Webinars certainly took off during the pandemic when face-to-face events were not possible. ON24, a virtual platform, hosted 19,292 webinars in April 2020 alone – that’s about 640 webinars a day.
With the increased demand for webinars, platform providers capitalised on the popularity and made their software more sophisticated so hosts can fully understand their audience, engagement levels, and whether attendees convert to customers.
To give you an idea of how successful webinars can be, we recently helped organise and promote a webinar for our client, Carrier.
During this educational webinar, the Carrier experts discussed how heat pump technology can play a vital role in decarbonising commercial heating and help them move closer to net zero.
There is an incredible amount of knowledge and experience within the Carrier Commercial HVAC team in the UK, so a webinar is the perfect way to share it.
Carrier had a clear topic in mind and had lots of material on heat pumps and decarbonisation. They just needed support in pulling it together and making sure the right people attended.
Carrier had two main goals for the first webinar:
1. To enhance the audience’s understanding of heat pump technology, its benefits, and its alignment with sustainable practices.
2. To offer support in navigating the adoption of heat pump technology, including showcasing available government incentives.
We started with a briefing meeting to fully understand Carrier’s needs and what they wanted to achieve with the webinar. During the discussion, content ideas flowed, and a storyboard for the hour-long session soon came together. We then set about finding a webinar platform that could help bring the ideas to life. We recommended StreamGo.
StreamGo offers a whole range of features, such as the ability to have a ‘managed webinar’, a professional-looking interface, and smart analytical features at the back end.
As this was Carrier’s first webinar, we suggested the managed webinar option so the panel of experts could pre-record all the detailed information about the inner workings of a heat pump and deliver accurate information about funding initiatives to support with the adoption of heat pumps across the UK.
With the help of StreamGo’s project manager, the pre-recorded clips seamlessly integrated with a live Q&A on the go-live day.
Once the content had been finalised and recorded, we collated and wrote short biographies for each of the five speakers. The content was then uploaded to the registration page, and the URL was ready to be shared and promoted.
Along with a sponsored LinkedIn post, we recommended a direct marketing campaign to target the perfect audience. PRG has extensive media contacts in the HVAC industry and recommended solus e-shots with three trade publications. The publications were carefully chosen to maximise sign-ups from key industry professionals in Healthcare, Education, HVAC, and the Built Environment.
We crafted the content, produced striking imagery, and built the HTML e-shot. The imagery and text were also used for LinkedIn advertising to further boost sign-ups.
Sign-ups were very healthy, with over 160 professionals from the identified sectors registering their interest. During the event, there was an average of 60 attendees who watched for 40 minutes or more.
With all the data collected, Carrier now has a captive audience of 160 people with whom they can communicate about heat pump technology. For those who didn’t manage to watch the webinar on the day or watch in full, they have the opportunity to watch on-demand for up to three months. One of StreamGo’s intelligent on-demand features allows the viewer to search for keywords and presents them with time stamps of when those terms were spoken about. So searching for ‘E.ON’ or ‘heat network’ will present results for guest speaker David Sullivan’s section about E.ON and Carrier’s ground-breaking project to provide heating and cooling across the Square Mile in the City of London.
As well as a healthy number of sign-ups, Carrier received very positive feedback from viewers. In the survey following the webinar, viewers said the session was very informative, professional, well-presented, and provided valuable information about funding incentives to adopt heat pump technology.
Neil Hitching, Carrier Commercial HVAC, Northern European Marketing Director said, “PRG played a pivotal role in the success of our webinar. Their support, recommendations, and organisation, as well as strategic promotion, helped us deliver an exceptional webinar to exactly the right people. Following the hour-long session, we received enquiries from customers seeking help and advice about adopting heat pumps into their business. We’re delighted that PRG helped to make our first webinar a resounding success.”
The webinar further strengthened Carrier as an industry thought leader, showcased its expertise and commitment to facilitating sustainable solutions and has led to positive enquiries from potential customers.
If you are thinking about other ways to reach your target audience or perhaps reach new customers, then you should consider hosting a webinar.
Please reach out to a member of our dedicated team if you would like some expert support with sharing your message.
