Forrester Releases Guidelines For B2B Webinar Programs
Forrester provides rules for building sustainable B2B webinar programs, emphasizing audience development and campaign integration. This approach may increase webinar impact and improve marketing strategies.
Original reporting · forrester.com
Original: “Ten Rules For Building A Sustainable B2B Webinar Program”
Read “Ten Rules For Building A Sustainable B2B Webinar Program” at Forrester →
How this was written. Awesome B2B wrote this article with a language model from Forrester’s reporting (model: @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast); it describes that reporting rather than adding to it. The original, linked above, is the full story.
Key points from Forrester’s report
- Forrester provides 10 rules for building a sustainable B2B webinar program, emphasizing audience development and campaign integration.
- Marketers should start with a clearly defined audience and shape the content, experience, and promotion around them.
- Setting clear goals and making webinars part of larger campaigns can help marketers increase webinar impact and improve marketing strategies.
- Creating distinctive content and tailoring promotion to each segment can help earn attention and drive engagement.
- Forrester recommends connecting engagement data to action and integrating webinar technology with the wider revenue marketing ecosystem.
According to Forrester, webinars are a crucial component of an integrated event strategy, allowing marketers to engage audiences at scale. However, many B2B marketers underinvest in audience development and follow-up, focusing primarily on delivery. Leading practitioners, on the other hand, connect webinars to broader campaigns and revenue processes.
Forrester reported that a systematic approach to webinars can increase their impact. This involves setting clear goals, making webinars part of larger campaigns, and earning attention with distinctive content. By doing so, marketers may be able to build stronger audience engagement and trust.
The first step in building a sustainable webinar program is to start with a clearly defined audience, rather than a topic or speaker. This approach allows marketers to shape the content, experience, and promotion around the target audience, potentially leading to higher attendance rates and stronger engagement.
Forrester also emphasizes the importance of setting goals that match the webinar's purpose. This may involve building awareness, engaging priority personas, or focusing on solution understanding and follow-up requests. By connecting each webinar to campaign objectives, marketers can give the webinar its own practical measures of success.
In addition to setting clear goals, Forrester recommends making webinars part of larger campaigns. This approach can help marketers benefit from an established audience, a relevant theme, and clear follow-up paths. By treating each webinar as a key moment within a broader campaign, marketers may be able to reinforce key campaign themes and deepen audience engagement.
To earn attention, Forrester suggests creating distinctive content that addresses a specific audience challenge. This may involve inviting practitioners, customers, and subject-matter experts to add credibility and adapting the content and experience to the target audience. By doing so, marketers may be able to provide insights, experiences, or perspectives that attendees cannot find elsewhere.
Forrester also provides guidance on promoting webinars, emphasizing the importance of tailoring the message to each segment and explaining how the webinar will deliver value. By testing subject lines, formats, and value propositions, marketers can refine their approach and extend promotion to incorporate social channels, websites, sales teams, and existing event audiences.
Questions and answers
What is the key to building a sustainable B2B webinar program?
According to Forrester, the key is to start with a clearly defined audience and shape the content, experience, and promotion around them.
How can marketers earn attention for their webinars?
Forrester suggests creating distinctive content that addresses a specific audience challenge and adapting the content and experience to the target audience.
What is the importance of integrating webinar technology with the wider revenue marketing ecosystem?
Forrester recommends connecting engagement data to action and integrating webinar technology to better understand buying group interest and intent.
