Webinars – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

• Posted onRoger W. Rosenquist
• in Producing Webinars, Uncategorized
• onOctober 8, 2014
• 1 Comment.

As someone who specializes in producing and consulting on B2B lead generation webinars, I naturally have worked with many companies that use webinars effectively within their marketing mix. However, I continue to be surprised by how many bad webinars I encounter.

Under the description “bad” I include webinars that have poor production quality, uninteresting content, are not promoted well (thus poorly attended), or are have little or no post-event marketing and lead nurturing. In some cases all of the above defects will apply.

I’m equally surprised with how many companies just dabble with webinars or simply avoid using webinars altogether. Why would any marketer avoid using a marketing tool that enables you to have the attention of a large audience of prospects for 30 to 60 minutes and at the same time makes them agreeable to providing you with their contact information?

What is particularly interesting is that there are no clear demographics I can find to categorize the type of companies effectively using marketing webinars vs. those that don’t. While it’s possible to find a few companies of any size (and practically any vertical market) that are successfully using webinars, it is much easier to find companies who either use webinars very sparingly, do them badly, or don’t do them at all.

To me, this begs the following questions: Why do so many “bad marketing webinars” happen? Why don’t more marketing organizations seek the necessary assistance they need to do them well? And how do those marketing teams producing “good webinars” manage to accomplish it consistently?

During my years of experience within a marketing organization and as an independent marketing consultant, I’ve developed some theories on what contributes to what I’ll dub the “Marketing Webinars Gulf”. I’ll share those theories in additional upcoming posts.

Until then, I welcome your comments and insights on the subject. Do you agree with my assessment on the state of marketing webinars? Is it possible that my admittedly non-objective perspective is biasing my opinion that there are a lot of bad marketing webinars?  What has your experience been with marketing webinars (as a producer or a participant) – Good, Bad or Ugly?