Keep the Spice In

0
8

Share on LinkedIn

We all know the basics of creating a webinar, but what are some ways to utilize the content you’ve created and keep the conversation alive after the webinar?

To answer that question, I continue to use lessons I learned from the MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Forum I attended earlier this year. One session, “Using Webinars to Generate Spicy New Business,” was particularly impactful. Wanting to make sure I was cooking with cayenne pepper instead of coriander, I listened intently to Lisa Horner, director of campaigns at Citrix Online, as she provided the audience with webinar best practices, and most importantly – to me anyway – information about the art of engaging attendees after an event.

With the MarketingProfs session as my inspiration, I’d like to provide you with a few reminders about the important benefits of proper webinar follow-up.

Poll the Audience
One way of continuing to engage your audience is to develop a poll that is automatically distributed to attendees at the end of the event. This allows the audience to rate content they would like to see during the next webinar, which increases the likelihood of your audience attending future webinars. If your webinar featured a live poll, there may be an opportunity to package that content in a future blog post, as a contributed article or in a white paper that you use for lead generation.

Respond to Questions
Often there is not enough time to answer all audience members’ questions during an event. In addition to having your sales representatives follow-up with attendees, have your marketing team create a blog post that highlights responses, especially to those questions that were unanswered, from the event. This provides you the opportunity to reengage attendees, and reach others that were unable to attend.

Create Videos
Everyone knows the power video has in your marketing campaigns. Post-webinar, use your webinar recording to create 2-3 minute video clips that highlight a tip or best practice. These video clips can be posted to your website or used to promote upcoming events. Short videos are a great way to generate leads and registrations for upcoming webinars. Along the same lines, as long as the content isn’t sensitive or proprietary, we recommend promoting slides from the session via SlideShare to encourage further content sharing beyond the original group of attendees.

Engage in Conversation
The most important thing to remember is that after the webinar is over, you need to continue the conversation with your audience. Respond to Twitter users that have tweeted your webinar hash tag, ensure your sales people have contacted attendees from their target companies, create an email mailing campaign that continues to engage your audience, perhaps with a link to a webinar playback.

Even if you can’t do all of these recommendations, it’s most important that you at least do something. You may get a large audience for your webinar and the content may be great, but unless you keep the conversation alive, the long-term value, or ‘shelf life,’ of your webinar may be lost.

What are some other recommendations for engaging with attendees after a webinar or event?

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Jennifer Minko
After earning a Masters of Science in Professional Communications from Clark University, Jennifer spent several years in the insurance industry as a Casualty Claims Adjuster. She then moved into a marketing role at a small Business Intelligence firm eventually becoming their Marketing Manager. Currently, Jennifer is the Marketing Programs Manager at Neolane.

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Please use comments to add value to the discussion. Maximum one link to an educational blog post or article. We will NOT PUBLISH brief comments like "good post," comments that mainly promote links, or comments with links to companies, products, or services.

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here