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Why Webinars are a Powerful Instrument in your GDPR Toolkit

CMMA Blog

If there’s one law on the tip of every marketer’s tongue, it’s GDPR . The General Data Privacy Regulation, which went into effect this May, is a requirement for any organization dealing with the data of citizens from the European Union. In essence, it empowers European Union citizens to control their data and puts strict limits on what data organizations can collect and how.

Similar regulations are popping up  in the United States as well.

At its heart, GDPR is about engagement. It demands organizations to be proactive, earn their audience’s interest and to respect the time of today’s digital community. By doing so, organizations aren’t only coming into compliance with GDPR, they’re nurturing better pipeline, a better brand, and a quality one-to-one relationship that actually matters.

So how can an organization wrestle with GDPR? At a glance, GPDR looks like it’d hurt a company’s marketing and sales efforts. It could, theoretically, slash market-qualified leads and cut pipeline. But companies don’t have to take that perceived hit so long as they use the right tools to engage with relevant, interested audiences. What organizations need to do is stop interrupting and start engaging.

That’s where webinars and platforms like the ON24 Engagement Platform  step in. With interactive, engaging webinars and events, companies can both affirm consent and confirm interest with  European Union citizens. Moreover, organizations can maintain and expand on that interest through a variety of in-webinar widgets, such as Q&As, newsletter sign up and more. No other digital marketing tool gives you the opportunity to — in one event — interact with a nearly limitless audience with multiple touchpoints while both gaining GDPR-compliant consent and gauging interest through advanced analytics.

What’s more, with tools like ON24’s Gateway  — an on-demand engagement hub for webinars, white papers and more — organizations can continue to drive that interest well after an event is over — allowing on-demand attendees to engage with a brand’s message on their own time.

Why does that matter? Simple: It puts your audience in the driver’s seat and allows them to interact with your brand and your content, on their terms. You no longer have to worry about if your messaging is spot-on because your audience will tell you through their interactions with you. You no longer have to worry if you’re GDPR-compliant with consent and legitimate interest, because your audience will confirm their interest through their interactions with you. ON24 helps you to put your audience in control — the way it should be.

Want to learn more about how webinars can be a powerful instrument in your GDPR toolkit? Join us on July 17 at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST)  as our webinar guru, Mark Bornstein, explains the ins-and-outs of GDPR and where webinars fit in.

The post Why Webinars are a Powerful Instrument in your GDPR Toolkit appeared first on ON24 .

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It’s Time to Wake Up Your Scale

CMMA Blog

Let’s talk about scale. As a concept, it’s simple enough — you take an item or set of figures and expand or contract — proportionally — as needed. Projectors, for example, can scale from a small frame to a massive frame with little effort. Similarly, you hold down the “shift” key when expanding a picture in PowerPoint or Word you’re making that image scale.

As a concept, scale is great.

Scale is great, of course, unless you need to scale revenue-generating ideas. Programs, people, pipeline — they’re all easy to scale in concept, but executing proportional growth for an organization is very, very difficult — doubly so if your role depends on it.

The ON24 Engagement Platform removes the difficulty from scaling your webinar events. It provides you with the tools you need to take a webinar from a few viewers to thousands or whittling an event intended for a massive audience down to a select few. Whether you’re using a global or account-based campaign, you have the power to stretch, shrink and scale your webinars to suit your needs.

Even more impactful is the platform’s ability to scale your programs — whether it’s marketing, certifications, continuing education or more — to your next market. ON24 makes it easy for you to push your hard-fought-for programs, and the ON24 platform, to peers in any region, regardless if they reside in a different county, state, country or global region. In fact, with ON24’s easy-to-use platform, you can teach distant co-workers and co-marketers — through ON24 and its robust, interactive widget — on how they can build and scale webinar campaigns and programs. This provides your organization with both marketing power and regional marketing programs that can scale specifically for a particular theatre of operations — extending your brand, your messaging and your values anywhere on the planet in a one-to-one scale.

So go ahead, expand your marketing efforts. Push your demos overseas. Send your campaigns on a round-world trip and tip off your regional peers on the power of scalable webinars. It’s time to wake up your webinars and your scalability.

To learn more about how ON24 can wake up your webinars, check out www.on24.com/wakeupyourwebinars .

The post It’s Time to Wake Up Your Scale appeared first on ON24 .

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CMOs: Don’t Lead a Cost Center, Be a Revenue Driver

CEOs

This post was originally published on adweek.com . Shared with permission.

Gartner’s prediction that CMOs will outspend CIOs on technology is now a fact: CMOs will use 12% of their company’s revenue on marketing technologies in 2018.

It makes sense: Just as a consumer would look to Yelp before going to a restaurant, prospects today do research before talking to sales, meaning the marketing department owns more of the sales funnel than ever. Silicon Valley has jumped on this opportunity — over 5,000 companies are clamoring to help marketers meet this growing responsibility.

Armed with growing budgets and new technologies, you’d think CMOs would have lasting influence in the boardroom. But research suggests otherwise: CMO tenures now average only 42 months , and that number declines every year. Another study revealed that 2016 was a year of record turnover rates for marketing executives. It’s time for CMOs to either figure out why they’re not delivering the ROI that CEOs want or not bother to set up their office.

As the CEO of a martech company for the past 15 years, I’ve seen the role of marketing teams completely transform. I remember when I thought about our marketing spend much like I did about playing roulette — throwing money on the table hoping it would pay of. I assumed that like gambling our marketing budget was simply the cost of playing the game.

Digital technologies changed that and it changed the role of CMOs. But CMOs haven’t adapted quite yet. They now need to act like the CEO of their own business – the marketing team. And that ultimately means CMOs must redefine success in the same way a CEO does, with an unrelenting focus on revenue. This revenue-or-die mindset isn’t easy to adapt, but here are three ways for CMOs to start thinking like a CEO and keep their eyes on the bottom line.

Say no.

One of the toughest choices we have to make everyday is the decision to not to do something. It’s easier to latch onto a fad than to stand against it. But the rationale for a campaign or new technology can’t be for the sake of trying something out. Numbers speak louder than words, and CMOs who have hard data to back up their strategy, approach, and results give themselves leverage in the C-Suite and make any campaign, whether it fails or succeeds, defensible.

My CMO has a quarterly revenue target to meet, and every dollar spent needs to have an equal return. Digital technologies have empowered us to analyze the entire performance of our marketing channels and use that intelligence to determine our future investments.

Social campaigns are great for awareness, for example, but for our business, they don’t drive revenue. This realization led us to scale back our investments in Facebook and Twitter. We used those resources to double down on our own website, webinars, and in-person events because our data showed these channels yielded the best results. We certainly feel some fear of missing out, but once you know what drives revenue, other channels become moot.

Prioritize relationships.

Even in the digital age, I still believe a one-on-one, in-person conversation is the best way to close a deal and build a relationship with a customer.

As far as technology has come, no automation software, algorithm or predictive analytics has the power of empathy. Consider H&R Block’s partnership announcement with IBM Watson . H&R Block could have heralded Watson as the end to human tax professionals, letting the computers do all the work faster. But who wants to just deal with a computer?

To their credit, IBM positioned Watson as a tool to further elevate services H&R reps already provide to customers. It was not about replacement, but letting computers and humans do what they do best, together. Marketers need to take a similar mindset, where you’re not having data dominate your approach, but using it in a manner that supplements your human understanding of your customer and their pain points.

There’s tremendous value in freeing up marketers’ time by using automated programs to tackle more tedious activities. This empowers marketers to build key personal relationships, learn from customers, and think critically about their biggest challenges. Marketers will maintain their relevance long into the future, but it won’t be solely because of data — it’ll be by understanding customers on a human level, while using data to enhance this understanding.

Be accountable.

In order to enhance this understanding, data cannot just be superficial The actual strength of the interactions you are measuring must go beyond clicks, views and downloads, and examine length of time spent on a piece of content, the strength of their intent, and level of interaction that your marketing tactics achieve.

A single click only provides a mere glimpse into customer interests, and gives little background on what motivated that click. Marketers must focus on the data points that are rich with insight about a customer’s behavior, intentions, and potential actions. You should ask yourself: for my business, what are the behavioral indicators that have driven past behavior? What’s my prospect’s digital body language telling me about the best way to engage with them? How do I  get them further down the funnel?

In today’s age, where everything is measured, CMOs should constantly look to drive revenue in order to show the value of their efforts to CEOs. If every marketing initiative and campaign is tied to revenue, the only CMOs who will be leaving their jobs will be the ones becoming CEOs themselves.

The post CMOs: Don’t Lead a Cost Center, Be a Revenue Driver appeared first on ON24 .

To view our Partner blog, click here

GDPR, Marketing and the Shift to a Privacy-Centric World

CMMA Blog

It’s been a little over a month since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, became law. The statute, taking effect on May 25, 2018, launched a slew of privacy update emails and last-minute data wrangling efforts from various companies across the globe. It has since inspired similar regulations, most recently California’s California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (AB 375) . Additional regulations, originating from different countries or states, could be on the way.

Why all the hubbub?

There are a few reasons why GDPR inspired so much scrambling and continues to do so after its implementation. First, it affects companies on a global scale. Second, it shifts an organization’s control over collected data from companies to individuals. Third, organizations can only collect data on an individual if they actively ask the individual for consent or if that individual has a legitimate interest in that company’s dealings.

Not only that, but organizations also need to clearly explain why they are collecting data and what for. Companies will need to demonstrate they can easily delete collected data if either A). an individual requests it or B). if the data is no longer relevant to the reasons it was initially collected in the first place. Data cannot be kept indefinitely for no particular reason.

The central issue, and why this regulation impacts companies across the globe, is that it regulates any data belonging to any E.U. citizen, regardless of where that data, or the company using that data, resides. If, for example, a company hosts an E.U. citizen’s data in Canada, that company still needs to comply with GDPR or risk up to 4 percent of its global revenue.

So, yeah — GDPR is a big deal. And both companies and governments are still trying to wrestle with both its implications and its enforcement.

Ultimately, though, GDPR is good , even if it’s still unclear to many. It empowers individuals to control their data and gives companies the scaffolding they need to shift their marketing and data retention policies to focus on individuals who are actively interested in what a company has to offer. Think of GDPR — and similar legislation — as an opportunity to both better organize your data and shorten your marketing funnel by engaging with folks who are genuinely interested in your business. It’s an invitation to stop interrupting and start engaging by putting your audience’s interests first.

To help you on your journey, we’re putting together a GDPR webinar. We’ll give you the low-down on the new law and how webinars can act as a powerful tool to help you stay in compliance and generate better pipeline. If you’re in the European market, join us on July 12 at 11 a.m. BST. If you’re in the United States, join us on July 17, at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) to get a better understanding of what GDPR means for you and how you can use webinars to get ahead of privacy regulations.

The post GDPR, Marketing and the Shift to a Privacy-Centric World appeared first on ON24 .

To view our Partner blog, click here

It’s Time to Wake Up Your Revenue

CMMA Blog

Webinars are a vanguard. For marketing, they lead the company’s messaging, ferrying actionable, engaging content to a sea of prospects. For sales, they signal qualified leads with the real, contextual data needed to earn a close. They capture attention. They educate audiences. They semaphore good and bad quarters for leads and push messages to a swath of listeners on a one-to-one level.

Ultimately, though, webinars. drive. revenue.

That’s because webinars act as a catalyst, enhancing your content and messaging and bringing actual qualified leads to the table with all the data dressings necessary — from what the lead has read, asked, and more — to make a close. The ON24 marketing platform makes this possible by collecting up to over 40 data points for every attendee — allowing your team to analyze content performance and lead quality from an aggregate perspective to a single attendee. With each webinar, your organization has the makings of a more effective scoring model and a better understanding of your best prospects.

Place thought leadership content in front of attendees curious about your solutions. Give demos to those seriously considering it. Provide product updates, industry panels and best practices guides to clients. The point is, for every stage, there’s a webinar use-case that’ll help you to accelerate your pipeline and enhance your messaging.

With ON24, you’re provided with a robust platform that adds dynamic, interactive layers to your content. With these layers in place, you can make a one-way conversation, two, and get a better understanding of the people behind the personas.

Deliver relevant, timely messages with live and on-demand events. Get your audience to lean into your content with interactive features like polling, chatting, surveying, and more. Turn those connections into actionable insights your whole operations team can use — from measuring campaign performance and benchmarking webinars to refining personas and accelerating pipeline. Make the move to smarter, deeper experiences. It’s time to wake up your webinars — and your revenue.

To learn more about how you can wake up your webinars and drive more revenue, head on over to www.on24.com/wakeupyourwebinars  or simply click this link .

The post It’s Time to Wake Up Your Revenue appeared first on ON24 .

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