4 Proven Tips to Launch a Successful On-Demand Webinar Strategy

Expectations for virtual events and live webinars have evolved rapidly in the past couple years. Delivery platforms have matured, making the process of hosting an event decidedly less difficult. Marketing teams everywhere are looking for tools to enable best-in-class virtual experiences for their audiences.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, marketers may have noticed a steady drop-off of live attendees for events.

Lower attendee rates seems to be an industry-wide trend. A recent report indicates virtual attendee rates have dropped from 70% to 35-40% in the last two years. Before you start panicking or reconsidering your planned events, we want to reassure you: this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Should you worry? No! Each time we create a webinar or event at Vimeo, we’ve received a wave of requests for on demand webinars. In fact, our data shows over 68% of attendees rewatch content from events they’ve attended.

The value of an on demand webinar is the ability to continue to attract and engage an audience long after the event ends. It also gives people the ability to experience the same content at a time and place that works for them.

While live attendee rates are subject to fluctuation, on demand content can help teams attract more leads and drive new business opportunities for brands.

What is an on demand webinar?

An on demand webinar is a pre-recorded piece of video content that’s edited and hosted online. Whether you edit an on demand webinar post-event or produce and record it for a simulive environment, they’re a great asset to an overall demand marketing strategy.

On demand webinars can help to drive lead generation, boost a brand’s authority in a topic area, and help you reach more people. And don’t forget — people love them! More than half (68%) of attendees say they rewatch content from events they’ve already attended.

What is an on demand webinar strategy?

Simply put, an on demand webinar or virtual event strategy is a plan that ensures people can access your event well after the event ends. This allows registrants who missed the event to view content on demand or registrants who attended the event to rewatch content whenever they want. Additionally, an on demand webinar can attract new leads.

In addition to the on demand video, your strategy can (and should!) include pieces of the event repurposed to fit all your marketing channels including paid streams, social media feeds, email blasts, and blog posts. An effective on demand strategy is all about making sure your content has the longest shelf-life possible.

The advantages of having an on demand strategy are endless: it can help you capture more leads, help you maintain a relationship with your existing customers, and fill them in on products and features they might have missed.

Why should your team have an on demand webinar strategy?

Virtual event attendance is subject to external factors. The reality is that scheduling is harder than ever, attention spans are shorter, and we’re all too screened-out for yet another hour-or-longer corporate event broadcast through a laptop or mobile phone. Your attendees may be taking care of their kids, living in a different time zone, or juggling conflicting priorities.

An on demand webinar allows people to catch up when it’s most convenient for them. As a bonus, it can engage people who find out about the webinar after it has passed. For lead capture, it’s a no-brainer.

Edit and refresh your existing content and use it to retarget your customers or important audience groups. Highlight reels, speaker quotes, and other visuals can be used to create more marketing collateral and work forever to help drive business value (yes, really — forever!).

How Vimeo builds an on demand webinar strategy

Leading up to the event itself, our on demand strategy is similar to our overall event and webinar promotion strategy. We begin with a business goal and create a strategy that uses our key marketing channels to promote the event.

Do we need more leads? Who is our audience? What topics interest them?

Once we have a better picture of the event goals, audience, and topics, we leverage our channels — Facebook, LinkedIn, and existing email databases — to promote the event.

Once we have a strong grasp of our audience and the channels they use, we take those insights to help shape our demand generation strategy and on demand webinar strategy.

We review the webinar and parcel out segments, soundbites, and clips that may be useful for evergreen content we can use going forward.

Once the event is over, we focus on launching our on demand content. The chat is closed; an email is sent over to all registrants (usually along the lines of “Thank you for attending” to those who showed up or “Sorry we missed you” to those who didn’t) and we repurpose video content into other marketing collateral. Think email newsletters, evergreen blog posts, social posts, and paid social.

4 tips to build an on demand webinar strategy

While Vimeo may have one way to build an on demand webinar strategy, every company can cater their strategy to meet their needs and marketing goals. Below, we’ve highlighted a few no-fail tips to help you successfully create an on demand strategy for your events.

Build your on demand strategy from the get-go

While you’re pulling together your initial marketing, you’ll have to ask yourself questions that will come after the event.

How long after the event is the on demand video going to be up? When is the recap email going out? When are you going to start promoting your evergreen content?

Answers to the above questions will help you build a timeline to edit and upload content, send your post-event emails, and when and where to promote your evergreen content. Just remember that once you have your audience’s attention, you’re going to have to work hard to keep it — so make sure you know exactly what your next step is at all times.

Listen to your audience

Listening to your audience throughout the entire process of promoting, hosting, and executing your live event can help you glean important insights for your on demand strategy. Sometimes it’s requests for replay, but it can also be candid and useful in-chat feedback.

We often have requests for a downloadable version of a webinar presentation, a guide, or a checklist. The advice becomes great downloadable content or fodder for the next event.

Every piece of feedback helps. That’s why we love interaction and moderation tools, including an open chat or a moderated Q&A. Usually, there’s a team member — me! — logged into the chat to interact with the audience, answer product questions, and moderate questions that speakers might not see.

For each valuable suggestion from the audience, a lightbulb goes off and marketing comes together to discuss new content, build another event, and brainstorm more resources. This is how we continually improve with every event.

Keep your foot on the pedal

Once the presenters and speakers have turned off their mics and attendees have closed their browsers, the last push begins. The team transcribes the video, uploads it, embeds it on our website, and sends an email out to our registrants.

Remember, you’re working against the ticking clock of dwindling post-event momentum, so you’ve got to act fast.

Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose

Virtual events and webinars require a lot of resources, time and power, so when they’re over, you don’t just want to shelve all that effort, throw the raw video replay and move on to the next one.

Instead of thinking of an event as one large asset, strategize how to use your content in different ways. This will help you continue to drive business value.

For example, webinar content can turn into downloadable content, speaker quotes for social, or clips your sales team can distribute to their networks. Eventually, as you move on to newer campaigns, these pieces of content can passively benefit you, through backlinking to blog posts or existing email streams.

Thinking creatively about how to repurpose your video to fit existing content channels will help guarantee all your beautiful hard work is given the amount of shine it deserves for as long as possible.

Written by Carine Alexis on February 4, 2022 and updated on March 7, 2022.