How Webinars Can Help Create New Leads

To get new customers, you need new leads … no surprise there … but what may surprise you is how webinars can help create new leads.

Webinars aren’t new. Originally called “web conferences,” the first was held in 1996 using Microsoft’s NetMeeting software. Webex came along in 1999. Fast forward to today, and there are a variety of platforms and software to choose from.

Today, interacting virtually has become commonplace. And webinars have become a powerful strategy for creating new leads and nurturing existing ones.

Webinars offer a unique blend of education, engagement, and personal connection that can supercharge your lead-generation efforts. Here’s why …

Webinars Provide Educational Value and Thought Leadership

Webinars are an excellent platform for sharing knowledge and establishing thought leadership within your industry. By offering valuable insights and information, you position yourself as an authority in your niche.

A helpful and informative webinar can assist your potential customer in their buyer journey. And when potential leads recognize your expertise, they're more likely to trust your recommendations and consider your products and services. 

Crafting compelling webinar content involves identifying pain points and challenges your target audience faces. Addressing these concerns in a structured, educational manner demonstrates your commitment to helping customers overcome their obstacles and solve their problems.

Webinars Encourage Interactive Engagement

Unlike traditional forms of content marketing, webinars allow real-time interaction between hosts and participants. This interactive nature enhances engagement and fosters a sense of community among attendees.

For example, Q&A sessions, polls, and live chats enable you to directly address participants' queries, making them feel valued and heard.

Interactive engagement also extends beyond the live session. Replays of webinars can continue to attract leads, as viewers appreciate the opportunity to access valuable content on their own schedule.

And you can still encourage engagement during replays as well, such as letting viewers submit questions via email or social media and addressing them in follow-up blog posts or future webinars.

Webinars Capture Leads

One of the most potent benefits of webinars for lead generation is the ability to capture valuable attendee information. To register for a webinar, participants usually need to provide their name, email address, and potentially other relevant details.

This registration process serves as an entry point into your marketing funnel, allowing you to nurture these leads through subsequent email campaigns or targeted content.

However, it's essential to strike a balance between lead capture and user experience. You should keep the registration process concise and straightforward, as overly complex forms can discourage sign-ups.

For best results, you’ll also want to clearly communicate the benefits participants will gain from attending the webinar to incentivize them to share their information.

Webinars Build Relationships with Your Audience

Webinars humanize your company and create a direct line of communication with potential leads. Sharing personal anecdotes, case studies, and success stories during webinars helps humanize your brand and fosters a sense of connection.

People are more likely to engage with and trust businesses they perceive as genuine and relatable.

To capitalize on this, consider integrating segments within your webinars that showcase your team members or feature behind-the-scenes glimpses of your company's operations. These moments provide a glimpse into the people driving your company’s efforts and help establish a deeper rapport with your audience.

Webinars Allow for Cross-Promotion and Partnerships

Collaboration can amplify your reach and lead generation potential. Partnering with influencers, industry experts, or complementary businesses for a webinar can expose your company to new audiences … theirs.

These collaborations not only broaden your reach but also lend credibility to your webinars, as participants may be more inclined to attend when they see respected names associated with the event.

Cross-promotion with your partners further extends the benefits. Each of you can share promotional content through your respective channels, driving more traffic and generating additional leads. This strategy is especially effective when your partner's audience aligns with your target demographic.

Webinars Collect Data-Driven Insights for Targeted Follow-up

Webinars offer more than just immediate lead generation. They also provide invaluable data-driven insights for nurturing these leads effectively.

For example, during and after the webinar, you can gather data on attendee behavior, engagement levels, and preferences. This information helps tailor your follow-up strategies to align with the interests of your leads.

When you segment your leads based on the topics they engaged with during the webinar, you can customize your follow-up email campaigns accordingly. For instance, if certain attendees showed particular interest in a specific aspect of the webinar, you can provide them with more in-depth content related to that topic.

Personalized follow-up increases the likelihood of converting leads into customers.

13 Steps to Creating New Leads from Webinars

Generating leads from a webinar involves a strategic approach that addresses all the various stages, from pre-webinar promotion to post-webinar follow-up. Here are the steps to take to effectively capture leads from your webinars:

1. Choose a Compelling Topic: Select a webinar topic that resonates with your target audience's pain points, interests, and needs. A relevant and valuable topic will attract participants who are genuinely interested in your content.

2. Create Engaging Content: Develop an informative and engaging presentation that provides actionable insights and solutions. Balance educational content with a touch of your agency's expertise, showcasing your thought leadership.

3. Set Up Registration: Use a registration form to collect essential lead information like names, email addresses, and potentially more data relevant to your company's products and services. Keep the registration process as simple as possible to encourage more sign-ups.

4. Promote Your Webinar: Utilize your digital marketing channels to promote the webinar. Leverage social media, email marketing, blog posts, and partnerships to expand your reach and attract a diverse audience.

5. Leverage Landing Pages: Create dedicated landing pages for your webinar with compelling copy and visuals. These pages should highlight the benefits of attending the webinar and include the registration form.

6. Host the Live Webinar: During the live webinar, engage attendees with interactive elements such as polls, Q&A sessions, and live chats. Encourage active participation to enhance engagement and gather insights.

7. Collect Attendee Data: As participants register for the webinar, their data is collected. This information serves as the foundation for your lead-generation efforts.

8. Offer Additional Value: During the webinar, mention additional free resources like special reports, whitepapers, case studies, checklists, templates, etc. that attendees can access by providing their contact information. This can encourage more attendees to become warmer leads.

9. Segment Your Leads: Use the information collected during registration and throughout the webinar to segment your leads based on their interests and needs. This segmentation enables targeted follow-up communication.

10. Follow-Up Post-Webinar: Your webinar funnel doesn’t end at the end of the webinar. Now that you have the leads, you need to follow-up and nurture those who haven’t yet converted into customers. Your post-webinar follow-up can include any or all of the following:

• Send Thank-You Emails: Send an automated thank-you email to all attendees, expressing gratitude for their participation and highlighting key takeaways from the webinar.
• Provide Replays: Share the webinar recording with attendees and non-attendees alike. Require email registration to access the replay, allowing you to capture additional leads.
• Nurture Through Email Campaigns: Create a series of follow-up emails that provide further insights related to the webinar topic. These emails should gradually introduce your agency's services and solutions.
• Ask for Feedback: Include a survey in your post-webinar emails to gather feedback. This engagement provides an opportunity to re-engage leads and refine your approach for future webinars.

11. Review Webinar Analytics: Analyze webinar analytics to gain insights into attendee behavior, engagement levels, and drop-off points. This information guides your lead nurturing strategies and helps refine future webinars.

12. Engage on Social Media: Share highlights, quotes, and insights from the webinar on your social media channels. Encourage participants to engage by commenting and sharing, thereby extending your reach and attracting more leads.

13. Repurpose Content: Repurpose webinar content into blog posts, infographics, or videos. Include lead capture mechanisms within these repurposed materials to continue generating leads.

Benefits of Using Webinars for Lead Generation

Using webinars for lead generation is beneficial in numerous ways and can have a significant impact your on your digital marketing efforts. The benefits of using webinars to create new leads include:

• High-Quality Leads: Webinar attendees are often individuals genuinely interested in the topic you're addressing. This targeted audience is more likely to engage with your content and consider your services, resulting in higher-quality leads.
• Expert Positioning: Hosting informative and valuable webinars positions your brand as an industry expert. This perception of authority enhances trust among potential leads, making them more receptive to your marketing messages.
• Interactive Engagement: Webinars allow for real-time interaction. This engagement not only keeps attendees attentive but also provides insights into their preferences and pain points, enabling you to tailor your follow-up strategies.
• Lead Data Collection: Webinar registration forms collect valuable lead data such as names, email addresses, and potentially more information. This data forms the basis for personalized follow-up and future marketing campaigns.
• Nurturing Opportunities: Webinars provide a platform for ongoing engagement. You can follow up with attendees through email campaigns, sharing additional resources and nurturing them through the sales funnel.
• Scalability: Webinars can reach a large number of participants simultaneously, regardless of their geographical location. This scalability enables you to expand your lead generation efforts without limitations.
• Cost-Effectiveness: While planning and producing a high-quality webinar requires effort, the cost per lead acquired through webinars can be significantly lower compared to some other traditional marketing methods.
• Content Repurposing: Webinars can serve as a content goldmine. You can repurpose recorded webinars into blog posts, social media snippets, infographics, and more, extending the lifespan of your content and attracting leads through multiple channels.
• Global Reach: Since webinars are accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, they provide an opportunity to tap into a global audience, exposing your agency to leads beyond your local reach.
• Data-Driven Insights: Webinar analytics provide insights into attendee behavior, engagement levels, and preferences. This data informs your marketing strategy and helps refine your lead-generation efforts.
• Lead Warmth: Webinar attendees have already shown interest in your content, indicating a certain level of awareness and consideration. This warmth makes it easier to guide them further down the sales funnel.
• Competitive Edge: Embracing webinars demonstrates your company's willingness to adopt innovative approaches. This commitment to staying current can give you a competitive advantage in the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape.
• Long-Term Impact: Recorded webinars continue to generate leads even after the live session ends. They remain accessible on your website or other platforms, attracting new leads over time.
• Brand Exposure: Collaborating with influencers, industry experts, or partners for your webinars exposes your brand to their audience. This expanded reach can introduce your agency to a wider pool of potential leads.
• Personal Connection: Webinars allow your company to showcase its human side, fostering a personal connection with leads. This connection can lead to higher conversion rates as customers tend to choose brands they feel emotionally connected to.
• Segmentation Opportunities: Tailoring webinars to different segments of your target audience demonstrates your agency's versatility and understanding of various client needs. This segmented approach can attract leads with specific interests.
• Lead Diversity: Webinars attract leads from various stages of the buyer's journey. Some attendees may be at the awareness stage, while others are closer to making a decision. This diversity allows you to nurture leads at different levels.
• Conversion Rates: Well-executed webinars can have impressive conversion rates. The combination of educational content, interactive engagement, and lead nurturing strategies can lead to a higher likelihood of converting leads into customers.

Using webinars as part of your digital marketing strategy can yield a wide array of benefits that extend beyond lead generation. You can create a sustainable stream of high-quality leads, but while doing so you can also establish your company as an authoritative and engaging presence in your industry.

Ready to Start Using Webinars to Create New Leads?

Done right, webinars are a powerful tool for generating new leads. They can be a valuable asset.

However, as you can see, webinars are a complex digital marketing strategy to implement. There are a lot of pieces to coordinate. And that’s why so many companies rely on outsourced expert help to build their webinar infrastructure and support their efforts.

That’s where we come in.

WorldLight Media has a team of experts who can support and guide you in creating new leads with webinars.

Call us at (559) 9-DESIGN, or you can click here to use our convenient online form to ask for more information.