At LiveWebinar, we don't just develop a tool for effective online meetings. We decided to go a step further and find out what it really is like to use webinars in business.
We organized a survey among our clients, webinar enthusiasts, business owners, and marketers who had contact with this type of communication both as organizers and participants. We asked them how they use webinars, what they consider to be the most attractive part of them, and what to do to make effective webinars.
In the survey, we received over 300 responses, which we systematized and developed in the form of a report, with additional comments from experts and practitioners in the industry in Poland. Today, we’ll present you a few of them – and you'll find all of the insights in our report.
World in the age of remote communication
We all know what happened in 2020. The pandemic has forced businesses to accelerate their digital transformation, and webinars have become one of the triumphant formats.
2021 was an extension of the situation in the world - and hence, the use of webinars. While their introduction was no longer shocking or accelerated for anyone, companies still valued this mode of communication.
Even after lifting some of the restrictions and returning to hybrid or offline events, companies continued to conduct webinars. Moreover, they noticed that webinars are a replacement and a chance for business survival in difficult times and an excellent promotion tool.
We hope you'll find our findings helpful!
Webinar organizers
The huge boom in webinar popularity in 2020 was not a one-off and short-lived - quite the contrary. In 2021, webinar organizers were armed with more knowledge about conducting effective online meetings, promoting such initiatives, and the technical aspects of webinars - which is why many of them were even more willing to host webinars.
The numbers also prove it.
Only in 2021, nearly 380,000 unique webinar rooms were established on the LiveWebinar platform. This means that another webinar was started every 1.5 minutes or so!
How often were webinars organized?
Many factors determine how often webinars are organized.
An important aspect is the industry in which we conduct online meetings - business and marketing webinars, due to the wide range of topics, can be conducted very often, while interviews or webinars in niche sectors (e.g. medicine) can be organized less frequently, but still effectively .
Another factor influencing the frequency of webinars is the maturity of the organization and its resources. If the company does not physically have people to organize a webinar, or despite the skills in this area, there is no time and ideas in the strategy for webinars, adding this format to the activities can be problematic.
The current saturation with webinars in a given sector is also important. A large number of webinars in a given niche can, on the one hand, encourage you to create more online meetings, and on the other hand - have a demotivating effect.
In our survey, how do the answers look?
48% of our respondents claimed that they had watched at least one webinar a month back in 2021.
As many as 14% of our respondents organized a webinar at least once a week, while 34% chose monthly webinars. Less than 37% opted for webinars on a quarterly basis. It is definitely gratifying that webinars are becoming an important part of the regular strategy and this format is being chosen more and more.
Organizing webinars – results
As many as 57% of respondents admitted that the webinars they organized had brought the expected effect, and less than 23% admitted that it is difficult for them to assess the potential results of the webinars conducted.
Difficult assessment of the effectiveness of webinars often comes down to one mistake - the lack of designated measures of the effectiveness of such meetings.
Example? Imagine you organize a webinar for 1,000 people. Great! But, if your webinar's goal is sales, not attendance, you need to look at the sales-related statistics. During the webinar, you can provide your audience with the discount code. If, after the end of the webinar and reminders, it turns out that your code has not been used by anyone, even in light of the impressive attendance, it may not be a satisfactory result.
LiveWebinar statistics
LiveWebinar's internal statistics also speak for themselves in this case. Only in 2021, on our platform:
- the whiteboard function (an interactive board on which you can create during a webinar) has been used almost 46,000 times;
- CTA (call to action) has been used almost 13,000 times;
- the TESTS function (tests during the webinar) has been used over 3,000 times;
- ADS BANNER function (promotional banner displayed during the webinar) was used almost 40,000 times;
- the SURVEY function (voting during the webinar) was used almost 17,000 times.
Engaging formats such as polls, polls, tests, banners and CTA buttons are becoming the required standard for quality webinars. Webinar organizers need a tool that responds to the expectations. One of such tools is LiveWebinar - it allows not only to use many possibilities of interaction, but also to personalize webinars according to your preferences.
Webinar monetization
Let's talk about money! How much can you earn from webinars and did our respondents monetize their webinar activities at all? It turns out that webinars can provide even over $10,000 in revenue per year!
Almost 45% of respondents do not follow the monetization-related indicator - which leaves a lot of room for optimization of your strategy. 27% of the respondents generated at least $1,000 in revenue from webinars last year.
7% declare revenues of over $10,000, which puts webinars in a perfect light for further monetization and holistic use in their activities.
In order to start earning money from webinars at all, you need to be properly prepared. Researching the target group's needs and responding to their expectations through webinars is an essential element of such a strategy. In addition, a webinar must be valuable, provide qualitative and unique information, and, moreover, be embellished with even a hint of interactivity.
Good practices for effective webinars
For webinars to be effective and efficient, you should:
- Choose the topic appropriately
- Pay attention to the quality of the content presented
- Interact with users
- Use forms of involvement
- Verify and gather a good target group
- Take care of a clear and aesthetic message
- Don't stop at one webinar
- Choose the right day and time for the webinar
- Promote your webinar in the right places
- Divide the webinar into parts and present the agenda
- Rely on variety, wit, storytelling
- Prepare recordings for playback after the webinar
- Develop additional materials
- Involve people to handle the webinar
- Take care of technical facilities
- Don't forget the follow-up - reminder sequences
- Apply multimedia elements
- Invite competent guests and presenters
- Use tools to work more efficiently
- Work on charisma
- Always deliver added value
- Use marketing integrations
- Prepare a summary of the webinar
- Share the agenda in advance
- Conduct a Q&A session
Conclusion
71 minutes. This was the average length of an online event conducted using LiveWebinar in 2021. That's 71 minutes spent on the brand-customer line, one of which may be wrong for any further interactions.
There is a big challenge for the organizers of the webinars.
How to embed webinars in your strategy, attract your target audience to them, make the format really attractive, and at the same time still achieve your business goals?
At least in part, the answer lies in choosing the right tool partner.
LiveWebinar provides a wide range of features, thanks to which you can conduct your webinar at a high level, with the right amount of interaction and integration. With advanced personalization tools, you can provide unique value to your webinars and a unique experience for their participants.
In 2021, over 12.8 million participants took part in events organized through our platform. And we believe this is just the beginning. See you in our dashboard – and don't forget to download our full report for free.