Continual addition of new customers and retaining existing customers is imperative for the growth of any business. Given the highly dynamic market place and searing competition, relying only on a single sales channel to bring in greater leads is a risky proposition.  Savvy B2B marketers are now recognizing the limits of conventional web applications for generating qualified sales leads and are switching to newer lead generation solutions to ensure a continuous stream of qualified leads. In addition to providing typical reporting that legacy online marketing supports, novel lead generation solutions  can even automate the string of leads through the pipeline so that sales can focus on only the most qualified leads.

What is a lead generation solution?

A lead generation solution is a process that generates greater number of targeted prospects for a business.  From physical banner ads to e-marketing, a company can choose various lead generation solutions to enhance its customer base.

Amongst a myriad of lead generation solutions available, choosing what would work best for your business (in minimum cost) is a challenge. A good choice would be solutions that support latest technology, help you generate and nurture leads, establish your brand identity effectively and fit your marketing budgets. Here are a few considerations while selecting a lead generation solution.

Nurturing leads through lead generation solutions

Digital lead generation solutions are not only a good way to bring in more leads, they are also an excellent platform for lead nurturing and keeping in touch with leads acquired previously. Consider this. Through a unique lead nurture program conducted by HubSpot using webinars, the company was able to rekindle large number of lost opportunities from previous years.

The results of this program are impressive. In an interesting blog post, Prashant Kaw summarizes how HubSpot leveraged webinars to invite new and rekindle old leads over a period of four weeks. Prashant writes that on average they “re-awakened” just over 300 cold leads and 47 lost opportunities per webinar! And they achieved this through engaging Q&A during webinars to learn how the needs of old leads had changed and starting relevant new conversations. Nurturing old leads through webinars is a unique way to rekindle the fizzled out old conversations. You never know when a closed lead will re-open — and you can only find out by re-trying in different ways.

How to choose between multiple lead generation solutions?

An effective solution should be cost effective, flexible, and cutting edge.

Cost effective- shoe string marketing budgets have forced the marketers to pick up avenues that yield better quality leads in minimum cost. Online marketing or digital marketing solutions powered by Web 2.0 technologies are being increasingly preferred over the traditional means because of their low cost and greater ROI.

Flexible- Technology has made the marketing landscape very dynamic. You need lead generation solutions that are flexible and adaptable to the frequently changing demands of the market and customers.

Cutting edge- from emails to e newsletters, social media, forums and online discussions, an effective lead generation solution should be capable of sourcing quality leads from multiple avenues. You can now leverage the technology to promote webinars, events, white papers, case studies, ebooks etc. to bring in newer prospects every day.

More and more companies are successfully using webinar marketing to promote their products or services for lead generation. Even though this trend is growing, lack of effective webinar planning and promotion continues to kill the real impact webinars can have for marketers.

Here are some tips that you can use for promoting your webinars for cogent lead generation.

• When to begin

If you begin too soon, prospects may forget that they registered for your webinar ever. Ideal time gap between promotion and actual event should not be more than 10 days. During this duration you may explore multiple online channels to create a buzz around your webinar. Another significant factor for webinar marketing is that people may not sign up for your webinar in one go.  You can send variable ads or reminders to your target audiences to entice them for the webinar.

• 50-50 rule

On an average 50% registrants may drop off from the main event.  Therefore, it is important to continue webinar marketing even if you meet your target number of registrants. One, this helps in bring in fresher registrants and second, it keeps the registrants engaged for long.

• Who Should Attend?

Be very clear about your selection criteria for registrants. Webinar marketing may bring leads in abundance, but they would be of no use of they are not your target prospects.  To avoid this, market your webinar in relevant domains and create a landing page that filters the right prospects for you.

• Conduct trials

These are important to ensure no last minute technology hang-ups. This also helps better the coordination between the speaker, technology expert and the moderator. The technology guy must know which screen to show when, while the moderator must know form where to take on.

• Keep it short

Customers are always on a move. Gaining and retaining their attention becomes imperative. To keep them engaged till the end, keep the webinar duration short, and emphasize this feature while promoting your webinar.

• Send reminders

Send reminders to registrants two days and then one day before the event. The reminders should be short and interesting. They should build prospects curiosity about your event and drive them towards actually attending the event.

• Oh, you missed it

Share webinar recordings with those registrants who missed your event. This helps in keeping them in loop for future events, while nurturing them as prospect leads.

WebFishery’s webinar marketing and webinar lead generation services help you get ‘Qualified’ Webinar Leads to register and attend your webinar campaigns.

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Choosing the Right Webinar Strategy

For your webinar to be impactful, it is important that you choose the right webinar strategy. Your webinar strategy must focus on deriving maximum customers from the total registrants for a given webinar. Here are four different webinar strategies that you may consider for delivering a cogent webinar.

Webinar Strategies for Promoting a Product:

A free webinar to promote a product to potential buyers should provide complete information about your product. From its features and benefits to purchase and maintenance costs- everything should be explained clearly through the webinar. By strategizing your webinar with high quality content that has only a bit of sales pitch towards the close, you can help viewers understand what benefits they can relish from your product and coax them towards a quick buying decision.

Webinar Strategies for Service Promotion:

Webinar strategy for promoting a service works well when you have a complicated product at hand to promote. In this case, your webinar strategy should be more educational in nature and teach viewers how to do something that they want or need to learn. At the end of the webinar, suggest how your services will help them accomplish the task. Since, most people are likely to hire someone to perform a complicated task for them; this strategy may yield more customers for you.

Webinar Strategies for Promoting a Webinar Class

You can start with a free webinar that convinces your prospects to register and attend your webinar class. The promo webinar should be extremely informative and should generate a need amongst the viewers to take the next level webinar class. It is advisable to include a brief introduction to the subject and interactive brainteasers in the webinar content to keep the audiences engaged for the next webinar class.

Webinar Strategies for Product Launch

The content strategy for a product launch webinar is similar to the one for promoting a product. In this case however, you present the same webinar to multiple groups of people at different times. Therefore, it is important that your webinar is customized to suit the needs of each target group.  That is, along with explaining the general features and benefits of your product, the webinar should also include unique features/benefits that are specific for a particular audience group.

These webinar strategy help you deliver information with a greater impact while ensuring improved business benefits from your webinars.