Webinars remain an important B2B marketing channel for generating quality leads and growing the sales pipeline. However, marketers must implement best practices to maximize webinar results. Hannah Drake Kelley, an account director at healthlaunchpad with significant webinar experience, recently shared proven tips.

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Webinars deliver on core marketing goals. 73% of B2B marketers find webinars generate the highest quality leads, with 20-40% of registrants becoming sales-qualified leads and 15% ultimately converting to customers. Webinars effectively showcase expertise and nurture prospects.

For benchmarking, averages show 260 registrations per webinar with 40% attending live. Aim for 100-110 attendees. Engagement increases with 90-minute webinars instead of 60 or 30 minutes. Also, one-third register within 24 hours, confirming the impact of persistent late promotion.

Common webinar pitfalls include inadequate planning, misleading titles overselling product propaganda, insufficient promotion, and poor sales follow-up squandering viable leads. Avoid these mistakes.

When planning webinars, identify topics addressing target buyer pain points rather than product features. Recruit speakers with credibility like existing customers or partners. Appoint moderators so speakers can focus solely on content delivery. Schedule Tuesday through Thursday afternoons targeting 1-3pm EST. Rehearse extensively pre-event.

Effective promotion requires compelling lead-capture landing pages summarizing core value propositions. Then launch email campaigns targeting customer databases and lists of prospects from target companies. Keep marketing the webinar until the last 24 hours when late registrations swell. Enlist sales for added amplification. Incentivize live attendance with giveaways. Promote extensively across all channels up to showtime.

During the webinar, rely on moderators to handle flow so speakers concentrate completely on enthusiastic content delivery, which engages audiences far more than tactical points. Incorporate interactive polls, not just Q&A sessions. Have behind-the-scenes staff manage technology and monitor real-time audience commentary.

Post-webinar, immediately send on-demand access and thanks to registrants. Provide sales tiered attendee lead lists based on engagement to prioritize follow-up. Resolve outstanding questions, re-purpose content, continue tracking impact on pipeline and revenue to guide ongoing strategy.

In summary, webinar success requires diligence across planning, promotion and production plus post-event sales and marketing coordination to fully capitalize on the lead generation opportunity. Committing to webinar best practices yields substantial rewards in quality leads, brand building and sales acceleration.

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