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January 27, 2006
I still say dump webinars
My previous post about focusing on podcasts/videocasts instead of webinars has generated some very thoughtful comments from people who take issue with my (and Brian's) viewpoint.
Brian Carroll says that for complex, B2B selling, webinars help customer decision-making.
Laura Bennett says there's room for both webinars and podcasts but is concerned that there are too many amateurs creating awful podcasts.
Ardath Albee says that for interactivity, webinars beat podcasts hands down.
Steve Rubel says why not do both? Run an interactive webinar then podcast it later for the time-shifters.
Ken Molay says that adoption rates of video portable media players are still too low to make video podcasts viable. He also says that podcasts are not good lead generation vehicles compared to webinars.
Mike says he would like to see a study that measures the effectiveness of blog readers and podcast listeners vs. webinars and how both correlate into leads and sales. Great idea!
All good points, and I'm really enjoying the discussion.
First off, this is not meant to be a screed against any of the fine companies and people who create webinar software systems. I just think your sector has two big challenges:
1. Most webinars are not interactive.
Theoretically, webinars should be interactive because of the platform. Problem is, most webinars I've seen (and I've seen a good deal of them) are not. The tools can be daunting to use. Or the presenter is too focused on presenting the material to do much of anything else.
What often happens is a presenter relies on text-heavy PowerPoint slides and bores participants to death. A disembodied voice narrating bad PowerPoint is the norm. Granted, it's just as easy to bore someone to death with a podcast, but it's probably a less time-consuming and expensive death.
Is live Q&A feasible with podcasting? Nope, but that seems about the only key difference in interactivity. We've done webinars ourselves, and creating interactivity is a challenge.
So if most webinars are not interactive, what's the point?
2. The ROI on webinars is too low.
It's more work to produce and market a webinar than a podcast. You must select a technology platform, spend hours learning it, prep for and test the interactivity, and spend hours practicing because the event is live. Knowing there's a few dozen or a few hundred people on the other end obviously contributes to stagefright among some people, causing the dreaded robot-voice.
Add up the time spent finding attendees, signing them up, reminding them and herding them to a place for a one-time event and what do you get? If you're lucky, 30% percent attendance from registrations. If people don't have the right software installed, or the right browser, or web connection, etc. then those numbers sink further. And shut-out attendees leave frustrated.
As for Steve's point about producing both webinars and podcasts, this is entirely possible and plausible. But if time and resources are limited and I had to choose, I would choose downloadable or on-demand podcasts or videocasts for these additional reasons:
1. Podcasts are platform-agnostic. Most webinars are not.
2. Podcasts can be served via iTunes, which is free and a great distribution system.
3. Podcasts are more likely to be spread via social media than webinars.
4. Podcasts can be interactive if listeners are directed to blog comments or an 800 number.
5. Podcasts don't require mandatory registrations with often invasive questions as many webinars do.
6. Podcasts can have audio, slides or video easily mixed in via user-friendly programs like GarageBand.
The upshot here is that podcasts could go "live" before too long. RSS/podcast pioneer Dave Winer talks about how Yahoo could make "p2p webcasting" happen. Hopefully, it won't be using a too-techie name like p2p.
Finally, I disagree that podcasts are not good for lead generation. With most webinars, 70% of attendees sign up but miss the actual event. Then they are often inundated with follow-up emails. Sometimes their name is involuntarily added to email lists.
Podcasts most certainly can have calls-to action with a phone number, website address, or email to secure a free trial, white paper, email newsletter, sample, etc. To me, that's a more customer-friendly, less aggressive selling style. And it still contains all of the necessary ingredients for marketing set up as product or service education.
Like Peter Drucker famously said, the purpose of marketing is to make selling superfluous.
Other blogs that reference I still say dump webinars:
» Transform Webinars Instead of Dumping Them from Marketing Interactions
There's a great conversation I've been involved in with Church of the Customer and some other folks - which you may have noticed on my post Webinars before Podcasts. Jackie Hubba has posted a follow-up to her original post Podcasts vs. Webinars with he... [Read More]
» Transform Webinars Instead of Dumping Them from Marketing Interactions
There's a great conversation I've been involved in with Church of the Customer and some other folks - which you may have noticed on my post Webinars before Podcasts. Jackie Hubba has posted a follow-up to her original post Podcasts vs. Webinars with he... [Read More]
While it's not a quantitative research study, MarketingSherpa.com has published a case study about BearingPoint's use of podcasts to promote their white papers. There's some interesting stuff in there related to their decision-making process on podcast format, production and promotion, but overall I don't think it was worth $9. Has anyone seen good information elsewhere?
http://library.marketingsherpa.com/barrier.cfm?CID=3070
I found that case study via PodcastBuzz.com
http://www.podcastbuzz.com/blog/2006/01/27/business-podcast-marketing-case-study-proves-results-3/
Very good case made, Jackie.
I agree that webniars require too much from the attendee to really be effective. Podcasts fit the lifestyle.
Much has been said about the adoption of podcasts being small. However, lest we forget, if you consider the overall adoption of MP3s you are looking at a rather large market. If someone actually subscribes to a podcast through iTunes and likes it, they can easily forward the MP3 on to someone else.
Case in point, we take episodes of the Church of the Customer podcast and burn them to CD to hand out to our clients. That is what I call pervasive. Does it generate leads, absolutely.
Just to clarify, I said that the adoption of video-enabled media players is too small to justify video-oriented content as a primary podcast goal. Audio-only is fine, since it is equally suited for computers or iPods. But I still maintain that a radio broadcast under whatever name you want to give it is not an effective tool for lead acquisition, if that's your goal. It's an entertainment medium, a way to potentially stimulate discussion, and a way to popularize your point of view. It's NOT a lead generation tool. But I love the discussion!
Hi Ken,
Sorry about the misquoting. Somehow I missed that you were talking about just video players. So I fixed it in the post. Thanks for your comments!
Superfluous is an ambiguous term if you’re applying it in this context and I certainly wouldn't agree that that this is what Mr. Druker meant as it applies to pod cast. I thought you above name dropping as a prop.
As a consultant in customer service I have noted that there are many roads to achieve goals business; including that of marketing and to destroy even one is to allow your business to become terminally ill. This especially applies to working with customer issues. Pod casting certainly has a place and can be a powerful medium when fully developed.
However, so are webinars, being restricted only by the intended use and the architect of any particular instance. Pod cast are still in their infancy and are yet to jump many major hurdles before they can be what you envision, protocol standardization being one of them. I found your article thoughtful and provocative and would suggest that it should not be over looked.
Pod cast as a customer service support medium has possibilities as well as for customer experience support. I have found it already useful as a consultant although somewhat limited.
Thanks for the effort.
http://customerdevelopmentcenter.com
Great points all. The struggle most marketers face is measuring impact and ROI. That's a key criterion. It isn’t always about spreading the story (assuming they have a good one already).
Webcasts/Webinars, for good or for bad, are more measurable than podcasts and videocasts because of the underlying technology.
With webinars/webcasts, you can know who viewed your event, how long, when and how frequently. This is extremely useful feedback.
If your webinar stinks, you will see it in data because the data will tell you so. For example, you'll see people quit and didn't watch the whole event.
With podcasts, you don't have that kind of data yet because there isn't a centralized way to capture it. Not yet anyway.
RSS you may say? Nope, that won't do it either because the data stream is gets stored on a portable device. Also, RSS data isn’t as granular as the data you get from webinars/webcasts. RSS feeds by default will show you how many people subscribe to your feed. Once, it's downloaded you lose the ability to see what happens next. I’m sure this will change because RSS is continuing to evolve.
My point: The content must be good and relevant to your audience. That's what really matters. Then worry about giving your audience (potential customers) choices how they want to get the content.
Webinars and Podcasts (or recorded events) are different tools with different benefits and drawbacks. Hammers are great tools but I also have a few screwdrivers and some wrenches.
We have been using recorded medium for about a year for non-interactive (mostly educational) material.
We use webinars for events where we want a lot of two-way communication with the other participants.
You also need to take into account your audience. Our webinars are for a global audience, many of whom are not on broadband and meeting their bandwidth needs is key to our webinar's success.
Bill
