Creating webinars is a powerful way to stay ahead of the competition in B2B sales. Multiple studies have proven that webinars are effective and more companies than ever are incorporating them into their marketing campaigns.

According to a survey from Demand Gen Report, 62 percent of US B2B marketers were using webinars in lead nurturing campaigns in 2014. Here’s what you need to know about webinars to make them valuable for your campaigns.

Back-End Data Is Key

Many companies aren’t aware of the treasure trove of useful information and insights available in the back-end data from a webinar. There is an abundance of metrics that show whether your intended audience is watching your webinar. You can also learn how long the audience is staying and how helpful the audience finds the content of the webinar. If people are leaving early but writing exceptional reviews, it’s a good bet that your webinar is too lengthy, or repetitive. Some great tools companies can utilize to gather this information are polls, surveys and feedback.

The Rewards of This Data

Analytics obtained through back-end data not only assist in creating better webinars in the future, but also offer salespeople more beneficial information about potential buyers based on their level of interest and participation. This also advances the improvement of qualified leads. Gauging what information the participants expect to take away from the webinar allows companies to get a better idea of who the customers are and how they’re using the company’s products.

This helps create a strategy more likely to target the correct audience. Webinars assist companies in understanding the specific concerns and questions potential buyers have, making it easier to create content for use on websites, social media, and blog posts that addresses these concerns and answers these questions.

Mining the Data

It is absolutely necessary to understand how to use the tools for gathering back-end data to your advantage. You can export reports catered to mining the most useful data for your company. A good way to do this is to create a poll for attendees to complete after the webinar and then create a report based on the data you need.

Generating Leads

With the data obtained through webinars, you can view analytics giving you a better view of how attendees are utilizing your company’s webinars. You can then rank the participants from potential leads to extremely qualified leads and nurture them accordingly. A recent study by the Content Marketing Institute revealed that audience development can strengthen a webinar program.

Of course webinars have been used as a way to get your face in front of potential customers as a tool to show that you are an expert in your industry. However, there is no debate that the back-end data is where you’ll gain the most helpful information to grow your customer base.

With more leads to follow up on, your sales and marketing teams will need additional assistance with the tasks that clog up their schedules. Talk to the team at MonsterConnect. We can show you how our sales prospecting enablement tool can make your sales efforts more effective.