B2B Lead Blog

great post. I bailed form one today in fact, due to reason #2. they could have emailed me the deck, I could have read it in ten minutes and saved 50 minutes of my time.

love your blog, keep up the good writing!
z

If I may be so bold as to add another reason…and the primay reason I bail on webinars… The webinar was advertised as being about a particular topic of interest but in reality it was a sales pitch. When will companies get that a webinar is an opportunity to build your credibility and being viewed as an expert is part of the sales process? We didn’t tune it to hear hear that you are the “leading provider of..” or to see a slide with 30 customer logos plastered on it. That is a turn off…just get to the content! Just MHO.

When I bail, it is usually because the presenter’s don’t start on time, or due to technical problems: i.e. bad/no audio.

I have come to expect that webinars will not be much more than a thinly veiled sales pitch, but many still contain valuable insight.

Another webinar related issue that I would be curious to look into is actual webinar attendance rate, or how many people that actually register for a webinar attend.

At my organization we have had several webinars with 10-20 registrations, but when it came time to present we were left with only 1 or 2 individuals that actually showed up.

To answer your question registered to attendance rate for webinars… I personally use this grading based my experience and the 3rd party research I’ve seen from MarketingSherpa.

Low attendance is < 35%
Okay attendance is 35 to 40% (this is the average for most webinars)
Great attendance is > 40%

Based on that your registration rate is “low” with 10% registered to attendance rate. I hope this was helpful.

Great insights everyone. Thank you and keep them coming!

I’ll tell you what is most important to offering a “sticky” webinar. Its a combination of energy and value. If the webinar doesn’t give off a little energy, the viewers will get bored and leave. If the webinar does not offer valuable tips, the viewer will feel the session was a waste of time. A combination of these two creates a dynamic one-two punch… http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?jv=28

I saw this MarketingSherpa piece too, and while I thought it was an interesting question to ask, I think they did it all wrong. Unless I’m under a false impression here, it seems like they came up with six reasons on their own — and simply asked people to rate the six. So these might not be the *real* top reasons.

I agree with all of the above comments — thinly veiled sales pitch, bad/no audio, not starting on time, energy and value. I think these are all more important than several of the reasons on MarketingSherpa’s chart (specifically the “one hour long” and “presenters spoke slowly” reasons). I’ve produced a couple webcasts where the presenters have spoken slowly or the presentation has been an hour long (or even an hour and a half!) But if the content is good, the audience stays…and gives high ratings in the exit survey.

I’d also propose “annoying disturbances” for the list, although lower on the list than most of the others mentioned already. We’ve seen lots of people bail when a presenter has a squeaky chair and it keeps making noise, when they’re on a speakerphone and there’s a lot of echo, when the presenter can’t figure out how to advance his/her slides, etc. The event loses its professional quality, and many attendees don’t put up with these sorts of distractions.

Great post! Webinars are a great marketing tool but, very dangerous in the hands of an amateur.

Very insightful post, the comment about the “annoying disturbances” is the #1 reason I leave webinars. I don’t mind sitting through some sales pitches or waiting if the webinar starts a few minutes late to get to good content. But I won’t stay if there are strange background noises, etc.

I agree with Trish’s comment about most webinars being sales presentations. That’s why I like the AMA’s offerings – their primary purpose is to educate the attendees.

One topic not touched here – perhaps it’s the subject of another blog – is why people don’t sign up in the first place. There is a company that does offers webinars on subjects I am interested in but they are scheduled at 5 pm Pacific time. For people who live in Eastern or Central time zones as I do, that can be a major deterrent.

Great post! How long do you think webinars should last?
Are people more likely to bail if the webinar is free than if they paid for it?

Our research shows that webinar length should be 60 minutes or less (including Q&A). Regardless of time, it’s vital to focus on creating compelling content (tailored specifically to your audience). It’s not just what you say; it’s how you say it. Be sure you have a good presenter and make sure they rehearse beforehand.

Great thread. To add: The chart itself is in this 7/15/08 post I wrote about this chart, and here’s some of the thinking I posted that day:

Is this data for real?

MarketingSherpa serves up extraordinarily fresh insightful data. Still, this sort of chart might need to be taken with a grain of salt. It’s not revealing actual abandon rates from webinars, after all. (Has MarketingSherpa uncovered a company willing to test different content and reveal abandon rates?) It reflects what professionals think makes them abandon. People are pretty bad at recalling events, much less introspecting about their own behaviors.

Worth the work

Done right, webinars can be a cost-effective way to educate and build trust with clients and prospects. You can talk participants through slides you’ve prepared about a top-of-mind topic or communicate through live video to communicate key messages.

Done wrong, webinars bleed participants by the nanosecond. Worse, they can make it harder to build fruitful relationships with new contacts.

More at http://tinyurl.com/why-we-bail