The power of webinars as a marketing tool is well documented, and use of the technology has continued to rise in recent years.

The number of webinars being held during our working week has also gone up, and this has led to clashes, as marketing teams seek to leverage their influence on the same days and at the same times.

As such, the on-demand feature for webinars has gained strength, a trend buttressed by improved mobile access and viewers becoming more habituated to being able to grasp content at their convenience.

On-demand strategy

The on-demand strategy has thus become a key consideration for marketing teams across the globe.

Not only important for those who missed your webinar, or who were unable to attend, a study by leading webinar marketing platform, ON24, finds that almost 5 per cent of webinar attendees watch both live and on-demand. This is most likely due to the flexibility that on-demand affords; if attendees miss a relevant section of the original presentation, they can go back and take a closer look at a later date.

On-demand growing in the EMEA

Research shows that on-demand viewing times in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) continue to exceed the global average. For 2015, the average on-demand viewing time for webinars in the EMEA stands at 39 minutes, lower than the average live viewing time of 50 minutes, but still a substantial and highly telling statistic.

The discrepancy can be attributed to the high numbers of on-demand viewers who will have watched the live event, and only want to catch up on specific items of content. Supporting this trend, most on-demand webinars include timeline tools which enable viewers to jump to desired areas and content that they are more interested in.

If not as impactful as the live event, an on-demand webinar is essential for mopping up those extra viewers and must not be overlooked.

With this in mind, the promotion of on-demand should stand on equal footing with the webinar itself. ON24 research shows that 28 per cent of webinar attendees registered after the live event was over, a figure which has gone up year-on-year.

Clearly, the power of the live webinar can continue to work its magic, long after the initial broadcast.

 

Each year companies are upping their webinar game, developing pre-webinar promotions, becoming more sophisticated about integrating video and other engagement opportunities, and devoting more time to nurturing viewing figures through a more serious approach on-demand culture.

While the power of the live webinar is very evident, the most effective marketing strategies will be those that treat the post-live strategy with the respect it deserves.

Today’s consumer is in control: webinar strategies that have the edge will implement this tenet to its fullest.

 

*About ON24 Webinar Benchmarks Report
The study measured statistics across the entire lifecycle of a webinar, including webinar promotion and registration metrics, webinar interactivity metrics, audience viewing habits, and both live and on-demand attendance and conversion metrics.

Click here to download a copy of the ON24 Webinar Benchmarks Report.

About ON24
ON24, the world’s leading webinar marketing platform. In 2015, ON24 supported over 60,000 webcasts globally.

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