a recipe for a winning webinar case study

CASE STUDY

© 2015 BRUCE PHARR | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY MARKETING

www.brucepharr.com

A Recipe for a Winning Webinar

A RECIPE FOR A WINNING WEBINAR | 2

What works is a focus on your buyers and their

problems. What fails is an egocentric display of

your products and services.

David Scott Meerman,

The New Rules of Marketing & PR


A RECIPE FOR A WINNING WEBINAR A webinar, or web seminar, can be an extremely effective method of reaching target prospects and nurturing them through the critical exploration phase of the purchase process—a time when they want to learn how a product can meet their specific functional and business needs. Product-oriented webinars, such as online workshops, can be valuable for present customers that want to learn more about using a product they have already purchased. But product-oriented webinars are not the most effective method of reaching and influencing prospective customers.

The following pages describe a recipe used at Symyx Technologies to significantly exceed average webinar metrics and produce an exceptional return-on-investment. According to webinar partner C&EN, which co-sponsors and conducts webinars with companies every couple of weeks, the Symyx webinar generated 3 times more registrations and attendees than the average, and it produced an extraordinary 145 online questions. Also, the co-sponsored webinar generated 10 times more registrations and attendees than product-oriented webinars publicized and conducted by Symyx alone. The average cost of attendee acquisition was about $20, far below the average cost per inquiry from live seminars and conferences.


ADDRESS A HOT TOPIC 1. The more relevant and timely the webinar topic, the higher the

attendance and level of interest.

The Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) initially was introduced in the 1990s for separate, specific scientific disciplines. In the late 2000s, the enterprise ELN was introduced with a promise of working well across multiple disciplines.

In 2010, a very hot topic was whether an enterprise ELN could work equally well in both chemistry and biology disciplines. The title of the webinar was Electronic Laboratory Notebook Case Study: Cross-Discipline Implementation and Integration. The overview included the following:

This webinar describes how Millennium: The Takeda Ontology Company

implemented an ELN from a single vendor for two different discovery

disciplines: chemistry and biology.


PARTNER WITH A RESPECTED THIRD-PARTY

2. Partnering with an analyst group, professional organization, or

respected publication can improve the quantity and quality of attendees.

Co-sponsorship with an independent, respected third party implies that the webinar is more balanced and less biased than one sponsored by your company alone. In addition, the third-party will usually publicize the webinar to their membership or readership, which can significantly increase your reach, registration, and attendance.

Symyx partnered with C&EN (Chemical and Engineering News), the official publication of the American Chemical Society (ACS), to publicize and present the webinar. The webinar was promoted by Symyx through direct marketing, its website, and its social media channels, and by ACS to its 160,000 members—over three times the number of prospects in the Symyx database.


USE AN INDEPENDENT MODERATOR AND CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

3. An analyst, editor, or other

independent, unbiased expert moderating the webinar and an actual customer reviewing a real process, decision, and result are much more credible and interesting than presenting yourself.

Rick Mullin, a senior editor at Chemical & Engineering News moderated the case study presentation by Gabriel Weatherhead, Ph.D., Lead Systems Engineer at Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company. Gabriel described the process Millennium used to select an enterprise ELN for the chemistry and biology disciplines.


LIMIT YOUR INVOLVEMENT TO ANSWERING QUESTIONS 4. Answering a question is much more powerful and effective than making

a statement.

When you answer a question, you know the audience, especially the person asking the question, is interested in what you have to say. And, people listen more closely to answers than to statements.

Have the person most knowledgeable about the webinar subject answer the questions, and stay on topic. This is not the time to try and broadcast your marketing message. Just answer the questions clearly and concisely.

A Symyx Vice President of Strategy and Product Management answered appropriate questions after the presentation by Gabriel. Gabriel answered most of the questions about how Millennium assessed and used the Symyx Notebook enterprise ELN for both chemistry and biology disciplines, and the Symyx representative limited his answers to specific product questions.


FOLLOW-UP WITH NEXT STEP OPTIONS 5. A few days after the webinar, contact attendees with options for them

to learn more and take the next step.

Attendees were contacted after the presentation and directed to an ELN microsite where they could access a pdf copy of the Millennium case study, and other ELN marketing assets that allow respondents to learn more and take the next step in the buyer education and decision process.

Symyx, in turn, could nurture and track prospects going forward, and eventually provide sales with a well-developed profile and activity history (attended webinar, viewed video, downloaded case study, etc.) of a qualified prospective buyer—the definition of a sales opportunity.


ABOUT BRUCE PHARR I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my wife and son. I hike in the Santa Cruz Mountains, eat good food, drink good wine, root for the SF Giants, and indulge a passion for the arts.

I serve as a strategic advisor, senior consultant, and contract corporate executive with innovative science and technology companies in life sciences, healthcare, energy storage, instrumentation, and semiconductors.

I have a track record of helping companies create competitive advantage, grow revenue and market share, and increase enterprise value. And I’ve contributed to several successful M&A events. I am a subject matter expert in basic, translational, and clinical research systems. I have led or contributed to the development of market and product requirements for biomedical, genomic, and NGS products, written thought-leader white papers, case studies, and articles for leading online and print publications, and developed and delivered presentations at major biomedical conferences.

I led development and execution of the webinar described in this case study as part of an integrated go-to-market strategy for Symyx Notebook enterprise electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) while serving as VP, Marketing at Symyx Technologies in 2009.