Using Webinars and Video Conferencing to Leverage Sales Interactions

If 40% of registrants for a webinar show up, you’ve succeeded beyond your wildest dreams.

Most people register for webinars just hoping they’ll get the recording.

So how do you view webinar nonattendance as a success?

And how many webinars do you have to do before you land a sale?

Recently I chatted with Agnes Jozwiak, Brand and Communication Director at ClickMeeting, about why webinars aren’t dead.

Anyone in the webinar industry knows it’s very dynamic. It takes lots of advance planning and facing challenges in communications.

“Now you have to communicate more of what this platform can do for your business and how the webinar platform or the online conferencing software can make your life easier,” Agnes said.

“It’s not all about features but processes that will make your business life easier,” she said.

“It’s targeting different groups depending on their action with our product, leading them to the next action to nurture them and to finally close the deal.”

Agnes Jozwiak, Brand and Communication Director at ClickMeeting

Technology and sales affects interactions with prospects

ClickMeeting is a webinar platform that makes online trainers, salespeople, and marketing people happy with online courses, product demos, and online meetings.

Webinars are currently in a resurgence from a business impact standpoint.

Agnes said webinars aren’t just about showing your product in sales demos.

“With webinars, you can put processes into knowledge that you want to share,” she said.

If you’re doing a sales demo, you can see who attended and then follow up with other content. You can also see who didn’t attend and adapt your communication to their actions.

Depending on their interest, you can meet them where they are.

“You retarget them with appropriate actions like content or offer, and then you are able to score those leads,” Agnes said.

Webinars can change interactions with prospects

Nothing stands alone anymore, including webinars. They’re part of a marketing outreach program or a nurturing program.

That’s good. Because we can be proactive with our tools and platforms to be maximally engaging.

The key is that the webinars have to continually adapt.

“We’ve been doing webinars for a few years now and only now we feel that we’ve got the knowledge, the power. We know what’s working for us,” Agnes said.

Agnes gave an illustration: Her client said, I’ve done 14 webinars and only after 15, I made my first sale.

“It is a process. You have to be patient,” Agnes said. “You have to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s trial and error.”

“There are so many webinars on the market right now, so it’s impossible to attend them all.”

Agnes Jozwiak, Brand and Communication Director at ClickMeeting

What about nonattendance?

Someone signs up for 5 webinars but can’t attend all of them, obviously.

“There are so many webinars on the market right now, so it’s impossible to attend them all,” Agnes said.

Problem, meet solution: webinars on-demand.

When a 40% turn up rate from registration is a matter for huge celebration, it would be easy to think of low numbers as low engagement.

Honestly, most people register for a webinar and hope they will get the recording. Which is how you usually get just 10 to 15% turn up rates.

1. Nonattendance gives you a database to nurture.
   People who sign up are interested, even if they don’t have time.
2. Nonattendance gives you an exchange of information.
   People who want the recording may still listen on their own time.

“The expectations are changing, so we have to change our platform accordingly,” Agnes said.

“What we do is set up your course and then obviously serve it on demand. But now you’ll be able to charge for an on-demand course,” she added.

Webinars are effective for executing sales demos

Imagine you can set up an online course that takes viewers through a sales demo from start to end on their own time.

It lets you connect with them when they’re ready about exactly what they want to know.

Then you can leverage the analytics to turn them from prospects into clients.

“If they attended a Webinar A, they will be interested in Webinar B. So we will invite them,” Agnes said. “We will send them premium content, like ebooks or reports to convert them into paying customers,” she said.

“It’s targeting different groups depending on their action with our product, leading them to the next action to nurture them and to finally close the deal,” she said.

“You have to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s trial and error.”

Agnes Jozwiak, Brand and Communication Director at ClickMeeting

Optimizing your use of video conferencing

Be Targeted

“If you’ve got knowledge to share, you have to identify who will benefit from this knowledge,” Agnes said.

Don’t go broad. That’s falling into the temptation that bigger numbers are better.

“The broader you get, the less targeted you’ll go,” Agnes said.

That makes it harder for the content to resonate.

Do Research

Invest in good preparation.

“Think about it as sharing knowledge. Your knowledge is valuable,” Agnes said. “Make content out of it and people will appreciate it.”

Leverage Automation

Automation is the future of webinars.

With prerecording and on-demand, you don’t even have to be live on your webinar. You can focus on answering chat questions, for example.

“So many things can be automated that can work with your applications that you use for your business every day, be it webinars as a part of your business, applications that you use, processes that you’re running,” Agnes said.

To Video or Not to Video

Just try it out and see what works for you, Agnes advised.

Think about the agenda and the content you want to cover. You might not need to show yourself, but showing your screen would be helpful, for instance.

“The moment you start doing it, you’ll see what’s working and what’s not,” Agnes said.

Understanding the Goal

“Know who you want to talk to and what you want to achieve,” Agnes said.

People who give up on webinars aren’t clear about what they want to achieve.

“When I started doing webinars, I was very frustrated that after two or three webinars, I didn’t get any signups,” Agnes said. “But was that my real goal? You have to realize what the real goal is, the people you want to talk to on a pitch.”

Contact Agnes about webinars and how to make video more effective on the ClickMeeting website or by email at marketing@clickmeeting.com.

This blog post includes highlights of our B2B Revenue Executive Experience podcast interview with Agnes Jozwiak, Brand and Communication Director at ClickMeeting. For the entire interview, you can listen to The B2B Revenue Executive Experience.

If you don’t use Apple Podcasts, you can listen to every episode here.