Where do the member companies of SPECTARIS, the German Industry Association for Optics, Photonics, Analytical and Medical Technologies, stand when it comes to sharing know-how by offering webinars?
To answer this question, we analyzed the websites of the member companies:
- Who offers webinars for existing and potential customers?
- Are the webinars made available live or on demand?
- How many webinars do the companies offer?
- What differences are there between Spectaris’s four sector-specific branches?
Content
▶ Webinars are becoming increasingly important
▶ The sector-specific branches of Spectaris
▶ Low level of webinar use among Spectaris members
▶ On-demand webinars more popular than live webinars among Spectaris members
▶ There’s scope for Spectaris members to offer more webinars
▶ Conclusions
▶ What should YOU do to get started with webinars?
Webinars are becoming increasingly important
Webinars are becoming increasingly important. This is also because Corona has pretty much put a stop to all conferences and trade fairs. Customers are becoming more and more used to accessing information at home, from their computer or smartphone screens. The company Malvern Panalytical has been right at the forefront of the trend to offer webinars. The British company held its first webinars back in 2001. By 2012, it was hosting 77 a year, and today, in the age of Corona, there are as many as 142!
At virtual trade shows, webinars have been and are still a magnet that attracts visitors. This is impressively underpinned by 2020 data from three virtual trade shows that focus on process, lab and analysis technology.
In total, the webinar hosts welcomed over 37,000 participants. On average, that’s 113 participants per webinar.
More than 37,000 webinar participations at the three virtual trade shows
Webinars are important for know-how to disseminate within these industries. But how do Spectaris member companies use webinars to turn potential customers into actual ones? We’ve analyzed this in detail.
The sector-specific branches of Spectaris
As an industry association, Spectaris promotes the interests of over 400 member companies. These are organized in four sector-specific branches:
Low level of webinar use among Spectaris members
The companies organized in Spectaris’s four sector-specific branches use webinars to varying degrees. The most advanced are those in the Analytical, Bio and Lab Technology branch. Of its 102 companies, 36 percent use webinars for marketing communications.
At the other end of the scale is the Consumer Optics branch. Only 13 percent of its 101 member companies offer webinars to share know-how about products and applications. This means that the overwhelming majority of companies are not making use of this considerable potential to boost sales.
Figure 2: Varying degrees of webinar use among Spectaris’s branches
On-demand webinars more popular than live webinars among Spectaris members
Webinars can be held live at a fixed date and time or made available on-demand. For on-demand webinars, those wanting to view can register at any time and access the webinar almost immediately.
In recent years, the trend has been toward on-demand because it lets companies reach measurably more viewers. This trend is reflected by what the Spectaris member companies offer: the proportion of on-demand webinars ranges from 60 percent in Consumer Optics to 85 percent in Photonics.
Figure 3: Spectaris member companies offer 60% to 85% of their webinars on-demand
There’s scope for Spectaris members to offer more webinars
The use of webinars varies among the four branches. Between 13 and 36 percent of member companies use webinars in marketing communications. This means that the many remaining companies are not using the existing considerable potential to boost sales.
Among the Spectaris member companies that do offer webinars, how many does each host? We’ve taken a closer look. Just over 40 percent offer one to five webinars. But as many as 36 percent of these companies offer more than 20 webinars, and the frontrunners even more than 100.
The more webinars a company offers, the greater the likelihood of additional sales revenues.
Figure 4: The more webinars a company offers, the more likely it is to generate additional sales revenues
Conclusions
Although webinars have been used by leading companies for over 20 years, 76% of Spectaris member companies still don’t make use of this important marketing communications tool.
Why do so few member companies use webinars? From my own experience, I can think of three explanations:
- Lack of knowledge about webinar software (“This is new to us, and we don’t want to embarrass ourselves in public”)
- Fear of having to present (“I don’t get to see the participants like I’m used to from workshops and seminars”)
- Fear of verbal slip-ups (“A slip of the tongue will stay in the recording”)
I, too, was nervous when we held our first live webinar at LUMITOS in 2015. Did it all go smoothly? Absolutely not! But we were fearless and improved quickly. The following webinars were already great. The feedback we received from participants confirmed this. Today, webinars are a proven method for us to share our knowledge in online marketing.
What should YOU do to get started with webinars?
- Understand why webinars are a must for B2B companies. I have carried together compelling reasons in the structured blog post “Why webinars are so valuable for B2B companies
- Start promoting your webinars as soon as your first webinar has been scheduled. I have described how best to do this in this blog post “The right way to promote webinars”.
- Once you’ve recorded a webinar for target groups in the chemical, pharmaceutical, life sciences, analytics or food & beverage industries, I recommend our webinar libraries as a hosting option. Your webinar will quickly be found there by potential customers, and you will continuously generate sales leads.
