A recent MarketingProfs article quantified the impact of COVID-19 on marketing budgets: 88% of marketers expect to decrease investment in in-person events & conferences with a corresponding increase in virtual events and webinars. &Marketing recently helped a long time client manage this very dynamic to leverage their offering of a timely service.
Business Challenge Summary
Our client is a well known IT security provider with a knowledge base of experts who have created a proven solution to a pending regulatory requirement that impacts many businesses. However, a lack of awareness and understanding of the regulatory change, including the timing, requirements, and approval process, surrounds the need to become certified. An extra level of complexity exists because the certification has a range of “levels” based on the nature of the business.
Since the coronavirus pandemic became a reality in the early spring of 2020, the government has been emphatic that the timing and rigidity of these certification requirements will remain unchanged. This has caused further chaos with many impacted companies scrambling to become certified while working remotely. Fortunately, our client has a strong brand name within their industry, belongs to many trade associations, and has deep relationships that span decades.
Their aggressive sales goal has become even more challenging because the usual paths to prospects (networking events or in-person meetings) can’t be completed due to stay-at-home orders that were put in place due to COVID-19. The business leader turned to &Marketing to develop a lead generation strategy and plan, all while working from home.
&Marketing helped him solve some thorny issues, such as:
How he can leverage his company’s strong name and network to build awareness about their solution to this particular issue.
How they can add value without being overly salesy.
How they can establish themselves as thought leaders and the go-to solution for those in need of guidance.
How all of this could be accomplished while most of the country was self-quarantining.
&Marketing’s solution to these issues? A webinar pilot.
Because this was a pilot, the client’s senior management identified a success indicator of 10 engaged and qualified prospects on the webinar.
&Marketing’s Approach
Our team had a challenge ahead of them, given the circumstances. We needed to execute the pilot webinar within one month from project kickoff, from idea to execution. Our cross-functional team, including copywriting, creative, email marketing, and technology, executed a turnkey process for our client where & Marketing handled all the details, including:
The webinar technology, along with a “dry run” to ensure everyone could manage the tech and platform seamlessly
Coordinating the speakers, the presentation, and the delivery
Prospect invitations, signups, reminders, and follow-ups
Developing the content —which was fragmented across their organization— into a cohesive story both online and in a presentation format, through a mix of document review and expert interviews.
Aligning a disoriented client team who was adjusting to a remote working environment. This team included subject matter experts, speakers, and those with networks we wanted to leverage.
Results
We had 71 total webinar registrants and 50 qualified prospects attendees for the webinar. That’s 5x the original goal of 10 qualified leads. In addition to attendance, the engagement during the webinar and feedback upon conclusion were both strong. We saw:
- 70% attendance rate, which is 2x the industry average.
- An average score of 8.9 in the post-webinar survey, with no response below a 5.
- 80% of survey respondents want to hear more from our client on this topic, paving the way for more activity.
- 95% of attended who responded felt “somewhat” or “much more confident” navigating the regulatory change than they did prior to the webinar.
Most importantly, the client received inquiries from four attendees immediately after the webinar to potentially engage in their services. Several outstanding questions and potential future topics provided the sales team with plenty of follow-up opportunities. Additionally, a plan is in process with another webinar, along with a comprehensive content plan that puts our client’s expertise front and center.
The &Marketing team did a great job organizing this and keeping our team on track to deliver this webinar successfully as a lead generator. If we had done this internally it wouldn’t have gone as quickly or as smoothly. We ended up getting 5x our goal in terms of attendees and several meetings as a result of this webinar!
– DIRECTOR OF SALES AND OPERATIONS
