We’re Stuck on the Webinar Hamster Wheel

Congrats – you’ve worked hard for months to put together another webinar session to drive leads and pipeline.

You coordinated with speakers, created stunning slides, and promoted it with everything you had.

But on the day of the event, only 30% of the people who registered showed up. And only 2 people asked questions.

You feel like the numbers should be better, but there’s no time to waste. So, you ask the sales team to follow up with everyone, hoping they can make up for the low attendance. You send out the recording link, knowing only a handful will watch it.

And then you move on to the next one. Sound familiar?

Too many marketers are stuck on this webinar hamster wheel – driving low engagement and feeling like their content isn’t being used to its full potential.

As a B2B marketer myself, I’ve been there. So recently, I started thinking...

There has to be more we can do.

The Current Webinar Playbook Prioritizes Touch-Points Over Reach

The current B2B webinar playbook is outdated, short-sighted, and leads to waste and inefficiency.

Like most marketers, I follow this playbook. It prioritizes hosting live events at specific times, with all energy focused on getting people to attend in real time. Once it’s done, we post the recording on our website and move on.

If someone misses it, they can catch the recording (not that many actually will).

And the playbook is not broken because the platforms we use lack interactive features to boost engagement. It’s not that we don’t give out enough gift cards to boost attendance. It’s not that sales teams aren’t following up fast enough on “hot leads.”

It’s because we’re not maximizing the content’s reach.

The result? A list of attendees and a piece of content that rarely sees the light of day again.

What a waste.

We’re far too focused on tracking registrations and attendees so we can attribute results. While tracking is great, we’re undervaluing the reach in the process.

Here’s what we’re missing: the result of a webinar isn’t just an attendee list – it’s quality video content that can reach buyers across other channels.

It’s time to amplify what we already have. 

Since I’m dealing with this currently, here’s my plan.

My Version 1 Content Repurposing Plan

To maximize reach, I’ll be taking the webinars I host, clip them into shorter versions, then work to have them published on our online channels.

The good thing is, this approach doesn’t require creating more content than we already do. (You’re welcome, video team.) Instead, I’ll repurpose it.

Here’s the plan:

• Create source content (webinars in this case)

• From that, create additional content pieces (shorter clips)

• Publish the new content across owned channels (like LinkedIn)

• Get interest and feedback to inform future content

• Repeat

Let’s dive in.

Step 1: Host the Webinar

This part is easy. Just make sure it’s being recorded.

But here are a few tips I’ve learned the hard way:

• Have speakers wear clothing that contrasts with the background. If you plan to use captions, avoid shirt colors that blend in.

• Make sure speakers stay muted when they’re not talking. Otherwise, any noise they make might flip the video to their screen mid-session.

Now, we’ve got our source content.

Step 2: Identify High-Value Clips

Now it’s time to pull the clips. This is where the work lies.

Look for those “aha” moments – points made during the session that make people want to see more.

Example: Your CIO explaining the impact of AI on healthcare or a customer sharing a success story.

What’s important: short-form content has to be strong to work. Otherwise, it just reveals the weak content you already have.

Tools like Goldcast.io are great for this because they allow you to create clips by highlighting the transcript. Plus, the AI suggests high-value clips, saving you a lot of time.

Here’s my approach:

• Long-form: Post the full webinar on channels like YouTube, Vimeo, and your website.

• Short/Medium: Create a few 10-60 second clips for social feeds.

• Micro: Create a few clips under 10 seconds for shorts on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

Again, each clip should be valuable on its own, without needing the rest of the webinar for context. Add captions and download them as MP4 files. Now we have our “new” content ready to go.

Let’s get to posting.

Step 3: Post to Your Owned Channels

Now that we have our clips, we can distribute the content. There’s no single “right” way to do this, so work with your social media and web team to get these posted.

Here’s what I’m thinking:

• Long-form: Post as-is. This functions as an on-demand replay.

• Short/Medium clips: A good rule of thumb is 2-3 posts per week on social media. Avoid flooding your feeds.

• Micro clips: Same as above. Spread out posts and track engagement.

And that’s it – we’ve now expanded our webinars’ reach without creating anything new.

The degree to which reach is increased is solely dependent on your company’s online reach (website, social media, etc). But most companies have a decent following, so it should be a net-benefit.

Takeaways & Looking Forward

Webinars aren’t just one-time events; they’re content that can fuel your marketing long after the live event is over. By reframing how we see webinars, we can create a series of engaging, bite-sized pieces to share across multiple channels.

And since most B2B companies have solid social media followings, this can be done without paid media.

So, take your last webinar recording, find a few strong moments, and start posting clips. Each post puts valuable content in front of the right audience, on their terms.

Test and iterate. What’s the downside?

Good luck! I’ll report back on how well this works for me.