Are webinars dead? Yes, we have actually put this provocative question at the beginning of our article. Why? Our inspiration came from Joel Erway, host of the popular podcast “Sold with Webinars”. He addressed this exact question to our Marketing Director, Agnes Jóźwiak, during his episode entitled “State of the Webinar Industry from the Aspect of Technology”. The answer is right here, in ClickMeeting’s State of Webinars report.
So, what’s the story? Are webinars really dying? Or is it the other way around – are they entering a new phase of growth?
Let’s find out together! We are super proud to introduce you to our latest State of Webinars 2019 Report. It’s an overview of webinars and online meetings based on ClickMeeting’s hard data and client analysis, powered up with exciting findings from expert reports and forecasts.
Are you ready to get a look at the industry from behind the scenes and discover how the webinar and video conferencing landscape is shaping?
Table of Contents
Online events and attendee numbers are on the upswing
We have counted up all of the events that happened on the ClickMeeting platform in 2018 and the results are compelling:
We are talking about 604,488 online events compared to 595,095 events organized in 2017. That’s an increase of over 9 thousand events in a single year!
And how about webinar attendees? All of the 2018 ClickMeeting events combined gathered a total audience of 17,567,803 people (up from 16,903,631 in 2017)! To get a visual for that number, imagine the populations of Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco, Houston, Seattle and Miami grouped together in one place!
OK, so we know for a fact that webinars are still on the rise.
However, that’s not all! There’s much more in our State of Webinars Report.
Let’s narrow down our insights and see how you will benefit from them!
Why would you organize a webinar in the first place?
In other words – what’s the purpose? Why do companies, start-ups, and solopreneurs invest their time and money in running webinars?
According to our report, here are the three main types of video conferencing events:
- Product demos & employee training sessions: 39%
- Online courses: 34%
- Business Meetings & collaborations: 11%
This comes as no surprise as these trends were easy to see in last year’s report. Marketers, sales managers, online teachers – they have all fallen in love with webinars. They find this form of video content to be a gold mine for expanding their marketing activities and generating more revenue.
We should also mention that more and more companies are deciding to cut their travel costs and time spent on traditional meetings. Instead of running old-school conferences, onboarding and training sessions or town-hall meetings, they are conducting them entirely online! This comes naturally for young start-ups and agile scale-ups and becomes a new approach to project collaboration in larger corporations.
From customized page design to earning serious money on webinars
In 2018, ClickMeeting transformed into a hive of busy bees, doing our best to produce more honey for our clients. To sweeten your sales and marketing efforts, we have released new features, including:
- On-demand webinars – a great way to reach those prospects who don’t have enough time to join a live event. Since we launched this feature in August 2018, over 25% of our users have taken advantage of iton a regular basis. The rule is simple – you record your event and send the recorded material to those who couldn’t show up and, even more importantly, to those who didn’t even know about the event in the first place. A must-have tool for lead generation.
- Custom branding with free Unsplash photos – this is our latest treat. Since we launched this feature in December 2018, over 10% (and still counting) of ClickMeeting webinar hosts have uploaded stunning professional photos from the Unsplash base and saved them as background images on their webinar pages. An excellent tool for making a great first impression with your target audience!
- Paid webinars – we couldn’t think of a more direct and straightforward method for earning money on webinars. This feature is powerful! Since we unleashed this beast in June 2018, experts from various sectors have experienced impressive results! Example? The most successful webinar host earned $43,000 on ticket sales for a single event! That’s nearly as much as the average annual salary in the US!
So, you see why we had to include these findings in our report.
If you are still hesitant about growing your digital business through webinars, you better brace yourself now.
Here comes the real deal:
Reach B2B decision makers – they are on the lookout for webinars
Creating relevant and valuable content is more essential now than ever. Google algorithms, SEO ninja expert recommendations, marketing conferences highlights, articles written by marketing gurus – they all form a matrix.
In this matrix, long-form, highly-detailed, and problem-solving content is ranked very high. Video marketing in general fits here perfectly. According to Wyzowl’s Video Marketing Statistics 2019 report, 87% of businesses use video marketing and they put it to action at each stage of the sales funnel.
What you can also find in Wyzowl’s material is that:
- 41% of video marketers have used webinars as a marketing channel
- Out of those, 83% say that it has been successful for them.
- 37% of video marketers plan to use webinars in 2019.
Let’s go even deeper:
If you aim to build long-lasting B2B relationships, the middle stage of the funnel (consideration and intent) should be your primary focus. According to Statista, webinars play a vital role in the B2B buyer’s journey, especially during the middle stage:
- Early stage (awareness, interest): 36%
- Middle stage (consideration, intent): 47%
- Late stage (evaluation, purchase): 17%
Why webinars leave other content formats behind
Let’s put it this way – if two or three years ago video content was considered to be king, right now it should be called emperor. That said, other content formats are also doing pretty well — podcasts, white papers, blog posts, to name just a few.
B2B players take them all seriously, and when they are about to make a purchase decision, they dive into any content they can without hesitation.
What is the position of webinars among other content marketing formats?
According to the Demand Gen Report, B2B buyers dig into:
- Case studies: 79%
- White papers: 71%
- Blog posts: 71%
- Third party reports: 69%
- E-books: 67%
- Webinars: 66%
- Infographics: 62%
“Wait a second…” – you might say – “most of the formats have a higher percentage rate than webinars.” And you’re absolutely right. But take a deep breath and check out this finding, because it will change the way you see it.
The same Content Preferences Survey Report reveals how much time B2B decision makers spend consuming content. It turns out that 37% of them spend 30-60 minutes on a webinar! Only 12% of B2B managers spend that amount of time reviewing white papers and, still fewer, 7% listen to podcasts for that long. This means that webinars are beating out white papers by 25% and podcasts by 30%!
Why does this play such a huge role? As you remember, we pointed out earlier the importance of long-form and highly-detailed content. Well, that’s what webinars are all about: diving into the details of a particular niche. And, as you can see above, B2B clients really appreciate that!
Are you ready to take this huge opportunity?
Here’s the punchline:
According to this year’s State of Webinars report, webinar attendees spend on average 52 minutes consuming webinar content. To put that into perspective, the average American spends 50 minutes per day on Netflix.
This means that people are willing to spend more time watching relevant and valuable webinar content than relaxing in front of a Netflix movie or series.
Are you ready to take the challenge and make a difference for your business?
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