Webinars are more than learning opportunities for attendees. With the right strategy and software, a webinar can be an incredibly powerful marketing tool, transforming prospective buyers into loyal customers.

In fact, according to research conducted by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, 51% of B2B marketers say webinars produce the best results among all marketing channels. That's pretty impressive, with webinars coming in close second to in-person events at 56%.

So, how can you get the best results from your webinars? The secret is to use different types of webinars at each stage of the marketing funnel, carefully curating the buyer's journey to maximize conversion.

Four Types of Webinars to Feed Your Marketing Funnel

Before we dive into the types of webinars best suited to the different stages of your buyer's journey, let's talk about how a webinar funnel works.

Think of every marketing funnel stage as an opportunity for webinar programming.

The classic funnel begins with awareness and moves prospects through the stages of consideration, conversion/decision, and loyalty. Your webinar funnel should operate in the same way, using programming that generates leads, nurtures strong prospects, engages new customers, and creates brand loyalists.

1. Thought Leadership Webinars: Awareness

Sitting at the top of the funnel (TOFU), thought leadership webinars offer significant benefits in building brand and product awareness while generating valuable leads. By positioning your company and speakers as industry experts, thought leadership webinars allow you to showcase expertise and share unique perspectives on topics relevant to your target audience.

That not only establishes credibility and trust with your audience, positioning your brand as a go-to resource in the industry, but also helps attract a wide audience of potential customers. And that's a great opportunity for marketers and sales teams to evaluate attendees and create lead nurture strategies based on perceived levels of interest.

Pro Tip: Your webinar software can help you qualify leads with the help of engagement scoring tools, post-event surveys, and polls.

2. Solutions-Focused Webinars and Product Demos: Consideration

In the middle of the funnel (MOFU), product demos are an excellent way to nurture leads and inform the decision-making process for prospects in an interactive way.

Although you can easily direct prospects to video clips of your product, a live webinar allows you to discuss important features while addressing attendees' questions in real-time.

Solutions-focused webinars also allow you to collect valuable data and insights about your leads, such as their level of interest and engagement—metrics you can't capture with other, less interactive marketing channels. That information can be used to tailor your follow-up communication and deliver targeted content, further nurturing leads toward conversion.

Pro Tip: With live chat, Q&A, and polling, you can engage product demo attendees and ensure they walk away with all the information they need to move onto the decision stage.

3. Customer Onboarding Webinars: Decision/Action

At the bottom of the funnel (BOFU), your webinars should be geared toward cementing and engaging new customers who have made the decision to buy your product.

Customer onboarding webinars are a great tool at this stage to ensure your customers have all the information they need during onboarding and to continue engaging them with branded content.

After all, just because they've committed to buying doesn't mean they're a forever customer (yet).

To keep new customers happy and engaged, host Q&A-style webinars and deep-dive product demonstrations that help them understand the full value of their decision to purchase.

4. Customer Success Webinars: Loyalty

So, you've landed the customer, and it's time to move on to the next prospect, right? Not so fast!

New customers are fantastic, but it's critical to continue nurturing those customers to ensure they remain satisfied and loyal when their renewal or repurchase period rolls around.

Beyond limiting your need to launch business win-back campaigns, this approach helps you build brand advocates who can help champion your brand for you.

Brand loyalists are perfect candidates for case studies, future webinar and event speakers, and even social media brand ambassadors.

How to Choose a Webinar Platform

A key piece of your webinar strategy is, of course, your webinar platform.

As you build out your webinar funnel strategy, consider your webinar goals, your challenges and limitations (including your budget, technical know-how, etc.), and the ways your webinar strategy fits into your overall events marketing strategy.

Each of those considerations will help you evaluate your webinar software options and choose the best fit for your needs. Begin by asking yourself:

• What is my budget for hosting webinars? Is there a free webinar software option that can meet my needs?
• What webinar platform capabilities do I need to make my webinars more engaging?
• Do I need help producing professional-looking webinars?
• Do I need to host live webinars, prerecorded webinars, or a combination?

Essential Webinar Platform Features

Once you've answered those questions, dig deeper into the features and capabilities your webinar software should have.

Here are some essential webinar features to watch out for:

• Webinar engagement features, including live chat, Q&A, polls, and surveys
• Custom design elements for a cohesive branding experience
• Customized and embedded webinar registration experience for seamless attendee registration
• Room for all your attendees (while staying in budget)
• Technical support and access to online guides to help ensure your webinars are a success
• Integration with your current tools and systems, including your event software and marketing and sales tools, to help manage leads and send follow-up communications
• Analytics and reporting features to help you measure your webinar ROI (and, better yet, to see how your webinar conversions compare with leads from your other events)

Key Takeaways

As you build webinars into your marketing strategy, keep these tips in mind:

• Different webinar types work best at different stages of the marketing funnel. Carefully build your strategy with the buyer's journey in mind.
• Engagement is key! Your webinars are opportunities to engage prospects and measure their level of interest to inform your go-forward marketing and sales strategies.
• Don't reinvent the wheel: make sure your webinar platform can integrate with your marketing and sales software to seamlessly track and nurture leads.
• Build webinars into your total event program (preferably using a single platform for all your events) to track the success of every event.

Want some help creating more professional, engaging, and successful webinars? Check out Cvent's Next-Level Webinars e-book!