How a consulting firm uses marketing webinars to generate leads and opportunities

Situation

A small consulting firm wanted to grow. It had enjoyed a steady stream of white paper downloads from its website. Phone-based business developers would follow up with downloaders to set a meeting, but the calls often resulted in, “We have not read it yet,” or “We’re just at the research stage.” Ultimately, the white paper downloads were not generating enough conversations to satisfy the firm's aggressive growth goals. The downloaders were too unfamiliar with the firm to accept a one-on-one meeting.

This small firm needed to continue touching these “warm” prospects to build trust, further qualify prospects, and increase the odds of setting introductory meetings. The Rally Point Webinars team created a lead generation webinar campaign to do just that.

The Campaign

The firm decided to deliver webinars to:

• Generate new leads
• Nurture existing leads
• Strengthen relationships
• Establish greater trust

Since the firm had two popular white papers, they based their initial events on them.

To focus on both lead generation and nurturing, the firm conducted two separate marketing campaigns for the one event. The first campaign targeted their house list of about 750 and the second targeted a rented list of about 20,000, with supporting banner ads on the publisher's site. All marketing was web-based:

“We knew our house list was not large – but we also put a lot of focus on the importance of continuing the relationship with those prospects. They demonstrated interest in our services and we wanted to make sure we provided new outlets for that interest until they were ready to talk. If just one prospect decided to call because of the campaign, it would pay for itself.” – Client leader at firm

The firm stressed their desire to have relevant attendees and focused more on the total qualified prospects rather than just the number of registrations.

The Results

Both the house and rented list campaigns were a great success. The house list generated 60 qualified registrations, meaning a staggering 8% of the list registered for the event.

Over 100 hundred new, qualified leads were generated from the rented list campaign. While this was just 0.5% of the rented list's size, it was accomplished with just one e-mail and supporting banner ads.

More importantly, the follow up to the event (still taking place) resulted in 6 opportunity-based meetings. Those meetings were set less than a month after the webinar and involved over $50,000 of services being discussed:
“Individuals that once would not accept my calls, never mind my requests for introductory meetings, were completely different after attending our event. The process became much easier…and more pleasant.” – Business developer at firm

“The meetings I had as a follow up to our event were fantastic. The event, full of our thought leadership, expertise, and philosophy allowed us to get past the fluff usually covered in a first call. These prospects wanted to get right into how we could help their firm. There was immediate trust in the conversation.” – Client leader at firm

While it is too soon to determine the final dollar impact of the campaigns, it’s clear to firm leadership that webinars are the tool to increase their lead generation and nurturing effectiveness. The firm plans on delivering 6-12 webinars in the next 12 months.

Other Numbers:

• 28% of registrants clicked on resources provided after the event, such as a recording or worksheets.
• About 40% of those who registered attended the live event. Most of those who did not attend planned to view the webinar recording.
• Open rates on the webinar invitation e-mail were an impressive 29% for the house list and 11% for the rented list.
• 66% of those who clicked on the e-mail invitation or banner ads converted into webinar registrants.