signing up for a webinar doesn't fall under conscious needs, so the tools to convince our potential future subscriber can only be the tools to intercept latent demand, such as: Google ADS (Display Network), Facebook Advertising, LinkedIn ADS.

This doesn't mean that, in case of recorded videos (the so-called "evergreen" webinars, which you can subscribe to every hour) you can't also use the blog, so the organic traffic (SEO), as is the case with other types of informational lead magnets, such as ebooks, white papers, videos.

The following were used in the case studies cited Facebook Advertising e LinkedIn Ads, precisely because, given the differences in target audience, they are respectively adapted to the target to be reached.

You'll also see that it's always a good idea to test, time and budget permitting, different sources of traffic, to evaluate the KPIs we'll see in a moment, such as number of signups, cost per signup and more.

Landing Page

I've seen all kinds: from the Eventbrite home screen, to the GotoWebinar home screen, but in general I suggest you make your own, creating your own landing page, with tools like a Page Builder from WordPress such as Elementor o software such as Unbounce.

In fact, many third-party sites do not allow complete autonomy in tracking and entering codes to remarketing / retargetingor simply do not allow you to create a Landing Page That it's optimized the way you want it to be for webinar registration.

In general I can tell you that the copy, graphics and UX criteria remain what is considered standard in the industry, so make sure you have:

  • a headline that engages the visitor with the benefits of watching the webinar;
  • a subtitle that explicates the headline, adding information such as date, time, how to enroll; content and benefits, to bulleted lists;
  • an easy form to fill out;
  • an effective call to action;
  • a bio of the speaker;
  • any Trust elements, such as important clients or other.

Here is an example taken from Unbounce:

Landing Page for webinar lead generation

Email Marketing Automation

I watched the webinar. I liked you: I realized I have a problem, you suggested how to solve it, you seemed knowledgeable. Now what? Bye, I go back to my life and in a couple of days I will have forgotten about you.

Sad but TrueWe have convinced our potential customer to give us his time, his attention and his contact. Now we have to figure out how to convert that contact into a customer. How? Basically you have 2 ways:

  • Put him on an automated emailing path, communicating with him while waiting for him to be ready to convert;
  • try to contact him afterwards.

So on the one hand you can implement an email marketing automation path aimed at communicating in an automated way with the person who has previously signed up for your webinar, on the other hand a couple of ideas to try to make that lead into something more, such as an appointment.

KPI

How did the webinar go? How much did you spend on advertising? How many subscribers did you get? Of what quality? How many of those (in the time you consider fair) became customers?

These are just a few of the metrics you need to evaluate to understand the performance of your webinar. To summarize webinars:

  • can act as a Lead Magnet aimed at acquiring contacts of potential customers;
  • have the advantage of conveying, in addition to information, trust, credibility and competence of the speaker;
  • can be used in both B2B and B2C environments;
  • need to: define target and topic, traffic sources, a landing page optimized for sign up, an email marketing automation workflow and performance indicators (KPIs).

Want to create a lead generation strategy with Webinars?

Discover the video course Advanced Lead Generation o contact me for a consultation.

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