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In these pandemic days when med tech reps have difficulty getting into hospitals companies have increasingly turned to webinars to reach customers and generate demand. This has led to so many webinars on med tech that clinicians could double book every waking hour with different offerings from different companies.
So why would invest time and money in such noisy space. Usually, I am looking to do what everyone else has not thought of yet. The chance that my webinar is going to draw audience and be a real tool for lead generation is slim. But here are my top reasons for doing it anyway.
Reason 1: Content is King
Even if I can’t attract a lot of live participants at this moment in time a strong educational presentation in a webinar builds timeless content. The webinar can live on the website, be rebroadcast at a time when it is likely to gain a bigger audience, and be cut up into small pieces to deploy on the website, in video ads, social media posts, etc.
Reason 2: Promotion Exposure
Promoting a webinar is another way to get eyes on your product and your message. The advertising rule of thumb is that it takes 5 exposures to a product idea or brand before it fully registers with a prospect. So even if they don’t click through to learn more about the webinar they still see your product, message and brand.
Webinars work best when they speak about product from an educational perspective, since wants to advance clinical practice not just endorse your product. Picking a prestigious webinar speaker will bring eyes to your ad, and a strong landing page with a webinar description that matches your value proposition moves the prospect another step through the buyer’s journey, even if they do not show up for the webinar.
Reason 3: BOD members, Investors and Current Customers
Beyond the audience of potential new prospects there is an audience for webinars in the people who own a piece of the company, investors who might want to own a piece in the future, and current customers who have bought into your value proposition. This audience sees the webinars hosted by other companies, particularly industry leaders, and want to feel that you are part of the new wave. For investors it is a case of FOMO. There is always pressure to do what feels like the new best practice. For current customers there is the reassurance that they are not alone in having chosen your product.
So, stay tuned for a webinar on my new breakthrough product. I will build it with a strong thought leader expert, make it highly educational, assure I can segment content for other uses. I will promote heavily but and set realistic expectations for attendance and lead generation. Sometimes you just need to follow the trend and maximize the ROI in peripheral outcomes.
Ironically, many of the med tech firms have stopped doing webinars. Maybe attendance was low in the noisy space, and maybe it will turn out I am hitting it at just the right moment.