One-hit wonders are a major problem in the marketing community. You know — the content that generates a lot of buzz, and if you treat it as a solo standing piece, it goes nowhere.
While creating a piece of content that leads to tons of conversions is a marketer’s dream, the reality is it rarely happens. So aiming for that one-shot win isn’t and shouldn’t be your top priority. What you should focus on is creating valuable content and then wringing the heck out of it. By turning your content pieces into mini-campaigns, you can better control the reach, which increases the odds of getting better results (a.k.a. conversions).
Right now, the content that’s proving promising for B2B marketers is webinars. They’re excellent for driving conversations, as well as revenue. We find 54% of B2B professionals engage with webinars either weekly or daily. And 49% of B2B buyers engage with video content before making a purchasing decision. So it makes sense why 67% of marketers are now investing in them, especially with webinars converting between 5% and 20% of viewers.
But why stop there when you can extend your webinars’ shelf life and generate even more leads and conversions? Let’s talk about how you can say goodbye to dead ends and hello to longevity.
1. Wring Out Your Webinars into Other Content Formats
Webinars are a goldmine filled with nuggets of wisdom that you can share with your audience via different content formats. Let’s say you hosted a webinar with internal or external thought leaders. In that webinar, you’ll definitely have key takeaways and insights that you can turn into other content pieces.
For example, you can record the webinar, review for those key takeaways and transform them into infographics you share on social. Then you can turn around and take each of those key takeaways and write long-form blog posts, going in-depth into a strategy or guide.
The idea is to find ways to turn each webinar into long-performing content by repurposing — or as we like to call it, wringing out — each episode into other forms of content. So look for ways to include snippets of information from each one inside your emails, articles, social media posts, and even podcasts.
2. Create Content That’s Snackable and Shareable
Who doesn’t enjoy bite-sized content, especially when it’s educational AND entertaining? There’s a reason Instagram Stories and other short-form content do so well. They don’t require a big commitment, folks are willing to check out a video, audio, or post that’s short and sweet. So if you’re able to chop up each webinar episode into smaller pieces of content, then you’ll find engagement numbers increase.
For example, you can create audiograms of an episode and share them on social media. Then link back to the full episode of the webinar. You can do the same with audio snippets shared in blog posts and social posts. Or you can develop short three-minute videos discussing the takeaways and ideas shared in the webinar.
“It’s just a great way to pull that bite-size content and highlight it and repurpose it in three to five pieces, pull out that content, and bring value to the industry leaders. And I think the great thing about us is we have found industry leaders that have really proven their place in the industry and can help. And I think that’s why our podcast is doing so well is because we found that niche market. And I think for video and audio where it’s going and what excites me the most is just finding that intersection of the two where they both compliment each other and driving new subscribers, new listeners, unique listeners, and ultimately how that will help grow our business,” said Camberlyn Sparks, Digital Marketing Coordinator at Misfit Media.
Muhammad Yasin, Executive Vice President of Marketing at PERQ agrees. “I’ve always been a big proponent of making large pieces of content that can be broken into much smaller consumable, snackable bite-sized pieces, and also, with creating content that can be delivered to people where they’re at, in a way that’s easy to consume, and getting it away from kind of the eyeball fatigue of reading emails over, and over, and over again, so I decided to go back into the area of podcasting. Also, a great space for storytelling, I believe, and when you’re in a, especially, B2B space, but honestly, any market telling the stories of not only your customers but also the stories of the people inside your organization is much more compelling when you’re able to actually hear people’s voices.”
3. Use Questions and Comments to Fuel Engagement
Your webinar was a success — you generated hundreds or even thousands of attendees and got them joining discussions. Now, it’s time to use those talks to create more content to further drive engagement. Maybe there was a hot debate happening among your audience, and you’d like to highlight it in a blog or social media post to get more people involved.
Another option is to create a video series using the questions asked during your webinar. Maybe you can do a followup webinar with the experts so they can answer the questions. Hosting a live event on Facebook, such as a Q&A session, will get people excited about attending to see the insights you’ll uncover. You can gather questions from the comments and chatrooms on whatever channels you chose to use.
Then if you’re running a podcast, you can use your webinar to come up with future podcast topics.
4. Garner Inspiration for Future Podcast Episodes
Now, if the idea of reforming your webinars into podcasts excites you (as it should), then look for inspirations from each webinar episode to guide your podcast content. Like with blog posts and social media posts, you can use key points from the webinar and talk about them on your podcast.
You can even expand upon those conversations by getting new experts to join in the conversation. This will offer fresh perspectives and potentially drive more discussions. Or you can bring on the same experts to elaborate further on insights they shared. Of course, you can then wring out each podcast into even more content. For instance, you can create audio snippets of the key takeaways and share them on social or within long-form blog posts. The opportunities are only as limited as your creativity. By focusing on ways to connect and converse with your audience, you’ll find it easier to engage them.
Don’t Let Your Webinars Go Stale
Allowing your webinars to sit on the shelf, collecting virtual dust, never to be seen or heard from again just isn’t smart. Why let your webinars go stale when you can keep them fresh and in the minds of your audience? It’s not about resharing those webinars over and over (although, we recommend promoting the heck out of them). It’s about getting the content within them in front of your audience by any means necessary.
By using these tips, you can identify the best channels and formats to turn each webinar into content your audience actually wants to consume. So get your team together and begin brainstorming ways to reuse webinars before you even shoot them. Starting with the end in mind will ensure every webinar has a long shelf life.
