Calculating your webinar ROI | The Streaming Network

Producing a webinar can be a great expense for a business. If your webinar is not generating a positive ROI, it can be a great loss of time and resources. While some businesses experience great engagement and a recurring audience, many are unfamiliar with calculating the ROI of their webinar.

This week, we’ll discuss how to accurately calculate webinar ROI, and why it’s important to adjust your content accordingly.

Promotional Strategies

Looking at revenue generation is the last step. First start with your promotional strategies. How are you bringing in the leads that potentially become buyers?

Begin with how you advertise your webinar program. For example:

  • Email Campaigns
  • Social Media Posts
  • Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads

Measure how many leads are coming in through each source. Pro tip: Ensure that you are using UTM parameters on your promotional activities to see how leads are reaching your landing page or website. This is important for calculating webinar ROI as you should be tracking how much these leads (webinar registrants) are costing you at the initial stage.

Lead Scoring

After engaging with your leads over various campaign techniques, your webinar registrants turn into attendees. Enable proper lead scoring techniques to have an idea as to who is considered a good or poor Market Qualified Lead (MQL).

Examples of poor MQLs are leads that watch less than 50% of your content. They do not engage with your webinar – they don’t ask questions or answer polls. In this scenario, revisit your content and determine if you are speaking to the right audience or if your content isn’t relevant.

For your good MQLs, track their progression into buyers. If less than 10% of your good MQLs are not buying your product once they hit the sales stage – revisit your lead scoring.

The goal here is to ensure that a good number of MQLs are converting into buyers. That’s where your revenue comes in.

Alternative Costs

Producing webinars is very costly once you incorporate expenses such as:

Be wary of physical expenses when doing your cost-benefit analysis.

Keeping track of all your expenses may be difficult. Simplify the process. Download our Webinar Program ROI Checklist to see if your webinar program is profiting.

Let’s Recap

Webinars are a great content marketing tool, so it’s imperative to calculate webinar ROI to ensure that you are properly leveraging this strategy.

First start with your promotional strategies. Who are your registrants and how are they coming onto your landing page?

Once your registrants start turning into attendees, enable proper lead scoring. Make sure that you are correctly finding your high-quality MQLs.

Lastly, keep tabs on your expenses, as they will pile up.

Locate inefficiencies if you are seeing higher costs. Seeing low attendee engagement? Adjust your content to make it more relevant. Use our ROI Checklist to track how your money is being spent.

Matthew Ley

Matthew Ley

Matt Ley is the current President and co-founder of The Streaming Network. Starting his career in virtual events in 2007, Matt is an industry veteran that is passionate about helping customers stand out in their industry with compelling virtual events that people want to attend. The driving ambition for Matt is that virtual events are not a utility for information distribution but an opportunity for firms to create a competitive advantage. Matt is an accomplished speaker, moderator and a sought-after thought leader.

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