Webinars' Impact on B2B Buying Cycle: Lead Gen & Sales Pipeline Acceleration, Slides of Marketing

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The Role of

Webinars in the

Buying Cycle

Learn how webinars can be used

to optimize demand generation

and accelerate your sales pipeline

Sixty-five percent of business-to-business (B2B) buyers are electing to “self-educate” – that is, access industry and product information through online and mobile channels – before engaging with a salesperson. This trend has shifted the buying cycle from one that was sales driven to a more marketing-driven process.

Now, more than ever, marketers are challenged to deliver relevant and engaging content across multiple channels and throughout the customer buying cycle. Recent research indicates that 73 percent of B2B marketers need to produce more content today than they did just one year ago. Forty-one percent indicated they are producing “more” and 32 percent said they are producing “significantly more.” 1

TODAY’S MARKETING CHALLENGES

(^1) Source: “B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends,” Content Marketing Institute.

lead

revenue

BUYER ENGAGEMENT

One of the main reasons that webinars successfully influence prospects in the buying cycle is their ability to capture a viewer’s attention for significant periods of time. Sending prospects an email or having them view your website may capture their attention for 30 seconds to a couple of minutes. In contrast, an average viewer spends 56 minutes in a live, interactive ON24 webinar. 3

ON24’s ability to include related content and social media in a webinar also accelerates movement in the buying cycle. According to a survey by IDG Enterprise: 4

• An average of 8 assets are downloaded and used in the decision-making process.
• Prospects are only receptive to related content over a relatively short period of time.
• Decision-makers use social media to discover, share and discuss information.

By including white papers, data sheets, industry blogs, articles or other content, ON24 webinars can deliver multiple decision-making assets at one time. And the addition of social media, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, allows prospective buyers to share insights or invite others to join their network from with the webinar.

VALUE OF WEBINARS IN THE

SALES AND MARKETING PROCESS

(^3) Source: ON24 Benchmarking data. (^4) Source: 2013 Customer Engagement survey, IDG Enterprise.

56

MIN

AVERAGE VIEWER TIME

SALES-READY LEADS

For optimum lead generation success, it is critical to follow up with your most qualified leads within 24 hours of your webinar. ON24 webinar analytics allow you to do just that without the hassle of combing through dozens of reports.

With ON24 webinar analytics, you can assess user interest and identify the best sales prospects. It allows you to generate reports so you can evaluate user engagement, buying stage, and webinar trends. It also empowers you with real-time graphical dashboards and drill down tools to prove your ROI, deliver leads to sales, and impact revenue.

VALUE OF WEBINARS IN THE

SALES AND MARKETING PROCESS

4 23 leads

3 155 leads

2 977 leads

awareness 1 7,846 leads

consideration

evaluation

purchase

Because of their demand generation and customer engagement effectiveness, webinars are fast becoming one of the greatest contributors to a company’s marketing success. Webinar benefits include the ability to:

• Attract new prospects
• Improve the quality of your sales leads
• Significantly reduce your cost per lead
• Influence the progression of opportunities in your sales pipeline

Numerous ON24 customers have obtained such benefits, including SAP, Navex Global, and Latham & Watkins. Their webinar use cases and ROI are described in the sections below.

WEBINAR RETURN ON INVESTMENT

SAP Hana delivers bi-weekly webcast series where satisfied customers discuss their experiences. The webinars have influenced over 200 opportunities amounting to over $100 million in measurable pipeline sales.

WEBINAR RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Used for thought leadership, Latham & Watkins’ webinars provide per-person cost savings of more than 80% over its previous live, in-person events.

Navex Global delivers monthly “deminars” that provide product demonstrations to key prospects. The company closed $782,000 in revenue and influenced $4.2 million in sales pipeline as a direct result of these deminars.

AWARENESS STAGE

Prospects in the Awareness stage are just learning about your brand. They’ve articulated a need and are now doing research to identify their options.

Webinars in this stage should be focused on your industry and your company’s unique approach and value proposition. It’s important to introduce your prospects to industry trends that explain developing issues and present the business value of adopting change. Your webinar content should demonstrate that your company is a thought leader and an expert in the prospect’s area of need. Content topic recommendations:

• Industry trends
• Benchmarks
• Analyst coverage
• Basic “101” education

MATCHING WEBINAR CONTENT

TO THE BUYING CYCLE

awareness

consideration

evaluation

purchase

Example of a “Thought Leadership” Webinar

MATCHING WEBINAR CONTENT

TO THE BUYING CYCLE

CONSIDERATION STAGE

When prospects are in the Consideration stage, they’re gathering research and data to paint their benefit story. At this point, your potential customers know what’s wrong and have an idea of how to fix it, but they might not be completely sure of the best way to do so. Prospects in this stage want content that educates them, helps them do their job, and moves them closer to a decision.

Consideration-stage webinars should focus on vendor-neutral, solution- based themes. Your content should focus on problem-to-solution scenarios. That is, the business value of solving the problem considering the prospect’s current situation. Content topic recommendations:

• Typical challenges
• Vendor-neutral applications
• Benefits
• Pitfalls to avoid

Example of a “Vendor-Neutral Application” Webinar

awareness

consideration

evaluation

purchase

MATCHING WEBINAR CONTENT

TO THE BUYING CYCLE

PURCHASE STAGE

In the Purchase stage, prospects are ready to make a decision and are narrowing down their options. They’ve identified their top two or three choices and are looking for the key factors that will motivate their decision. Potential customers need to be sold on your product/solution and the sense of urgency that says they need to make this purchase now.

Purchase-stage webinars are about validation, justification and risk mitigation. Your webinars should showcase customer success stories, demonstrate the features of your solution, and highlight your competitive differences. It is also important to show how other customers have implemented successful projects and attained business value. Content topic recommendations:

• Demo webinars
• Case studies
• Competitive advantages
• “Working with us” guides

Example of a “Demo Webinar”

PURCHASE

awareness

consideration

evaluation

purchase

CONCLUSION

Webinars are the most important tool for marketers to drive demand and generate new leads. As prospects increasingly self-educate through the buying cycle, webinars have become a primary source of information that buyers turn to before making a purchase decision.

To be most effective, your webinar content must be tailored to each stage of the buying cycle. For example, while thought leadership works well for top-of-funnel lead generation, it is not appropriate in the latter stages of the purchase process. If designed with the buying cycle in mind, webinars can be an extremely effective method for moving prospects from one stage to the next.

While the webinar’s content influences, the equally important webinar analytics measure user engagement, stage progression, and trends. Webinar analytics allow you to identify sales-ready leads in real-time, and follow up with the most-qualified leads immediately. And webinar analytics become much more valuable when integrated with your CRM and marketing automation platforms and incorporated into your lead scoring and nurturing process.

In short, webinars allow you to optimize your marketing programs by accelerating prospects through the buying cycle: from lead to revenue.

lead

revenue