Last updated on September 5th, 2022 at 03:39 pm
Webinars have always been an excellent opportunity to generate warm leads. Now with more frequent remote events, knowing how to book meetings from webinars has become an essential part of the sales playbook.
In fact, one survey shows that 89% of customers believe webinars are the best channel for producing qualified leads.
It makes sense. What better place to prospect than an event where leads participate in engaging discussions around your industry or solution?
Still, low-hanging fruit is still fruit you have to pick. That’s why timely, personalized outreach following a webinar is critical to converting these potential buyers. Marketing has done its part in delivering value through relevant content. Now it’s time for your sales team to make good on the opportunities.
Below, we’ll run through some of the best practices for your sales team to take when it comes to booking meetings from webinars.
Segment your audience
In order to personalize your follow-up (which we’ll get into more detail shortly), you’ll need to segment your leads. Doing so gives your team the best chance at success by narrowing down the prospect pool into which categories to target immediately and which to nurture.
A great place to start would be separate those leads who attended the webinar from those who simply registered. Both have their value, obviously, but for the time being, you’ll need to prioritize the leads who are the hottest based on their engagement at the event.
Marketing can assist in this step by helping pre-qualify leads with polls that gauge their need and interest. While more effective when given during the webinar instead of after, this tactic is still highly effective in separating the creme from the crop.
In addition to narrowing your focus on the here and now, audience segmentation can help your team reassess your ideal customer profile (ICP) as a part of your greater outreach strategy.
Webinars produce valuable insight by benchmarking your initial ICP against those who showed interest by attending.
Follow up ASAP
With your prospect list sorted, it’s time to strike while those who are interested remain hot.
Typically, we’d recommend waiting a couple of days before sending a follow-up email. However, to stay fresh in their mind, it’s important to respond to leads within 24 hours of the webinar.
To clarify, this goes for both attendees and no-shows. The former should receive a simple thank you email, maybe as a brief video, that gives the lead a clear CTA to take. You could also send a recording of the webinar or slide deck that summarizes the most important points.
Regardless, the key is to offer value in a concise, subtle way that demonstrates your appreciation for their attendance while feeding them more content.
Leads who registered but didn’t attend require a similar approach.
For the same reasons outlined above, you’ll want to follow up as soon as possible with a link to webinar content. As a matter of fact, registrants are more likely to expect a replay of the webinar or presentation slides of the webinar given their absence. The content can be packaged with a simple message expressing how you’re sorry they couldn’t attend.
Whether you’re targeting hot or cold leads, you’ll need to be swift in delivering your first response. Even if they’re not ready to buy right this second, you’re still responsible for fostering and building the foundation of a long-term relationship.
Share relevant material
To remain top of mind, you’re going to need a steady feed of material to nurture leads following a webinar. We’ve already covered the value of a webinar recording but sustained outreach with hot leads calls for more personalized, relevant material.
The importance of segmenting your audience of leads early on defines how you’ll conduct your outreach at this stage. For example, with hot leads who’ve shown the most interest, you’ll want to send a white paper or case study that best addresses any of their unique pain points or challenges that were perhaps revealed by their participation in the webinar.
Email templates are of course helpful but don’t become too reliant on simply editing in a first name or company in the subject line. The good practice of a little research into a prospect’s profile, including a look at their particular interests, can go a long way to eliciting responses.
This step also highlights how critical it is to align sales and marketing teams. Aside from spearheading the webinar and creating the content, marketing provides the necessary insights into prospect behavior that sales uses to target and covert those who are quickly moving through the funnel.
Connect across multiple channels
Creating multi-touch email campaigns and sequences designed around your segmented leads is the go-to strategy following a webinar. But to maximize the effectiveness of your outreach, you’ll need to spread your efforts out across multiple channels.
Use social media outlets to direct prospects back to your email. Mix some friendly, short LinkedIn touches into your email sequence. Sometimes just connecting with a prospect and dropping them a thank you for the connection can be enough to spur conversation.
The idea is to get yourself in front of their eyes. LinkedIn is one of the best ways to do that.
The time-honored tradition of cold calling is another means to grab a prospect’s attention.
There’s no hurry to close a deal over the phone. A simple “did you see my email? or “hey, thanks for attending the webinar, we’re sending you some more material” is enough to keep them warm. Even better, registrants who submitted their phone numbers are basically doing your work for you.
Booking meetings from webinars is no different from your regular, everyday outreach. If anything, it should be easier to lead prospects into a call.
Regardless, you should keep your campaigns agile and reach out from multiple sources to increase your chances of success.
Nurture cold leads
Finally, don’t forget about cold leads.
We touched on this earlier, but it’s important to plug any non-attendees who registered into their own campaigns. In reality, they aren’t that cold if they were registrants and odds are most who registered won’t attend.
That’s a considerable pool of leads with whom you can cultivate a relationship.
At the very least, they should be kept in mind for future events. Since they’re already familiar with your content, they’ll be more likely to engage or register for the next webinar.
Your job is to continue offering value after the event is over. Leveraging “fear of missing out” (FOMO) is another excellent way to entice them with emotion.
While they may not receive the same level of personalization as a hot lead, cold leads still deserve their own share of attention. B2B enterprise sales is defined by the long game.
Your follow-up strategy should strike a balance between actively targeting attendees with bespoke messaging and laying the foundation for future opportunities by slowly nurturing cold webinar leads.
Final thoughts
Webinars remain one of the most effective avenues for generating prime opportunities sales can capitalize on. Don’t let these relatively easy chances to book meetings pass you by.
Ultimately, your team defines how to implement its strategy, but these five steps should give you a starting framework to use according to the needs and demands of your organization. Keep the conversation alive with a mix of your own insights and those listed here.
