ON24 Recommends Best Practices for Improving Webinar Leads

SAN FRANCISCO, April 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- ON24, the global leader in webinars and virtual communication solutions, today announced an interactive webcast, "Best Practices for Improving the Quality of Your Webinar Leads." Scheduled for April 23, 2014, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time, the 45-minute live webinar – followed by a live Q&A – will highlight best practices for using webinars to improve both the quality and quantity of sales leads.

According to Forrester Research, webinars are the number one marketing tool for generating new sales leads. However, there is a big difference between obtaining a contact name and converting it to a sales-ready lead. ON24's experts, including Tom Masotto, VP of Product Management, and Mark Bornstein, Senior Director of Content Marketing, will present an in-depth session that will offer numerous actionable tips for converting contacts into leads, including:

• How to use webinars at each stage of the buying cycle
• How to leverage interactive tools to provide a more engaging webinar experience
• How to integrate ON24 webinar reporting with marketing automation and CRM systems
• How to use ON24's engagement-based lead scoring to determine lead quality

During the event, ON24's experts will take a "deep dive" into two emerging technology trends that are at the intersection of webcasting and the sales cycle – platform integrations with marketing and CRM systems to more rapidly fill the sales pipeline and developing a deeper understanding of webcast audience engagement to better qualify leads. These new capabilities are designed to help shorten the sales cycle and drive webinar ROI for ON24 customers.

The first innovation is the delivery of webcast data to leading marketing automation and CRM tools via an ON24 integration service. Because webinars are used throughout the entire sales and marketing process – from driving awareness and lead generation and nurturing to cross-selling and upselling – the ability to quickly deliver registration and activity data from ON24 webinars to CRM and marketing automation platforms can be used in companies' lead scoring and qualification processes to drive ROI. This functionality enables webcast producers to more quickly identify and qualify sales-ready leads and to be more effective in their post-webinar interactions with prospects.

Unique in the industry, ON24 engagement scoring allows marketers to qualify leads based on audience behaviors. A proprietary ON24 algorithm calculates numerous elements of viewer interactivity and participation within a given webcast to deliver a numerical score that helps producers understand webcast performance and lead quality. Engagement is ranked on a scale of one to ten – with the most engaged viewers scoring highest; this allows producers to compare and benchmark the performance of their own webcasts against "best-in-class" or industry-specific webcasts, as well as a given universe of webcast events. This "score" leverages ON24's integration service to improve a company's lead scoring and nurturing.

"As webinars continue to grow and develop as a marketing channel, so does the need for best practices and new technologies to better manage webinar leads," commented Lars Christensen, Vice President of Marketing for ON24. "We're excited to educate the market about best practices for lead management and to share the latest information on performance metrics and lead quality – as well as illustrating how webcast platforms can deliver this crucial sales data directly to CRM and marketing automation systems. For ON24, this is all about leading the industry and showcasing new ways to drive ROI from webcasts."

Register now for tomorrow's live webinar, "Best Practices for Improving the Quality of Your Webinar Leads."

About ON24, Inc.

ON24 is the global leader in cloud-based solutions for webcasting and virtual communications. ON24 offers a broad and innovative product portfolio accessible from any device and supported by industry-leading reporting and analytics. More than 1,000 organizations, including IBM, CA Technologies, Merck, JPMorgan Chase, Deloitte, Credit Suisse, Rosetta Stone, Ernst & Young and SAP, rely on ON24. Applications for the ON24 platform include demand generation, customer engagement, talent development and town hall meetings. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices throughout the world. For more information, visit http://www.on24.com.

About the ON24 Network

The ON24 Network is the world's largest webinar network.  It leverages two redundant data centers and a network of global delivery partners to distribute massive amounts of information to millions of viewers.  With new registrants joining every 1.8 seconds, the ON24 Network's audience is growing 30% each year.  Over the last five years, the ON24 Network delivered 106,000 live webinars to more than 30 million viewers who watched over 27 million hours of content. According to Frost & Sullivan, ON24 is the web events industry leader, with 28% market share.

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SOURCE ON24