ON24 is a webinar based marketing platform. Each year they host a large event celebrating and understanding everything Webinar based. They use the the hashtag #Webinarworld and a world all about webinars was exactly what I got from the day!
The event was held for one day in London on the 12th October 2017 and you can get all the details here.
Speakers and agenda
With a huge array of talent on display it was hard narrowing down my choices for who I wanted to see, as is usually the case at conferences.
The agenda was ram packed with great sounding seminar based events, as you would expect there were lots of sessions for how to market your webinars and others for keeping up a high level of engagement with repeat signups.
Session 1 – Driving Webinar Registration
With Lightbulb Moment running free webinars the title of this event was exactly what I was looking for. The speaker was Mark Bornstein @4markb the Vice President of Content Marketing at ON24.
I chatted with Mark after the session and you can see the periscope recording in this tweet!
Chatting with @4markb from @on24 at #webinarworld about engagement & marketing https://t.co/I4A1249zpO
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
The session was full of really useful information for getting people into your webinars in the first place, such as having a longer marketing campaign leading up to your webinar. This is something at we need to do better at Lightbulb Moment, as we’ve only really focused the week leading to the webinar. Learning point one already!
Webinar promotional cycle is getting longer, perhaps add more emails to your cycle #WebinarWorld pic.twitter.com/hrTCzIgnL8
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
Another great tip to actually get people to finish the process of showing interest and click register is to reduce the form length to sign up. Other ideas included having a video on the sign up page.
50% of people that click register, don't register. They hate forms! On the page remind them of the reasons & have a short form #WebinarWorld pic.twitter.com/E74Xs0Owye
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
Excellent sessions today that bridge the gaps between what Rich Media and webinar content could do, what it *should* do depending on vertical & funnel position, and getting on with it / executing your plan! #WebinarWorld @ON24 pic.twitter.com/wXfwZHSzTx
— John Sargent (@HongKongJohn) October 12, 2017
Some quick notes on what I got from the session:
- Title of the webinar should be action oriented
- e.g. How to / 10 common <topic> mistakes / 5 best practices to xxx / 7 keys to successful xxx
- Email subject line – should be promotional and not just the name of the webinar
- Could be disruptive / specific need / promise change / tease or titilate / short and concise / read well and phonetically interesting / feel personal
- Always a day of webinar promotional email for 25% of your signups (not the same as the link reminder email)
The session was great and I was filled with positive plans to take away. It was a pleasure to speak to Mark after the session. If you did not see the live video interview above I recommend you do, it was a really interesting chat from an expert.
Session 2 – Buying Cycle
Once again with Mark Bornstein. This time he was taking the next step from getting people on your webinars to getting them to buy what you are selling.
He spoke a lot about your funnel of customers. That’s a newer piece of marketing terminology for some people and refers to the people you have from vaguely aware of you through to about to sign on the dotted line. You have different levels of potential customer in that funnel.
Don't pitch in your top of funnel awareness webinars. People aren't looking for sales!! pic.twitter.com/THHpKWO8Rr
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
There were strategies for where to start when thinking about designing your first webinar campaign. I’ve been running lots of different webinars and speaking at conferences and that gave a starting point, it’s still hard even with that!
Recommendations for some of you awareness top of funnel webinars #WebinarWorld pic.twitter.com/gw0VhbeedP
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
I came away with quickfire understanding of not just having a funnel, terminology I’m using much more now, but understanding the different levels people might be at in my funnel plus how to keep current clients engaged.
Once they become customers, stay connected & engaged with webinars #webinarworld pic.twitter.com/rvU68cnWpy
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
Session 3 – Webinar Driven Campaign
Lev Cribb was the speaker for this session and was bringing his experience in marketing.
The session was a real mixed bag, the speaker obviously had a lot of experience, knowledge and passion but I found it hard to follow his message.
Some challenges in combining sales & marketing data for insightful decisions #WebinarWorld pic.twitter.com/I9UCfzALVd
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
What was also interesting was the lack of tweets about this session. Is that because there was a lot of interesting information and data that people did not get a chance to tweet or was it that they felt there was not much to tweet?
Closing session – future of webinars
#WebinarWorld The future of webinars, based on data from 100,000 webinars through On24 pic.twitter.com/ABiY5KCGV2
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
So many ways to tailor the webinar engagement experience #WebinarWorld pic.twitter.com/v6McBnEqma
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
I like the idea of the video broadcast studio for the tv style webinar sessions #WebinarWorld pic.twitter.com/Dmh7umVuLR
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
How to slice and dice your recorded or on demand webinar content #WebinarWorld pic.twitter.com/tNZXWIxNCy
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
We're excited too… making video a two-way conversation is the future #webinarworld #webinerds
— ON24 (@ON24) October 12, 2017
Don't forget on-demand webinar attendees – they're important even if they didn't make it on the night! #webinarworld pic.twitter.com/cUVkLctH46
— Rosie Murphy (@RosieMurphy) October 12, 2017
One way to drive live webinar attendance is highlight in the marketing how the live audience shape the content & conversation #WebinarWorld pic.twitter.com/v9Pz3rUbJo
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) October 12, 2017
All in all a great day, lots of learning and I look forward to next year!