Content StrategyEnterprise Growth

What’s the Role of Thought Leadership Webinars in Demand Gen?

What is the Function of Demand Gen for a B2B Driver? Demand gen is short for demand generation, the marketing function B2B companies use to create interest in their products and services. Demand generation encompasses all the marketing activities a B2B organization might carry out across the buyer’s journey—from the time potential customers first hear about an organization, product, or service until they make a purchase, or not.

Understanding Demand Generation

Let’s first establish a definition for demand generation before we get into thought leadership webinars. Demand generation contains a range of marketing activities that are executed to create demand, which really means awareness and interest in a company’s products or services. Activities that fall under demand generation are very diverse, and they include everything from content marketing to social media outreach to search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising.

As stated by HubSpot, 70% of marketers say that generating traffic and leads is their top challenge. Moreover, 61% of marketers deem getting traffic to their website a top priority. Therefore, effective demand generation strategies can be the lifeblood of a successful business.

In addition, lead acquisition is not the only aspect of demand generation. Its focus is on achieving brand loyalty and advocacy—also valuable in the long run. Companies that don’t make demand generation a second-class citizen are more likely to see a higher return on (marketing) investment.

What’s the Role of Thought Leadership Webinars in Demand Gen?

Demand generation is an essential practice for a company to attract potential customers. A key component in this practice is establishing the company’s expertise and positioning it as an authority in its industry. This is where thought leadership comes in. Prospecting is the end goal of demand generation; in its simplest terms, a company wants to get in front of as many interested potential customers as possible with the hope that they will convert into paying customers at some point. When it comes to tactics for demand generation, webinars are a powerful tool.

Establishing Authority: Companies can share their knowledge and know-how when they host webinars. A DemandGen study tells us that 79% of B2B buyers like to interact with companies that they think are leading in their field. What better way to show this than to host a free, value-packed webinar? When buyers are determining which product to purchase, they often consider who is behind the product and whether or not they can trust that company.

Engagement: Webinars provide a participatory platform for the audience to field questions to presenters. This kind of involvement serves to create a bond between the audience and the brand, cultivating a sense of community.

Lead Generation: Participants frequently must sign up with their contact details, allowing us to create a lead database. Indeed, 73% of B2B marketers claim that webinars are the most effective means to yield high-quality leads.

Taking the content from a webinar and reworking it into an article, podcast, or social media snippet extends the reach of that content. It’s a way to make one piece of material serve multiple purposes.

Besides, using a variety of marketing channels can amp up the impact of the webinars even more. We can drive attendance and amplify the effectiveness of our demand generation strategy by promoting the events through email marketing, social media, and blog posts.

Examples of Successful Thought Leadership Webinars

Examining particular instances can illuminate just how effective webinars can be for demand generation. Take, for instance, Salesforce, which often runs thought leadership webinars where various big-name industry leaders are featured in discussions about the latest CRM and AI trends. These webinars not only draw in a very large audience but also manage to generate quite a few leads for their services.

In addition, HubSpot runs a number of webinars concentrated on inbound marketing strategies. These events draw large numbers of nearly inbound marketing professionals, who are nearly all at least somewhat familiar with HubSpot, to pay nearly their full attention to HubSpot’s webinars. Because HubSpot’s webinars must be paid for with time and attention, it’s clear that HubSpot has effectively employed an inbound marketing strategy. Furthermore, HubSpot has a series of webinars on inbound marketing strategies that seems to be somewhere between 5 and 8 sessions long. These seminars attract marketing professionals who are eager to learn about these effective tactics and are consequently generating leads for HubSpot’s software solutions.

Furthermore, businesses such as Zoom and Microsoft use webinars to inform their to inform their user base about their respective platforms. Such sessions often result in an uptick in product adoption and a boost in retention rates, demonstrating how an effective demand generation strategy can pay unexpected dividends down the road.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Webinars in Demand Generation

Measuring the impact of thought leadership webinars on demand generation helps companies comprehend the real value of these mediums. A variety of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be used to discern this value. Some of the most common ones are listed below.

Registration Rate: Monitoring the number of individuals who sign up against the number who actually show up provides indicators of how appealing and engaging the content is.
Lead Quality: Assessing how well the content does its job is determined by measuring how many attendees make the leap into becoming customers when the event is over. This is about as direct as one can get, measuring the conversion from attendee to purchaser.
Engagement Metrics: Keeping track of the number of questions asked and the number of participants who stayed for the entire session provides insight into the relevance of the content delivered.

In addition, valuable insights can be gleaned from the follow-up surveys about how attendees perceived the webinar. This knowledge can impact the content strategy in the future. Furthermore, tying these metrics back to long-term revenue generation can give a better picture of the ROI.

Conclusion: Embracing Thought Leadership Webinars

In conclusion, what part do demand generation webinars play in thought leadership? Well, they appear to be a strategic tool in the move toward building brand visibility, establishing authority, and generating leads that are more or less qualified. By using them as a stepping stone, a company can bridge the gap between (1) first move awareness at the top of the funnel and (2) engagement. At the least, you will have people aware of your company and what you do.

In addition, with the ongoing increase in demand for high-quality content, a thought leadership approach could well be the difference between success and failure for businesses aiming to operate in—and actually thrive within—a competitive landscape. Elevate your demand generation strategy with the power of webinars and see the results for yourself.