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4 Ridiculous Myths About Small Company Webinars

Eric_Rudolf — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:19:20 +0000

A few weeks ago I was catching up on my industry reading, when I came across a consultant-generated white paper called 9 Management Practices for Exceptional Webinars. For someone who conducts a marketing-related Webinar at least twice per month within my own small company, I thought this article would be a quick way to pick up a few pointers. But as I browsed the Table of Contents, I realized the report’s 31 thesis-equivalent pages were not written for small companies like mine, but for “Best in Class” firms who were being advised to do things like:

Assemble cross-functional Webinar teams;
Invest in Webinar project plans;
Involve third party vendors;
Purchase Pay-per-Click advertising; and
Involve telemarketing firms to follow up with attendees.

And almost immediately, something occurred to me. With big company consultants scaring the hell out of people, it’s no wonder more small companies don’t use Webinars in their Marketing strategy.

The fact is, for a few hundred dollars and four hours worth of time, any company—regardless of size—can run a successful Webinar. And as a first step in getting you to believe me, I would like to start by dispelling a few myths about the small company Webinar process.

Myth #1: You Have to Spend a Ton of Money.

Sure, there are a handful of massive Webinar providers who require year-long contracts and $30,000 down payments. But for every industry giant there is a smaller provider waiting in the wings, offering the exact same features and service for a fraction of the cost and commitment. One in particular that comes to mind is iLinc Web and Video Conferencing, where my company gets the same bells and whistles as the big guys offer—automated registration, reminder emails, free recording, unlimited events, and so on—for about $400 per month.

Myth #2: You Need an Entire ‘Team’ of People.

Contrary to the white paper I mentioned previously, participation from Marketing, Management, Sales, Customer Service and Finance (huh?) is not required to host a successful Webinar. In fact, to host a Webinar you really only need two things: a presenter, and a coordinator. And the division of work? Simple. The presenter creates the slides and delivers the presentation, while the coordinator works behind the scenes to set up the Webinar software, monitor the Webinar when it’s running, and handle the recorded version once it’s done. It sounds easy . . . because it IS easy.

Myth #3: You Need to Sell Something During Your Webinar.

One of the most frequent objections I hear from small company managers who avoid using Webinars is “I’m just not good at selling things.” However, the real question when deciding whether to host a Webinar should be “Am I good at TEACHING things?” Due to their ridiculously low cost, Webinars shouldn’t be viewed as sales presentations, but as opportunities to collect names of people who are interested in what you have to offer.

For Example: if your company sells popsicles, the title of your Webinar shouldn’t be 10 Reasons to Buy Popsicles from My Company. A much better approach would be to present something like The History of the Grapesickle or How to Eat a Popsicle Before it Melts All Over Your Hand. When it comes to Webinars, educational presentations should always be chosen over dog-and-pony shows.

The point is this: if you offer some clever and interesting education in exchange for a bit of contact information, you can always follow up later.

Myth #4: A Webinar is Considered a Failure if a Large Number of People Don’t Show Up.

If there is one aspect of planning and delivering Webinars that executives have the most trouble with, it is this: about 40% of registrants will make absolutely no effort to actually attend the event. But the good news is, other than denting the ego of the speaker, these absentee registrants are completely irrelevant when it comes to evaluating the success (or failure) of a Webinar event. Sure, a massive live audience can increase the amount of feedback and questions. But the fact is, whether or not they actually show up, you still have their contact information—and contact information is THE most valuable piece of this entire equation. Plus, if you are truly concerned about educating the 40% who didn’t show up, you can simply record the Webinar event (a free service provided by most Webinar platforms) and send them a link to the recorded version later.

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Is it a Lead or Not? Getting Marketing and Sales to Agree

Eric_Rudolf — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:57:56 +0000

Being in charge of filling a Sales pipeline is a tough spot for any Marketing person. Not only are legitimate sales opportunities difficult to find, but when it comes to actually defining what a ‘lead’ looks like, beauty is often in the eye of the beholder. There are literally dozens of ways to classify incoming inquiries generated by outbound marketing efforts, and every marketing and sales person has their favorite; which inevitably leads to two things: 1) Sales accusing Marketing of being incompetent, and 2) Marketing accusing Sales of being lazy.

The definition of the word ‘lead,’ over and above everything else, is the single most common reason Marketing and Sales people don’t mingle at the company picnic. And as a 17+ year marketing professional I can say with some degree of certainty that in most cases, it is our fault. Contrary to what we learned in the 1990s, a trade show attendee who swaps a business card for a blinky pen is not something a good sales person should be interested in. Neither is a name poached from a website, or the spouse of a friend who knows someone in the Purchasing Department at Company X. If we as Marketing people are ever going to regain the confidence of our counterparts in Sales, we need to understand the difference between things that feed a Sales pipeline, and things that should be feeding a paper shredder.

The Name

The first and therefore least significant thing a marketing person can pass along to sales is called a Name, and is defined as follows:

General contact information, acquired from a general source, where no context is given.

Note that use of the word ‘general’ twice in the above definition is not a mistake, but rather a way to diminish the perceived value of a Name. Marketing people acquire Names from any number of places—business card drops at a trade shows, website downloads, mailing lists, industry association member registers, and so on—but the manner in which a Name was acquired does not increase its value. Most Sales people are savvy enough to acquire a Name on their own, and have every right to be insulted when a Marketing person attempts to give them one and pass it off as something that has potential revenue attached to it.

The Lead

The second level of inbound inquiry, and the one most people are familiar with by name, is a Lead. The definition of a Lead—which applies to most companies and in most situations—is as follows:

The name and direct contact information of someone within your target demographic who is looking for more information, and has given your company permission to follow up with them.

As outlined above, there are four important components that must exist before Marketing can declare something a Lead:

Direct contact information;
Confirmation that the Name is within your target demographic;
A desire on behalf of the contact for more information; and
Permission to follow up.

What happens to a Lead after Marketing receives it varies from company to company. Some firms enter them into the Marketing ‘machine’ to receive automated follow up, some companies pass them to an Inside Sales-type of role for cultivation, and some companies pass them directly to an Outside Sales function. But wherever they are sent, Leads are the second-most valuable thing a Marketer can uncover, with the most valuable being . . .

The Opportunity!

The third type of marketing-driven inquiry—and the most difficult one to generate—is the Opportunity. An Opportunity is something Sales people expect, Marketing executives demand, and professional marketers rarely achieve. The definition of an Opportunity is as follows:

The name and contact information of someone who has expressed interest in making a purchase from you, has an established budget, and is either an influencer in the decision-making process or the primary decision-maker.

Based on this definition, in order to legitimately refer to an inquiry as an Opportunity, the following three things must exist in addition to the components listed in the previous section:

A demonstrated need for (or want of) whatever your company has to offer;
Verification that the money exists to purchase what is being offered; and
Proof that the contact can either make the decision, or bend the ear of someone who can.

Much like the word ‘general’ when referring to a Name, the words demonstrated, verification and proof carry special meaning here. All too often, Marketing people get caught in what I refer to as the Think-Feel-Believe Trap when passing prospects onto Sales—”I think they need what we offer, I feel the client has the money, and I believe the contact is a decision-maker.” If the prospect didn’t clearly and specifically state his or her need, budget and decision-making power, what you have is nothing more than a Lead, which will eventually a) require significantly more effort to close, and b) make your Sales Department mistrust you.

The bottom line is, filling a Sales pipeline as a marketer is about more than simply keeping the Sales staff busy. It’s also about maintaining your reputation and credibility with the people who depend upon you for their paychecks. The most sure-fire way to ensure a successful relationship between Marketing and Sales is for the departments to speak the same language, and hopefully this article will help. That way, Marketing and Sales can get back to arguing about issues that REALLY matter—like why Sales people never use the standard PowerPoint templates we make, or why Marketing people refuse to create brochures for products and services that don’t actually exist.