Generating More Sales at a Lower Cost: The Return-on-Investment (ROI) Case for Webinars

Webinars May be Your Best Marketing Tactic
Using criteria of reach – the ability to capture the attention of 100% of your target market – and impact, as judged by the marketing tactic’s ability to move the prospect further in the buying process (to a sale), many popular marketing tactics were compared to webinars.
See the chart below for a visual representation of the reach and impact of these lead generation vehicles. Webinars compare favorably by having the most reach and nearly the most impact and hold the favored upper right (most-desired) position. Webinars also do not suffer from the same limitations as many other marketing tactics. For example, face-to-face seminars arguably offer more impact but offer little reach. And, newer web tactics like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click have limited reach because popular search terms are so hypercompetitive that it is difficult to break the log jam and gain the top 10 organic search results or the favored top positions for ads.

Webinars Offer Some Compelling Benefits
Webinars can be powerful and effective marketing tools for many reasons.  Webinars are generally a high ROI vehicle. They are so cost-effective because:
 - They are intimate - your sales message reaches your audience right at their office, desk, or home.
 - They use both oral and visual elements to communicate your message.
 - They are relatively inexpensive to deliver and record.
 - They allow the audience to submit interactive feedback.
 Companies can get tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people to see their webinars with little incremental delivery cost. Also, firms can use their top speakers to put their “best foot forward” to their target audience without taking much of their speakers’ valuable time.
And through use of on-demand recordings, webinars are available to prospective buyers when and where they want to view them, sometimes for 12 months after the event or more.

Trends Which Make Webinars Popular Today
Here are three trends which are making webinars popular with both marketers and your buyers.

Pressure to Boost Email Response Rates
Email open rates are declining because spam has again polluted this previously fertile promotional vehicle. According to Osterman Research in January of 2007, 54% of messaging professionals view spam as “a serious or very serious problem.”  Marketers are using higher-value offers such as webinars to encourage higher email response rates.

Increased Demand for Interactive Content
Your buyers’ use and control of their media has raised their expectations for what they want from vendors.  Most live webinars contain a question and answer session with the expert and/or vendor, allowing for interactivity and answering your buyers’ top questions on a topic or about a product or service.

Demand for Webinars in the Buying Process
Finally, consider that buyers of complex services or expensive products simply want to use webinars in the buying process. A recent study from online media leader TechTarget found that 73% of their audience viewed at least one webinar in the past 3 months, and 84% of those viewers contacted the sponsoring vendor via email or phone.
Webinars are perfectly positioned at the intersection of all of these trends and, as a result, can become a valuable tool in the marketing arsenal – one that can improve the Return-on- Investment from your marketing dollars through qualified sales leads and more revenues. Now let’s examine how this tactic compares to other popular marketing vehicles.

The Formula for ROI from Marketing Webinars
The formula for understanding (and then creating more) ROI from your webinars is simple. You only need to track a few numbers to know how you are doing today, and by understanding the formula it gives you the power to improve the numbers in your favor.

Number of Webinar Leads
The first component is the number of webinar leads created. These leads generally include respondents to both live and recorded webinar offers.

Conversion Rate of Leads to Opportunities or Sales
This is the conversion percentage rate from a lead (webinar registrant or attendee) to a sale. For example, if 100 people register for your webinar and 10 buy within 90 days you may say you have a 10% conversion rate from webinar lead to sales.