I have managed webinar programs in every marketing role in my career. In my most recent role, I had the opportunity to develop a stagnant webinar program into a thriving channel.
The Challenge
Webinars were not a huge priority at Motus, and for the most part the channel had grown dormant before I joined the team. Though I had grown accustomed to using an advanced platform like ON24 for webinar production, I did not have access to this tool at Motus, instead relying on simple Zoom events.
My goal was to overhaul and scale the Motus webinar program and make it more impactful on in-flight opportunities, without the resources of a complex platform.
The Tactics
Improved Visual Branding – Webinars hosted on Zoom are flat and visually unappealing, so my first step was introducing a cleaner look in line with the brand. While I couldn’t implement these improvements for live Zoom sessions, I could apply a more advanced look to the recordings in post-production using Adobe After Effects & Adobe Premiere.
2. Switching to Non-Live, On-Demand Content – In conjunction with the improved visuals, I also tested the efficacy of on-demand webinars that were pre-recorded and edited ahead of time. Initially this was done out of convenience for easier scheduling and logistics, but I quickly realized that webinar engagement rates greatly increased when releasing content this way. Removing the barrier of time zone differences, registration pages, and calendar invites, meant that audiences were more willing to jump into our content at their own pace.
3. Content Repurposing Plan – For each webinar I created a series of short 1 to 2 minute highlight clips of highly engaging sections, and created a library of short-form webinar content. This meant we could easily extend the lifecycle of a webinar beyond its initial release, and import it into other channels. For example, I always incorporated webinar snippets into existing email nurture streams to drive more traffic to the website’s resource hub. They were also useful in building out content streams using the Pathfactory tool.
4. Industry-Specific Campaigns – This new style of webinar content and activation worked well in conjunction with the organization’s new initiatives focused on industry-specific and persona-specific marketing motions. The team launched campaigns around healthcare, manufacturing, and pharmaceutical industries, and I used the growing webinar channel to support those focus-areas and fill content gaps.
Results
Though these campaigns varied in content and audience, overall these paid placement projects were a success. On the email side, these campaigns reached a combined audience of ~400K subscribers and achieved an average email open rate of 28% and an average click-through-rate of 12%, higher than industry benchmarks.
Increased Webinar Frequency – With a mix of live and non-live sessions, I was able to increase the output of this channel from 1 or 2 sessions a quarter, to 5 per quarter. Overall we saw greater engagement across our On-Demand content. Attendance rates for live sessions also increased from 28% to 40%.
In 2024, Webinar Influenced Pipeline increased by over $1M, a 20% growth over 2023. This meant that more in-stage opportunities were interacting with our webinar content, and it helped our sales team close more deals.
10 -15% of leads with webinars as a primary campaign source converted into opportunities.
Accelerated Sales Cycles: Leads that attended a webinar closed 30% faster than non-webinar leads.
