Sales Leads

Using Webinars to Generate Sales Leads

Good sales leads drive great sales strategies. But generating quality sales leads is a lot easier said than done. Webinars can be a productive tool in sales lead generation, but you need to know how to use them like the pros.

Technology is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Recognizing the value of new technologies, small businesses have embraced a vast array of technologies to increase efficiency, improve workflows and generate dramatically higher ROIs.

But when it comes to sales lead generation, many companies are stuck in the Dark Ages. Instead of using emerging technologies to attract qualified leads and prospects, sales teams often rely on mediocre strategies like phone solicitations and even cold calling.

Webinars are an online tool with great potential for lead generation. Sales professionals who regularly use webinars yield a higher volume of qualified leads than those who continue to use more traditional prospecting mechanisms. Although webinars require planning and careful execution to be effective, it's worth exploring the idea of incorporating them into your sales lead generation strategy.

What's a Webinar?

Webinars are an opportunity to inform a large potential customer base with a minimum amount of advanced legwork and no upfront calls. In essence, a webinar is a meeting. But instead of meeting with leads face-to-face, these meetings take place in an online environment. Although webinars can take a variety of forms, they are most commonly a series of slides or a video that is accompanied by audio that you provide. There are multiple software solutions and third-party providers for webinars, but you'll need to find the one that best meets your goals and budget parameters.

Elements of a Successful Lead Webinar

Content. The content of your webinar should be primarily informative. It's best if you can identify a topic that has a tangible benefit for your leads, e.g. reducing expenses, introduction to a new technology, etc. Although you can sometimes create webinars to demonstrate your product, straight-up product pitches will scare away webinar attenders.
Promotion. Most webinar solutions are equipped with webinar registration tools and online sign-up features. You'll want to combine these registration resources with promotional strategies that leverage your company's other online and offline resources including your website, email lists, blogs, newsletter and paid online advertising.
Follow-up. Since you're not doing a hard sell during the webinar, the success of the webinar is based largely on the amount of time and energy you invest in follow-up. Within a few days of the event, contact participants individually to discuss their impressions of the webinar material and to further the lead qualification process.