As we continue to dive deep into our Webinar Benchmark data we are finding some interesting trends. This week we are exploring the question:
“What types of Webinar content perform best?”
To get started let’s define what we consider a high performing Webinar. As we rarely get downstream data on ROI, we use the Webinar Benchmarks to measure success.
- Events with more than 500 live viewers.
- Events with better than a 43% conversion from registrant to live viewership.
- Events with average viewership times above 55 minutes.
- Events how receive a better than 20% bump in viewership in the on-demand period.
With that in mind here is what we learned here at The Streaming Network.
The How To Webinar
A high volume of the Webinars in the index are thought leadership based which all provide a level of educational content to the audience. When we dig into the numbers we find that a Webinar that promises to provide a detailed how to on a specific topic performs better than broad based content.
The value of the “10 Steps” approach steals from a convention in Adult Learning that states that we like knowing where are going and how we are going to get there. The linear nature of steps, promises that I will walk away with a roadmap that will get me where I want to be.
The “Case Study” or “Working Case”
This type of Webinar is generally used mid funnel where you are trying to influence the buyers preference. The premise of this Webinar format is generally taking a case study that you would normally deliver as a document and turning it into a Webinar format. Leveraging the cache of the customer itself, you follow the standard case study approach.
- The Customers’ past state.
- The issues that state created for their business.
- The solution you provided.
- The Customer’s present state with all the benefits of the solution.
Half of the value here is the customer’s voice. Now what’s the difference between the case study and the working case”? With the working case, it comes down to show format and like the how to Webinar, follows a step by step process. Remembering that you have an hour the working case takes you beyond the issue/resolution element of the case study and walks the audience through the process you took to get them from A to B.
Accreditation Drives Viewership
We don’t all have this option but if you provide the promise of a professional development credit you have a built in audience for your content. Accountants, HR professionals, Lawyers and Financial Advisors are just a sampling of audience members who require credits on a monthly basis and if you can be the one to bring it to them you are going to get a good turnout.
Our Webinar on Continuing Education Webinars
If you are like The Streaming Network and don’t have an audience who you can deliver actual accredited content to, another strategy is creating your own educational program that provides your own certification. For a few years we have been contributors to the Webinar Academy which provides a certification in Webinar Production and organized by our partner .
Join the Webinar Academy
The Joint Webinar
This is not so much a content type as a format but since it out-performs all other content types on this list it needs to be mentioned. The joint Webinar brings together like minded companies who often have a similar target market to provide their unique perspectives on a certain topic. Both (or all presenters at the table) promote the event, add to its cache and help in ensuring success.
The ABM Webinar below is a great example as it helped the team at Demand Metric go from being a top performing Webinar customer (by all the ratios above) to a top 9% Webinar customer generating greater than 1000 live viewers.
Click here to view the ABM Summit Webinar
