The webcast market has exploded over the last two years. Not only are publishers and marketers offering webcasts, but trade organizations and analyst firms are offering webcasts to the same audience. And the number of webcasts offered by publishers has increased dramatically, with some doubling their inventory in just the last year. Against this backdrop, having your webcast stand out from the crowd and driving registrations is an increasing challenge.
Beyond the promotional schedule or publisher partnerships, here are four tactics marketers can use to drive webcast registrations.
- Invite your customers to speak. Customers with strong brand names will often draw a larger audience than a research analyst.
- Chase the hot topics: Security, Lean Manufacturing, Green Technology… If you have a strong message that aligns with the hot topics of the day, use it.
- Promote immediate benefits: Your promotional copy is the only preview the audience gets of your webcast. It makes the case for registration and attendance. Make the benefits
of attending clear in your copy. The strongest benefit statements are timely and accessible (”Five changes you can make this week to …”). In technology, playing to fears in headlines continues to be effective for recruitment (”Beware …” or “Avoid the pitfalls…”). - Incent attendance: Using incentives ($5 coffee cards) or prizes (”Win one of three iPod’s”) can break through competing promotions and increase registrations. When using incentives, ensure promotions are targeted and expect more cold respondents that need additional cultivation.
The webcast market will continue to surge, to $3.4 billion in 2012 according to a recent Frost & Sullivan forecast. As the market matures, marketers will need to use every tactic available to drive webcast registration and connect with the audience.
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