In the span of eight hours, I received four email invitations to register for cybersecurity webinars. All of the topics were timely and interesting—no, engaging. Clearly, these marketers had figured out that when it comes to customer engagement in cybersecurity, tech webinars stand out as particularly effective.

I wanted to sit in on two of them to keep up with what’s happening in the industry—and when it comes to being interested in webinars, I’m not alone. According to a study from BrightTALK, 91% of professionals say webinars are their preferred type of content. Further, about 54% of B2B professionals will watch at least one webinar each week.

Be they virtual summits, panel discussions, industry insights, product demonstrations, or thought leadership presentations, webinars are a powerful way to communicate and interact with prospects and customers and promote your business.

What’s not to love about that? But if you’re still unconvinced about the power of webinars to boost your marketing efforts, here are five reasons why webinars should be an important part of your marketing strategy.

Webinars Are a Pathway to Relationship Building

Attracting and engaging customers and building long-lasting relationships takes time and energy—a lot of time and energy. But don’t fret. While social media and blog posts have their place and value, webinars let you get right in front of your target audience and can be your secret weapon for building great customer relationships.

Webinars serve as an effective way to reach and engage with prospects and customers dynamically and interactively. They offer a familiar and accessible platform for you to showcase expertise, establish thought leadership, and build trust and credibility.

Webinars Let You Reach a Wide Audience

Webinar marketing is a great way to connect with a wide audience, no matter where they are. It lets you reach people across different geographic regions without the hassle of travel or logistics. Whether your audience is in the next town or halfway around the world, webinars make it easy to share your message with everyone at once. It’s an efficient and effective way to expand your reach and make sure your content is accessible to a diverse group of people.

Audience Engagement Creates a Connection and Sparks a Dialogue

Webinars provide a highly interactive platform that allows you to engage directly with your audience and provide a dynamic experience while delivering valuable content. Interactive polls, Q&A sessions, and downloadable resources are effective ways to boost audience engagement and get feedback—and the data bears this out.

Thirty percent of webinars use live polls to keep their audience engaged. Q&A sessions rank highly with marketers and attendees alike, with 92% of attendees wanting a Q&A segment and 81% of marketers viewing Q&A sessions as a webinar’s most engaging tool. Post-webinar, 86% of viewers tend to download available resources—far surpassing the average engagement rates of 63% on B2B websites and 5% on LinkedIn. Given these numbers, it’s no surprise that when it comes to content distribution, 51% of B2B marketers see webinars as a top-performing channel.

Webinars Are a Force Multiplier for Lead Generation

When it comes to lead generation, nothing beats the power of engagement, education, and personal interaction—all wrapped up in one package! Because webinars attract individuals interested in your programs, they help to pre-qualify prospects, which leads to higher-quality leads. Webinars also offer the perfect platform to collect valuable attendee information, think email addresses and demographics, which can be used to build your lead database.

In one survey, 89% of marketers said webinars outperformed other channels in creating qualified leads. Meanwhile, 53% believe that webinars create the highest quality leads of any top-of-the-funnel channel and 78% of respondents indicated that webinars helped lower their cost per lead. It’s no surprise, then, that 66% of marketers reported that their sales teams prioritize leads coming from webinars.

Webinars Offer an Excellent Return on Investment

Compared to in-person events, webinars are a far less expensive and labor-intensive way to engage with your audience. They eliminate the need for logistical planning, physical venues, travel expenses, vendor rentals, catering services, and printed materials. And let’s not forget that because staff doesn’t need to be out of the office, the productivity and time benefit of using webinars is no small thing. Plus, because they are so cost effective, you don’t need to worry about cancelling because of a low attendance—more on this silver lining later.

Lastly, one of the often-overlooked benefits of webinars is their potential to maximize your investment by reusing the content to create social media postings, email campaigns, blog posts, video clips, infographics, and the like.

It’s Not Over When It’s Over

One of the great things about webinars is that they don’t have to be over when the live event ends.

My favorite part of a webinar invitation email is: Can't make the live webinar? Register today to be notified when this webinar is available on-demand. 

Recording your webinar allows you to share it and continue to encourage engagement even after the live event ends. Indeed, in addition to the nine emails I received was an email notifying me that a webinar I had registered for was now available for viewing on-demand. Good thing too because, despite best intentions, business demands intervened and I couldn’t attend live. And I’m in good company. Where the option is available, 55% of attendees choose to view a recording, while 36% watch the webinar live.

Sponsored Webinars

Incorporating single-vendor and multi-vendor sponsored webinars into your marketing strategy can significantly boost your brand’s visibility, authority, and lead-generation efforts—but that’s not to say that they don’t require some degree of time and effort.

Tired of spinning your wheels spending countless hours producing in-house webinars without generating the volume of leads your webinars so richly deserve? We know how you feel and we have your back. Get in touch for a consultation today and find out how easy it is to have your webinar, your way!