B2B Webinar Strategy Guide: Types of Webinar
B2B Webinar Strategy Guide: Part 1
Did you know that around 15% of webinar attendees go on to purchase the service or product that’s being promoted? It’s an impressive stat that’s made more impressive when you compare how it drops by 13% for cold calls!
B2B webinars are staple if you’re looking to widen awareness of your brand and strengthen relationships with your audience. Whether the people joining your webinar are new business prospects looking to learn about your SaaS solution or current customers intrigued by your take on a trending topic in your sector, webinars help you provide clear, value-added communications.
In this three-part strategy guide, we’re looking at why adding webinars to your B2B marketing mix is still relevant in 2024. Plus, best practice for running and getting the most from your webinar!
Keep reading for:
- Why you should consider webinars for your B2B brand
- The different types of webinars you could host
- Where to find parts two and three of this guide!
Why run a B2B webinar?
We’ve all been on the receiving end of a cold call. And whilst they sometimes ring through on the right day at the right time, they often don’t.
On the other hand, your audience needs to actively register for a webinar to become an attendee. They’re choosing to be a part of the session, so you’re already onto a winner with a list of people or brands interested in what your webinars focus on!
Types of B2B webinar
So B2B webinars offer a warmer introduction to your brand than a cold call, but how do you come up with a concept for the webinar that you know will drive high registration levels?
Different webinars serve different purposes. If you try to address a trending topic in your sector whilst sharing your screen to demonstrate your product, all whilst encouraging an interactive discussion between panellists, you’re going to confuse your audience! When we develop webinar strategies for our clients, we start by setting out what we want that webinar to achieve. That could be to:
- Boost brand awareness
- Strengthen relationships with existing customers
- Address sector news
- React to a trending topic in the industry
- Introduce a new product/service (to customers and/or prospects)
- Explain improvements/added features of the product or service (primarily for customers, secondary for prospects)
- And more!
How to run a B2B webinar
Once you know what the point of the webinar is, you can then start to develop out the full concept. That’ll help you to meet the overarching objective of the webinar: to support lead generation. Typically, your webinar will fall into one of three categories:
1. Thought-leadership
What’s going on in your sector right now that poses huge opportunity or threat to your target market? Get talking about it! If it’s a trend that’s a goldmine for your audience, this is the prime time to share your expertise. Establish your brand as the number one partner they need to prosper in this area!
If it’s a challenge, they’ll be looking for assurance that they can get through it – plus the tips, tricks, and advice they can put in place to ensure they can do so. Be personable, share your experiences, and treat the webinar like you’re having a conversation with a single person. Rather than speaking to a blank screen!
Thought-leadership webinars are a steadfast way of boosting a relationship from ‘good’ to ‘great’. When you’re communicating a problem in an honest, personable, and genuine way, the relationships you foster for your brand will be the same in turn.
2. Product demonstration
A product-led webinar is an ideal way of showcasing your product or service in all its glory without the constraints of coordinating travel, logistics, and time to run the demonstration! These types of webinars tend to have more of a start, middle, end structure, with your audience coming off the webinar with a better understanding of how your product works.
For instance, an hour session might run as:
- 0-10 minutes: Introduce yourself and the brand.
- 10-25 minutes: Introduce the product/service and why it’s been developed – what does it provide a solution to?
- 25-45 minutes: Show the product/service in action! That might be a top-level view of how it works and what it enables. Or, a more granular demonstration of a specific tool or feature!
- 45-60 minutes: Question time. Encourage your audience to send in any questions they’ve got about what you’ve shown them and share the answers. You could also use this time to revisit a particular part of the demonstration that they’d like more details on!
Product-led webinars work across the breadth of product development activities your B2B brand will have going on. They work to introduce your long-standing product to a new audience, as well as explaining the newest updates and features of your product to your existing customer and prospect base to nurture those relationships.
“Whilst wanting to show off all the bells and whistles of your latest product is great, it’s only great for your audience if they know that’s what they’re in for. It’s important to clearly communicate that the webinar is going to be led by a product/service demonstration. No-one wants to set aside an hour in their calendar to attend a webinar they thought was going to be about a trending topic to be met with a hard and fast product demo!”
Gabrielle, Content Lead at Halston B2B
3. Panel discussion
A panel discussion is the perfect way of bringing in other thought-leaders and encouraging a discussion that could be furthered on a sales call to follow. A bit like a thought-leadership webinar, you could enlist a panel of three to five professionals to discuss something like a new piece of industry legislation that’s set to come into play, and what businesses in your sector need to be aware of/do. Panel discussions tend to work best when they’re premised on one of the five W’s, providing an answer to: Who? What? Where? When? Why?
Panel discussions are also a great way for your brand to strengthen its network. By fostering relationships with other businesses and suppliers, you’re creating more a holistic feel for your brand. People like to hear conversation that’s bursting with insight. And the more expert opinions you can share on your webinar, the better!
That’s all for part 1 of our B2B webinar strategy guide. Lucky for you, part 2 is just a click away!