Events ROI: The webinar option
Jinfo Blog

By Ann Marie Plankey

Abstract

Live events aren't what they used to be, in terms of traffic or ROI. Consider the effective alternative for generating leads and building a strong presence in the professional development world of your audience: webinar sponsorship.

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Live events, conferences and exhibitions were once the gold standard of cementing relationships with customers and generating new leads efficiently. An organisation with a strong events department could focus creative attention on strong visuals, well-trained staff for the stand, and a few clever approaches to drawing traffic, and thus build lead pipelines to carry the sales staff for months at a time.

At the same time, live events have offered vendors a way to participate in the professional development needs of their customers. The more vendors understand what customers' concerns are and the problems they are trying to solve, the easier it is for vendors to support them, to mutual benefit.

What's changed?

But the economics of events have changed dramatically in the past few years. Today's workers are feeling more stretched than ever to achieve more in less time. Often the barrier to attending conferences and exhibitions isn't the cost of travel or registration as much as it is the time away from the office.

Buyers used to rely significantly on exhibitions to learn what new products might be coming onto the market. That too has changed: Today it's relatively easy to research, evaluate and test products without ever leaving your desk.

With these changes, many vendors are rethinking their strategy -- and expenditures -- for attending, exhibiting at and sponsoring live events. Whilst there are still important benefits only available in a face-to-face environment, it no longer makes sense to invest heavily or solely in many live events over the course of a year.

How to replace that valuable lead generation? And is there a way for vendors to retain that ability to tap into, support and learn from the professional development needs of their customers.

Webinar sponsorship provides a unique and valuable approach to both lead generation and engagement in professional development. FreePint Webinars connect vendors with highly targeted audiences through effective distance learning, developed and staffed through FreePint experts and contributors.

The process

FreePint Webinars are produced in close collaboration with sponsors. Sponsors work with our distance learning team to select topics designed to attract a strong audience. The FreePint team then gets to work on identifying speakers, developing content and marketing the event to bring together an audience of professionals for the session. Webinars are also recorded so that those who cannot attend the live session can still benefit.

Topics are rarely directly related to a sponsor's own products or services -- these are not product demos! Rather, they address the professional development needs of practitioners in the field. The trick is to build events around "pain points" that also identify the kinds of professionals who make good leads for the sponsor. 

Sponsors have access to the full registration list for the live event as well as any registrants who request access to the archive. On average FreePint Webinars generate between 100 and 400 targeted leads, depending on the specific topic and the goals of the sponsor.

Return on investment

We recently spoke with a vendor who had spent £8,200 exhibiting at a major show and generated 70 strong leads from that event - a cost of approximately £117 per lead. Consider the way the investment and return stacks up for a webinar sponsorship:

This table does not even include the softer costs of staff time to attend the event or opportunity cost of being unavailable for other projects during that time.

View to the future

Live events continue to offer a unique and valuable setting for face to face meetings, but they are no longer the only option (or even the best option) for building a fresh pipeline of targeted leads. Even the long-standing Online Information UK has shifted to a conference-style even rather than an exhibition, seriously curtailing the opportunties for vendors to connect with a multitude of prospects.

Luckily, webinars offer a meaningful and measurable alternative. Partner with FreePint to sponsor one and find out how valuable they can be as part of your overall lead generation mix.

Learn more about sponsoring FreePint Webinars, and then request a proposal to get started. Only limited slots remain for 2012.

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