Media product performance comparisons for lead-gen campaigns
April 18th, 2006 | Marilou BarsamClients often come to us looking for comparisons of results of one media vs the other in terms of lead generation.
Recently a data backup/recovery company came to us with a unique challenge. They were looking to target IT decision makers who are responsible for backup at small/medium-sized businesses. In the past, this client had great success promoting white papers to the Storage audience. Now, they wanted to test the effectiveness of a webcast vs. the white paper.
To help them accomplish this, we customized a program promoting both media products, the white paper and webcast equally. We used numerous push out emails and banners to the same Storage audience. As we had expected, there was a higher quantity of white paper leads than webcast leads. However, the leads were then sent to a telemarketing team and the webcast leads proved to be more highly qualified in that they were further along the sales cycle. The white paper leads still needed more nurturing.
We’ve always believed that IT pros who take an hour out of their day to attend a webcast are ready to short-list a final vendor recommendation. This exercise reinforced that.
April 20th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Hands down in my experience, web seminar/cast leads are far more qualified than white paper leads. It is far easier to attract a visitor who has a research need on a technology topic than it is to attract a visitor who is actively in the buying process of a technology solution. We hold monthly web seminars and can directly tie sales revenue to them.
White papers, at least in my company, are viewed as effective way to create/reinforce thought leadership and are a valuable tool during our lengthy sales cycles. Occasionally, we will get a qualified lead, but our marketing and sales teams benefit from monitoring what type of companies, job fuctions, and regional markets are viewing the papers.
April 20th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Ever felt buried by the ROI or ROA on your CPC, CPM, CPA, CPL?
FYI what the happened to your CTR, CVR?
And how did these acronyms take over my thinking?
I once looked at my meal at a nice restaurant and tried to extrapolate how many sales conversions the large meal was worth…if I had spent the money on marketing. OK you know you know you are a marketing geek when this happens.
Qualifying leads whether thru search, webcasts, viral marketing etc. can be a tricky business. Buying cycles, seasonality, pre-presentation assumptions and budget can all cut into the profitability of such lead gen activities. BUT getting in front of those who are most like to buy is key not only to meet sales numbers, but necessary to reinforce one’s brand.
“Everything works, just not equally well for everybody. Test and measure everything your budget allows you to.”
Oh, and best of luck to all the Tech Target folks who help keep this blog running. I shall be reading….thanks!
April 20th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
I realize that conducting webcasts provides a company with leads that are far further down in the sales process, but how does a company determine how often a webcast should be held and to guarantee participants attendance? Do companies out there just pick a bunch of times to hold a webcast or is there some formula they use to determine when they should hold one?
We previously ran webcasts and from what I have been told internally, it was a hit and miss. Some sessions had quite a few people some had none and sometimes our staff were presenting to people that were looking to purchase a low end version of our product so they felt it was a waste of their time.
Any thoughts on this would be greatly appareciated.
I have a hard time justifying webcasts to the owners if I’m having a difficult time filling up the session.
April 20th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
It’s been my experience that white papers are fantasic tools for creating and enhancing brand awareness and for demonstrating domain expertise. However a white paper is of little value in demand creation and should not be used in a call to action because techies have a natural thirst for information. The download of a white paper is rarely associated with an active project or buying influence. Webcasts are a much more effective tool for filling the funnel with sales opportunities. Webcast participants tend to have an active project. There is a sense of urgency that mandates their participation.
The white paper is most useful as a sale tool once the prospect has entered the sales funnel. As marketers we need to dimension a prospects journey through the sales cycle. White papers can answer the key questions necesary for a prospect to transition from one stage to another.
April 20th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
This is the quality vs. quantity thing. I think you need both quality *and* quantity - so I’d recommend publishing whitepapers and doing webinars periodically, if possible. But suppose you only had the resources to engage in one of the two, I’d do the whitepapers for almost any industry - webinars are expensive!
April 20th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
I support the premise of this message with real-world experience, although I do not believe it is an either/or argument. Both Webcasts and white papers have their place. Their impact overlaps and, properly done, they enhance the impact of one-another.
If someone commits an hour to a webcast, he/she appears to be further along in the sales cycle. That is because you know that they’ve committed the time and have at least heard some of the message. A white paper is unidirectional; the proverbial horse to water. You can send it out, you don’t know if the recipient ever reads it. Right now, for example, I have a stack of white papers under the label, “Documents to Read.”
More than a year ago, we launched a series of webinars to enlighten customers and prospects to the value message behind our products. Dipping our toe into the water, we completed 20 webinars in the ensuing twelve months, we good attendance. We were touching several thousand people with a very low cost program. Bolstered with that success, we expanded it into a weekly event and were surprised that the average attendance increased sharply, to the point where we are now regularly meeting with nearly as many people in a week that we were meeting in a month just a year ago.
The payoff is the follow-up for attendees of the webinar - we send them a white paper covering the topic of the webinar, written by an expert on the topic … and ask for their feedback. It works. Now we know some of those that actually read the white paper.
Marketing is a grab-bag of actions, tools and effects. For each organization, a different mix from that bag works best. The trick is to find those that do and don’t achieve the results you seek, then leveraging those that do.
April 20th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
We run weekly webcasts at regularly scheduled times. The number of webcasts we do on a weekly basis are dependent on how much promotion we are doing at a given time. In general, we only want about 10-12 people on a webcast as it allows for more interaction and our average deal size is over 6 figures so smaller more intimate forums are better for us. But the bottom line is that the number of webcasts for us is driven by trying to maintain that 10-12 person limit. If we have too few people attending, we reduce the number of webcasts. Note that we have to coordinate all of this with the amount of demand generation we are doing at any given time.
One other note is that we don’t look at webcasts vs whitepapers as a tradeoff. If someone reads a whitepaper, we follow up and push them to a webcast. But clearly, a webcast is farther down the sales cycle then a whitepaper, mainly because I never know if someone has read a whitepaper but an hour is quite a bit of time to dedicate if you are just a tire kicker.
April 20th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
We struggle with the WebCast/Webinaire decision. One, for an emerging comapny the cost of delivery mechanisms(voice, webmeeting software) can add up quickly if you don’t severely limit the number of seats open. Neither Webex or Gotomeeting can do meetings of 100 for less than $5-6K hard commitment a year. Two, what is the most effectve channel to publicize webcasts? I know one company that spends $6-7k in Pay per click and other venues a month just to publicize their webcasts. TechTarget won’t touch you without close to a 5-figure pricepoint? What is an aspiring emerging company to do?
Answers welcome to spilkington@innovation-asset.com
April 21st, 2006 at 12:58 pm
We also do a mix of webcasts, webinars, seminars and educational pieces. We try to only write large scale whitepapers when absolutely necessary. We have a pretty decent attendance rate at each of our webcasts and seminars (I believe we use LiveMeeting). Generally speaking we find that while 20 people might sign up, we usually have 50-60% attrition.
We do not specifically utilize pay-per-click for anything other than branding and an inexpensive way to generate interest for our products. We spend about $22k/year for PPC for 6 products. Once a user clicks an ad they are sent to that products’ home page where they can immediately signup for the next web demo. These folks are then contacted directly by a member of our sales force to discern level of interest and viability.
We have also found that contacts via the web are much further along in the decision making process and are actively looking for a solution to their problem.
Additionally, we email our customers and prospects monthly to remind them of upcoming seminars, tradeshows, demos, trainings… This seems to work well for us.
Shawn, I would absolutely NOT spend that kind of money for PPC just to publicize a webcast. That’s crazy money. Spend what you can building yourself in your industry. There are a lot of companies out there that are willing to give you some help. Try working with some of your customers to spread the word. You can do free press releases to announce your webcast schedule at www.prweb.com and there are plenty of event sites out there looking for content. Talk to Mass High Tech as well.
Sharon
April 23rd, 2006 at 7:59 am
Karen Liu,
Over the years we have experienced with how to get strong attendance at our webcasts. Generaly speaking, we find early afternoon works the best and we avoid Fridays.
As to the inconsistency in attendance that you mentioned, it has everything to do with the interest level the invited audience has with the subject matter of the webcast. Promos for the webcast should be targeted in copy and benefit-oriented.
We have found that IT audiences like series of webcasts that cover topics from different angles. They also like “personalities”. Our most successful series was in the security domain and was hosted by an ex-hacker. We called the series “Jack the Hacker”…and got hundreds of security pros to attend. Seems like a theatrical approach can help in tech marketing as well….
April 23rd, 2006 at 8:50 pm
I’ve seen some statistics that show that podcasts are a great lead-in to white papers, as such, many tech podcasts will reference white papers as the call to action.
It makes sense, given many podcast content focus strategies are bottom-up, with helpful and userful content –rather than a ‘hard pitch’.
April 24th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Webinars: Quantity and composition
In terms of the question on how often and on what topic, we have seen very good traction for our clients from a formula of 2-1 for any given solution. That is, we set up a series of three webinars.
The first two events are designed to capture a wide audience and positioned as educational. If possible we use a partner or recognized authority within the space as a draw. There is very little pitching of the solution in these events, rather we are setting up the problem in general terms and discussing possible approaches, best practices etc. for solving it.
The third webinar of the series is a clear cut sales event, and is clearly labeled as such. While we see fewer attendees to these events, they are always more qualified.
For our educational webinars, we see registration in the 150 - 200 range with approximately 50% attendance. For our sales event, we see an average of 80 registrants with again a 50% attendance. We use primarily mass e-mail to drive registrations, using both our house list and enlisting our partner if any to do the same.
One way to increase your leads per dollar is to record your webinar and post it behind a registration page. We have found that with additional mentions in other promotion, we will see another 50% bump in the number of registrants after the event!
In answer to the barrier of entry for webinars, there are a number of companies that offer webinar services “by-the drink”. While the per-minute costs are higher, there is no commitment. As I am unsure of the rules for listing vendors, I invite you to contact me at bruce@hiddenforge.com for specific options.
April 24th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Thank you Marilou for the feedback on what I can do to increase my company’s webcast attendance and how the copy should be written from a benefit perspective.
Would you be able to provide me with some samples of what you had written in the past? Some examples of topics from different angles would also be great.
Once again, thank you for your comments.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:38 am
I agree much with what Christine K. had to say. I see much more qualified leads come out of a webinar/webcast than with a white paper promotion…it’s not even close.
One thing to take into consideration, was this a live webinar or an on-demand webinar? Both a recorded and live webinar I feel would still deliver more qualified leads vs the white paper, but a live webinar typically yields higher registrations and are slightly more qualified.
Also in response to the question Karen L asks on how to determine webcast frequency - we took the approach of starting small and increasing the number of times we ran it. (we started with one a month and had it recorded to fill the gaps. ) If we sent out one mail promoting the webinar and filled it, it was time to schedule another, and so on and so forth for each coming month.
April 26th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Coming from a tech background, I can see more benefits to white papers. For example, it most certainly helps with SEO, whereas search engines can’t index webcasts yet. In addition, why are webcasts considered better than a conference call or making your own video / presentation and posting it on your website? Especially with the high costs, I remain skeptical.
April 27th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Aaron - you are correct that search engines (of today) have a much easier time indexing a “written document” vs. rich media. This will change but we are not quite there yet. One thing to note is webcast often have a full transcript available so that a viewer can read along with the spoken presentation. We have seen that that webcasts can be extremely successful. They give you the opportunity to speak directly to interested prospects. A successful webcast can help you create buzz in industry about latest technology, enhance brand, align your company with leading experts and generate leads that allows you to convert interested viewers into prospects
April 27th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Joe –
We typically don’t see that live webinars generate a stronger lead count compared to on-demand webinars. It always comes back to the webinar’s content (title, topic, and timelessness). That’s the ultimate diffentiator.
April 28th, 2006 at 8:25 am
We also keep the webinars on our website after the event has passed. When we do this, we have text and SEO phrases attached to that particular document so that the search engines will be able to index a so called “rich media” document.
April 28th, 2006 at 11:30 am
Karen -
Same webcast - live vs. recorded, same amount of promotion targeting registrations. I’ll take the live any day, because I have seen a clear difference in both registrations and when we have people follow-up on recordings, we find a fair percentage has registered, but never actually viewed the content.
A major plus with a live webinar is a Q and A session, where people can get quick answers to their questions on the fly. Recorded webinars don’t offer this as effectively.
I’m also going to give a little more weight to a lead that takes an hour out of their busy day, that might not be convenient for them, but they do it anyway - vs. somebody that can watch it at their leisure (or not watch it).
No offense, but (title, topic, and timelessness) I agree are of utmost importance, but are also an excuse for low registrations by webinar vendors. I’m not looking to give anybody bad advice, I’ve been doing this a long time - both with vendors and within-house, I’m not speculating, this is a very large part of our lead generation.
May 3rd, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Benefit-focused copywriting-why it matters
A couple of you asked for examples of promotional copy that we’ve seen to be effective in supporting clients’ marketing efforts. Rather than share specific client examples, I’d prefer to give you some overall tips that reflect our Best Practices for effective promotion. You can also check out our posted Best Practices link for even more specific suggestions.
When you think about it, your email marketing copy makes or breaks your ability to get the right leads and a lot of leads for your webcasts or white papers. You’ve got to break through the clutter right from the get-go. This means your subject line has to work.
We have found subject lines that identify a benefit in the content or the product being promoted work a lot better than subject lines that “show off” the merits of the item being marketed.
IT prospects don’t initally care as much about why your content or solution is so superior to others. Rather, they are focused on why they should spend time reading the white paper or attending the webcast. They want to be educated, they want short-cuts for their due diligence process, they want easy to understand strategies. They want to know how to avoid wrong decisions or traps.
So provide them with this by organizing your content around these pain points. Examples of the most effective subject lines approaches we’ve used; “Ten Most Important Tips for researching Intrusion detection solutions”….” or “5 Key Strategies to evaluating (technology solution) ” or “The Complexities of (technology solution) simplified”.
The body copy following these subject lines may continue to discuss the problem the IT professional has around the subject at hand and point out how the white paper/webcast will offer sound advise or clear up confusion on the topic.
In general, put yourself in the mindset of the reader, the IT pro who has to research something, make a recomendation for a short list and eventually suggest a finalist. Your first attempts at capturing his attention must highlight what you can do to make this entire process simpler.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
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