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Are webinars an inbound or outbound marketing technique? Or both?
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Secrets to Webinar Success
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4 Answers
I would say, both. Webinars are increasingly being used as effective B2B marketing tools because they enable you to effectively engage with your prospect.
When you use an ‘outbound’ marketing vehicle, like an e-mailer or social media tools to announce a webinar and invite people to register, then it becomes an ‘outbound’ marketing strategy.
Facilitating your website visitor to register for the webinar by having a banner/landing page significantly placed on your website announcing it, or helping a user easily find the webinar information through organic searches, makes it an ‘inbound’ marketing technique. Additionally, once the webinar is complete, having the content (recording/presentation/transcript/Q&A's ) arising out of the webinar strategically placed on your website, tagged to the right 'keywords', would make it an effective 'inbound' marketing resource.
Might I say neither?
INBOUND: I've never found that webinars provide good SEO value. Their content is hidden (from search engines) behind a registration wall and the registration page / microsite is only marginally effective for generating search traffic, since it's not a "pure" content page.
OUTBOUND: Webinars are closer to outbound marketing - with the slight twist being that you rely on outbound marketing (e.g. email blasts and the like) to promote the webinar in the first place ;-)
AFTER your webinar is over, here are some tips on how to leverage it for inbound marketing:
1) Post the slides to your web site (and to SlideShare.net).
2) Slice up the presentation material into a series of blog postings.
3) Post the transcript of your Q&A to your web site or blog.
4) For questions the presenter didn't have time to answer, post the questions (and answers) to your web site [you could also post the questions here on Focus.com].
5) Record a post-event video of your presenter - post the video to your web site and to YouTube.
Hi Christopher - Teleseminars should be both an inbound and outbound marketing technique. Here's how I use it:
1. I use teleseminars to re-engage clients and prospects so I can stay on top of their minds. I also use it to segment my current list as I have specific autoresponders for the different teleseminars. This way they get more information on products and services related to the topic as they showed interest by signing up for the training.
2. I use it to convert my social media lists (Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections and Twitter followers) onto my main list as I send out event notices and blog postings that have a call-to-action to sign up for my free article marketing teleseminars.
3. I distribute articles that give a sneak preview of the information I will be revealing during my free article marketing teleseminars. At the end of the blog post that I distribute in a number of LinkedIn groups (following the advice of LinkedIn Marketing Expert Kristina Jaramillo at http://www.getlinkedinhelp.com
There was an interesting article a few weeks back on the Dilbert Blog about how we were wired to have an either/or mindset - if it wasn't one, it had to be the other.
But it isn't about inbound or outbound. There is a bigger picture here. One which people with sales training will probably understand quicker than marketers
"Before you can sell a product you have to sell yourself", goes the mantra. "Build a bridge. Get people to respect what you say."
If you read a newspaper, you start to recognise the Bylines. Start to think "I'll read this article because it comes from someone whose views I trust and respect". This does the same for B2B publishing/content marketing.
We are wired to make our decisions from face to face meetings. To listen to nuances. To mark speed of speech and clarity of expression, not just clarity of thought. To look at body language and decide "Do I like this person? Are they like me?"
Webinars are the best way out there of gaining this respect in the early stages of the buying cycle. If you present a webinar, you automatically become a Thought leader on the subject. You also become the face of your product, company and brand. It works even better if there is a little bit of video in there so they can see you (in all your glory) talking to them.
This means that next time your prospect receives an email with your name on it, they are more likely to open it, read it and take action on it. It means that your subsequent messages will be taken in more receptively. That they will want to join online conversations where you're involved or even meet you. Look at people like Brian Solis or David Meerman Scott to see where this can take you.
But this has a downside. Garble a presentation, voice-over some poor slides or just be boring and people will switch off to what you say, no matter how good you are in print. you only have one chance to make that vital first impression.
So where does this fit with inbound v outbound. Webinars make your subsequent outbound more effective. Webinars are good content which will make people more likely to visit your site. They are both. And neither.
But they're now a vital part of sales engagement.
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