Lead Generation with Webcasting

Webcasts are proven to provide some of the best ROI in generating new prospects as well as qualifying existing prospects. Webcasts are a popular medium for communicating the features and benefits of a product, service or specific technology. Attendees find the value in the educational benefits of webcasts as well as the efficiencyof participating in this type of event. It's not necessary to invest a lot of time and money as with an offline event. 

Primary Benefits of Hosting a Webcast:

• A Webcast provides you with the ability to poll the audience for all the important qualify questions. Attendees are likely to respond to these questions in a webcast environment. 
• Every action of every attendee can be recorded to help you qualify the audience.  
• Interactive features of webcasts include audience polling, private and public chats, create banners and chat messages on the fly to communicate to the entire audience, push the audience to any URL on the Internet i.e. your website.
• Educate a large group of interested prospects at once about your products.

Audience Acquisition

You can promote the webcast to people that have already shown interest in your products from previous conversion i.e. white paper requests, contact requests, newslettersignups, or existing customers to educate them on your latest products. Webcasts prove to be well attended by other employees on a project team of your prospects who may not necessarily be included on all of your sales calls. 

If you don't already have your own email database to market to, you can also buy newsletter sponsorships in industry appropriate online publications. You can rent opt-in email lists of industry related portal sites or offline publications that have an opt-in email list.

Should you use Streaming Video?

Only if it really provides value to the audience and is done professionally. One-camera broadcasts can seem very static and unprofessional. The general public is used to television quality with two or three cameras used to keep the video image flowing and dynamic. If you can't provide a quality video production, then it's best not to use video at all. It may be detrimental in the end.

Should you use Streaming Audio?

Streaming audio is recommended for audience members who have the minimum hardware configuration to handle it. In addition, some corporate networks do not allow streaming audio through the firewall. Employees may or may not be aware.  You'll want to remind registrants to perform the necessary tests BEFORE the even to ensure successful connection on the day of the event. Otherwise, it can prove to be a technical obstacle and frustrating for attendees trying to connect. Always provide a land phone line option for all attendees.

Webcast Registration

Make it easy for people to register by providing a form on your site or even in an HTML email invitation. Confirm their registration with instructions for any pre-webcast tests or plug-ins they should perform. There's nothing worse than signing up for a webcast and not being able to connect on the day of the event. 

Webcast Reminders

Remind registrants to perform any necessary tests in your confirmation email and any subsequent reminder emails. Remind registrants the day before or early on the day of the event.

How will you measure the ROI of the webcast?

As with all other conversion, you'll want to capture all registrants in a database. After the event, keep track of how many attended. You can even qualify them based on their poll responses and questions they may have asked through the chat or Q&A session. Depending on your goals for the webcast, you'll want to measure by any of the following criteria: increased new qualified prospects, qualified existing contacts, prospects became part of the sales pipeline, prospects became closed sales.