8 Best Practices in Webinar Audience Recruitment...email addresses, they can make a lot of sense. On this topic, I'll leave you with the thought that there's no one answer that fits

An End2End Solution for Webinar

Demand Creation

EIGHT BEST PRACTICES IN

WEBINAR AUDIENCE RECRUITMENT

WHITEPAPER

October 2009

Mike Agron and Bret Smith, Co-Principals, WebAttract


Demand Creation

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• Identifying the right audience/right

value proposition

• Optimum list sourcing and development

• Compelling messaging for email and

registration landing page

• Developing and executing a flexible

invitation strategy

• Promoting and driving webinar

registration


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #1

IDENTIFY THE RIGHT PROSPECTS

Every audience recruitment effort should begin with Identifying THE RIGHT PROSPECTS. As simple as

it sounds to define this, in our experience this is where we see many professionals fall short of the

mark. Identifying THE RIGHT PROSPECTS as it relates to successful webinar audience recruitment is

just like Sun Tzu's comment on the Art of War: “ in preparation, every battle is won before it has

begun”. Inversely, so is it lost!

So let's talk about how we can be successful in Identifying THE RIGHT PROSPECTS. First, we must

Isolate the value proposition. Now what do we mean by that? Well, clearly, the process of precisely

targeting the right prospects begins with segmentation, and segmentation begins with clearly defining

what you want to tell your audience!

Wikipedia tells us that segmenting is the process that a company uses to divide its market into distinct

groups who have distinct needs, wants, behavior or who might want different products & services.

And segmenting begins with isolating the value proposition. That is, EXACTLY what topic will you relay

information about?

This of course seems simple and, frankly, it is. But this step is crucially important for the next phase of

the process which is “Developing a Profile” of your best prospect on which to build your prospective

audience around. As an example...so you want to offer a new online CRM app to the marketing

community. GREAT! Which industries are you interested in connecting with?... And, within those

industries, marketing levels (c-level, director, etc.), and what functions, or titles, within marketing

(marketing communications, product marketing, channel marketing, direct marketing, vertical

marketing) do you seek? And so on. By answering these types of questions you will form your

prospect profile.

With that in hand, let's now define the audience based on that profile. Among other things, this

means beginning the phase of the process by sizing and locating your audience,. Do you want Fortune

1000 companies, or those with revenues between 10 and 50 million? What geography do you want to

pull from? Will your audience be current customers, or fresh prospects, or both?

The answers are sometimes more difficult to obtain, unless your company subscribes to one of the

many sources available out there, such as Hoover's, Dun & Bradstreet, ZoomInformation, and so on.

Of course, you can also pass control of this phase to others who can size and locate for you, such as list

brokers like ABI, InfoUSA and many, many others.

Regardless of how you size and locate your prospective audience, sooner or later, you need a means

to source the prospect data itself.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #1

• Isolate the value

proposition

• Develop prospect

profile

• Define your audience

based on the prospect

profile

• Consider your list

source

IDENTIFY THE RIGHT PROSPECTS

Best Practice

Segmenting prospects

into industries,

levels, departments

and roles

is crucially important.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #2

LIST SOURCING

There are four items you need to consider in making the right decision around list sourcing...

First, do you already have a purposeful list in-house? What I mean by that is have you built or acquired

a list that is profitable and segmental for this specific purpose and, if so, is sufficiently large enough to

drive a sizeable audience to your event. A customer list, or an acquired list you've used before with

success (subject obviously, to not having fatigued it) may provide higher response rates than a fresh list

of matching prospects, but these are often ones who've already heard your story.

So where do you find new "eyeballs" to see what you have to offer?

Well, I mentioned several previously like Hoover's, Dun & Bradstreet, ZoomInformation, ABI and

InfoUSA. And of course, there is Jigsaw, Spoke, Lead411, and many others, including industry-specific

databases for trade shows and publications. All have comparative advantages and disadvantages. Your

first 3 concerns, however, have less to do with those particulars than they do with how accurate, how

re-usable and what methodology is used.

Accuracy in list acquisition is always a challenge. While companies like ABI and InfoUSA are quite

reputable, we’ve all had more negative than positive experiences when going outside for a list. Why? I

would assert that list brokers can never know your prospective audience, your profiled prospect as well

as you can. But, more importantly, you simply don't get to see the data before you buy it, so you can't

"lay on" that extra layer of human intelligence that helps discern the little nuances like differences in

titles between industries, etc. And, typically, you don't get to see a brokered email list anyway, unlike a

mailing list. Typically, the companies will take your content and do the mailing for you. Again, you have

little opportunity to make the list more precise and accurate for your specific purposes.

Then there's the databases you can subscribe to like Hoover's and Dun & Bradstreet, but which don't

supply email addresses at all. And there's the trade show and publication databases, where typically

you are limited to one-time use, even if you can get the emails directly.

Of course, some of the new databases available such as Jigsaw and Spoke allow you to not only do your

own searches but also to access accuracy yourself based on how recently a record has been updated.

You can also acquire email addresses and use them on an unlimited basis. The cost however, can be as

much as a dollar a contact, and now you must manage the list for recency, frequency, fatigue and

accuracy yourself. You bought it, you own it. But is that necessarily what you want?

One advantage list brokers and databases offer are their defined methodologies for maintaining

recency, frequency, and accuracy. Clearly, most organizations (other than the largest) don't have

internal resources to invoke and sustain a list methodology for the long term.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #2

LIST SOURCING

• Profitable?

Segmental?

• In-house vs. outsource

• Accuracy, reusability

Best Practice

Consider the

comparative

advantages of using

list brokers versus

subscription

databases


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #3

LIST DEVELOPMENT

The last concern when acquiring or developing a list, and here it is: does your potential list broker,

database, or whatever, not only acquire contact data from a variety of sources, but does it use

comparative logic in its methodology to assess which contact data is most accurate across those

multiple sources?

A mouthful I know. But here's what we mean...if you could compare data on one prospect across

multiple sources, and make a logical choice as to which is more accurate, would it not be more

accurate than just looking within one resource based on when the record was last updated? Very

few companies are doing this today. InsideView is one of them but, on the matter of comparative

advantages and disadvantages, it tends to focus only on director and higher contacts and presently

only allows you to pull 2,000 contacts at a time. BUT, if you're looking for a small c-level list with

email addresses, they can make a lot of sense.

On this topic, I'll leave you with the thought that there's no one answer that fits all. But I must

comment on an emerging approach to increasing both accuracy and deliverability in list

methodology. WebAttract uses a methodology which converges traditional subscription based

contact data with social media, like LinkedIn, Plaxo, Pulse, etc. for highly accurate, highly deliverable

emailing. Think about it. The premise behind social networking is that information is voluntarily

supplied by the participant for the purpose of expanding social and professional contacts, furthering

careers and to do demand generation. It tends to be more accurate than COLLECTED data because it

can be verified or challenged by anyone in the network. It's self supplied and self-correcting. AND,

social networks like LinkedIn are huge. LinkedIn presently has 45 million members. Jigsaw, the

largest of the "you buy-you own" email databases, has only 15 million.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #3

LIST DEVELOPMENT

• Methodology

• Multi-channel contact

acquisition

Best Practice

Compare data on

prospects across

multiple sources for

maximum accuracy


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #4

COMPELLING INVITATION DEVELOPMENT

This brings us to the next step in the audience recruitment process, and that is the development of

messaging which is compelling enough to secure your group's interest and attract them as

audience members for your webinar. Of course, this means not only in email-based messaging but

also on your registration landing page, which I'll address next.

Apart from having the creative skills yourself, or someone that can provide them, there are four

important elements to remember, particularly as they pertain to email-based messaging:

First, write your message in the language of your expected audience. That is, take the time to

understand the vernacular of your profiled group, and use background information, press

coverage, white papers, etc. to provide a "language framework" around your topic that will best

resonate with your audience.

Next, leverage the credentials of contributing parties. Within the bio or experience of each party

there are little jewels of information that can be woven into the message to increase resonance

with your audience.

And, "Invite, enthuse, excite - but don't sell, and don't be over-exclamatory". Naturally, in inviting

your prospective audience to an INFORMATIONAL webinar, you most certainly do not want to be

commercial in your outreach to them. However, projecting a degree of enthusiasm about the

subject matter is important. Spark their interest, provoke their intellectual curiosity and make sure

they understand how excited you are to engage them.

It also goes without saying that you need to communicate "what's in it for them". Why will this

time be valuably spent with you? In an informational webinar, the value is in learning best

practices, "lessons learned" , metrics, ROI and case studies. You absolutely do not want to be

product-specific, delve into pricing or relate "features & benefits" the way you would in a straight

sales message.

Lastly, use a combination of HTML and plain-text messaging across multiple touchpoints. Think

about it... HTML messaging is excellent for communicating your brand through the use of logos,

colors, etc., and you don't want to lose the opportunity for raising brand awareness in recruiting

your audience. But unfortunately, HTML messaging, which contains HTML coding, is also a spam

trigger. So by sending one or more of your messages in HTML, and the remainder in plain-text, you

assure the best that each can afford...getting your brand effectively in front of the entire group,

while making certain that the majority of contacts SEE your message.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #4

• Compose in the

audience’s jargon

• Leverage credentials of

contributing parties

• Invite, enthuse, excite –

but don’t sell, and don’t

be over-exclamatory

• Be sure to express

“what’s in it for you”

• Utilize a combination of

HTML and plain-text

COMPELLING INVITATION DEVELOPMENT

Metric

57% higher response

rate when HTML and

plain-text messaging

are used across

multiple invitations


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #5

COMPELLING LANDING PAGE

DEVELOPMENT

The best landing pages I've seen present a concise expression of the webinar's

purpose/content. What we mean by that is the author takes the trouble to convey "why you

should register" without swamping the reader with too much information. After all, the

point of the email invitation is to do the informing, right? The point of the landing page is to

concisely restate the value proposition for the prospect, reinforce the reasons for

registering, and then get them registered!

Now, clearly, if you don't consume your prospect's available attention span with too much

additional, or restated, information, you can secure enough of their time to ask a couple of

questions designed to obtain pre-event intelligence for you that will be used to inform or

adjust your invitation strategy and even fine tune the presentation itself. Good questions

are “How did you learn about this webinar?” or “What would you like to learn from this

webinar?” You'd be surprised at the answers you get, whether you ask your registrant to

choose from a list or provide free-form comment. And these answers, as I said, can be

crucial to assuring you meet your audience's expectation of the event as well as to change

your invitation content or strategy to achieve optimal registration.

Next, be sure to use a registration engine that allows you to use color and images on your

landing page. Just like your invitations or for that matter anything we read, using multiple

colors, bolding, italicizing, and imagery, makes the content more inviting. And of course, do

this sparingly because as we all know the white space around the content is very important

for "framing" your text and focusing the observing eye on the words you want them to read.

While I'm on the subject of registration engine and webinar platforms, make sure too, that

you can send reminders to registrants, thank you's to both registrants and attendees, and

capture analytics and metrics in a meaningful way to drive maximum value from this and

future events.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #5

COMPELLING LANDING PAGE

DEVELOPMENT

• Concise expression of the

webinar's

purpose/content

• Ask registration

questions designed to

obtain pre-event

intelligence

• Use color and imagery

• Employ a webinar

platform that enables

reminders, thank you's,

and analytics capture

Best Practice

Two precise poll

questions on a

landing page can

reveal tons of

prospect

intelligence.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #6

EXECUTING AN INVITATION STRATEGY

You've already heard me mention the term "invitation strategy" a number of times in this white

paper. So what exactly IS an invitation strategy? An invitation strategy is your overall plan for

developing and broadcasting your invitation content at pre-determined times leading up to the

event.

In formulating your invitation strategy you need to ask yourself questions like “How many email

touchpoints?” “In what rhythm will they be sent?” “How soon are they sent before the event?”

And I say formulate; not determine. That is, determine how many times, and in what rhythm,

and when before your webinar - it is not a subjective exercise. It is one informed by both best

practices and industry knowledge.

SO what do I mean? Well, let's cover off on best practices first. Most e-marketers will tell you

that you should begin 3 weeks before the event's date, touch the audience no more frequently

that twice, and in intervals of once per week. OK. Now ponder that for a moment. Then, if

you're using this approach, tell me...are your registrations as large as you'd like them to be?

Many of you, reading this paper will find that is exactly your challenge.

Invitation strategy should be informed by best practices, but it also should not be confined by

them. Just as you should test various subject lines, you should experiment with the number and

frequency of your invitations. I find for instance the following to be optimal in many cases: 1)

start inviting 2.5 weeks prior to the webinar, 2) send three invitations and one list-wide reminder,

3) send the invitations in a rhythm of 3 business days, instead of once a week.

Knowledge of your audience’s industry should help determine invitation strategy, and this really

is important. For instance in my experience, a retail audience is usually more receptive to

additional touchpoints than an insurance audience. A telco audience is more receptive to more

frequent communications than a public sector audience. A healthcare audience may prefer more

advance notice than a financial services audience, and so on.

Remember too that you want to have an adjustable invitation strategy. What do I mean by that?

Fundamentally, I mean you should use the intelligence you're collecting from your audience

along the way to the event. For instance, each time you do an e-broadcast, and a number of

people then register on your landing page, utilize their answers to expand or refine your eventual

presentation, and to enhance your invitation's effectiveness.

Importantly though, modify your messaging with your mind's eye to remaining consistent with

the expectations already set with your audience


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #6

• What is an invitation

strategy?

• How many email

touchpoints? In what

rhythm will they be sent?

How soon before the

event?

• Adjustable strategy

based on intelligence

captured via landing page

and direct feedback

• Modify messaging while

remaining consistent

EXECUTING AN INVITATION STRATEGY

Best Practice

A written work plan

with timeline is

useful when

executing invitation

strategy.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #7

COST EFFECTIVE,

COMPLIANT E-BROADCASTING

So, we've identified the group we're going to recruit our audience from, and we've developed

some highly-impactful messaging. We've developed or acquired a list. We've conceived our

invitation strategy. Now it's time to deliver the messaging to the target market.

Clearly, there are many ways to deliver invitations to your group. However, the most cost-

effective by far is the one which best leverages the Web itself...email or, as I call it, e-

broadcasting. And this really is the context we've been referring to all along.

Again, in using email 1) start inviting 2.5 weeks prior to the webinar, 2) send three invitations

and one list-wide reminder, 3) send the invitations in a rhythm of three business days, instead

of once a week AND 4) interpolate plain-text and HTML content for optimum outcome.

ALSO using email, first and foremost, means being CAN-Spam compliant. Many of us are

acquainted with the requirements of CAN-Spam. But did you know that, irrespective of quote

unquote best practices, the CAN-Spam Act does not require you to have permission to

communicate with your prospect? It does require you to use a legitimate "from/to" email

address, to include a physical address, to use genuine language that is not misleading and

that, above all, you provide an easy means to unsubscribe. It does not require you to have

permission to communicate with your prospect. It does require that you honor an

unsubscribe request within 10 days of the request being made.

Many are professing lessening outcomes from fatigued permission-based lists. Meanwhile,

many well-known large enterprises have invested in broad licenses of tools like

ZoomInformation and Jigsaw. Why? Because you can reach a much larger audience…one

with fresh perspectives and interests. This is a very important topic to consider when

conceiving your integrated marketing strategy for 2010 and beyond.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #7

• Start promoting 2 ½

weeks to 3 weeks

before webinar

• Deliver multiple

touchpoints

• Interpolate plain-text

and HTML content for

optimum outcome

• Always be CAN-Spam

compliant

COST EFFECTIVE, COMPLIANT

E-BROADCASTING

Metric

Maximize registration

with 4 well timed

e-broadcasts.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #8

DRIVING WEBINAR ATTENDANCE

So let's wrap up WITH SOME final points on DRIVING optimal WEBINAR ATTENDANCE…

First, remember "Content first, any inducements second" . At WebAttract we espouse

informational webinars, which are case study-centric, communicating best practices and

lessons learned, and demonstrating business value, supporting metrics and ROI. There's

little room for inducements unless you are doing a nakedly commercial webinar that is

product-centric.

Second, be sure to leverage credentials of contributing parties, both on your landing

page and especially in your email invitation content.

Third, use touchstone words and phrases to gradually increase sense of urgency across

touchpoints. A special note here is to be certain and not use words which will cheapen

the message or trigger spam filters.

And lastly, send reminders prior to event, ideally using your registration engine to invite

registrants and your own email channel to reach out to your overall prospective

audience. This last email by the way, is the one in which if on no other touchpoints, you

want to use plain text.


Demand Creation

BEST PRACTICE #8

• Content first, any

inducements second

• Leverage credentials of

contributing parties

• Gradually increase

sense of urgency

across touchpoints

• Reminders prior to

event

DRIVING WEBINAR ATTENDANCE

Best Practice

3rd party subject

matter experts and

thought leaders are

always a good draw


Demand Creation

Let's Pull It All Together

• Identify the value proposition-matched

group you want to attract

• Source contact data that is both accurate

and targeted

• Create compelling, multi-touchpoint

messaging

• Deploy an adjustable, flexible invitation

strategy

• Utilize cost-effective message delivery

channel(s) for both pre- & post-event


Demand Creation

Eight Best Practices for

Webinar Audience Recruitment


Demand Creation

Principals

Mike Agron

WebAttract

Bret Smith

WebAttract

For more Information on WebAttract call us at 1.866.467.0003 or

visit us at www.webattract.com

Documents

8 Best Practices in Webinar Audience Recruitment...email addresses, they can make a lot of sense. On this topic, I'll leave you with the thought that there's no one answer that fits