How To Quickly Convert Webinar & eBook Leads Into MQLs?

It can be challenging to get truly qualified leads from webinars. And often, whether they’re qualified or not, these leads are usually passed to the sales team anyway. Without qualification, there’s no way to judge the quality and urgency of each lead. In some instances, the person who submitted information may not have a need at all (and therefore, there’s no chance for them to become a client).

You want to cast a wide net and get as many people attending or downloading your webinars– everyone does. But you know that not everyone who attends your webinar is truly a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)– and that’s okay. But how can you tell the buyers from the curious ones before they go through any marketing funnel and waste your sales team’s time? Let us show you.

What if you could convert a percentage of these potential leads before they even joined your webinar? Sounds game-changing, right?

When someone is looking for an eBook or a webinar, they have a problem they're trying to solve now.

If you talk to them when this issue is on their mind, and they’re actively searching for a solution, you’ll learn their exact situation and what matters most to them. This is where Conversational Marketing comes in.

When looking at how important Conversational Marketing is, let’s look at the root of the concept: conversation.

As people, how do we communicate anything well? By choosing the right words at the right time. When you tell your sales team how you want them to represent your brand to speak your customer's language, or when you make sure that your marketing copy reflects what your customers will expect and be delighted by, you use conversation. Conversation is one of the powerful tools at our fingertips and the key to getting things done efficiently and beneficially for both you and your customers. 

These principles of conversation are no different for web visitors reviewing your site and interested in your content. When you use Conversational Marketing, you’re setting yourself up to convert more people into MQLs. And conversely, if you don’t use Conversational Marketing, you’re essentially guessing what people need. So if you’re ready to start talking with your customers, what is the best way for these conversations to take place?

How to Easily Qualify Leads

We’ve seen repeatedly through data and analytics that the best way to qualify leads through Conversational Marketing is through live chat. This can be through a chat agent or an AI chatbot, but the objective overall is to engage the prospect in real-time. This will allow you to truly identify if this visitor is a marketing qualified lead. Remember: each prospect is unique, and conversation meets people exactly where they are.

By using Conversational Marketing, you can have meaningful and helpful conversations and begin to seamlessly and authentically pre-qualify these prospects for your sales team. 

• Pre-qualified leads provide the sales team with a level of confidence.
• Your salespeople spend their time selling; and sales revenues typically increase.
• It allows the salesperson to research the prospect prior to a discovery meeting.

This sort of powerful, dynamic qualification is possible with Conversational Marketing. Once a visitor has registered for a webinar or downloaded a piece of content, we can engage with them using a proactive, custom message to start a conversation. 

We’ll already have some basic information about the lead, such as the name, email address, company, and job title – but that is barely scratching the surface. Additionally, no webinar or eBook can come close to the hands-on, in-depth knowledge that an agent can share with them during the discovery phase.

Through conversation, we’ll uncover: 

• True pain points 
• What stage of the buying cycle they’re in 
• If they’ve looked into your competitors 
• What other content can you share 

In some cases, after qualification, the customer will realise that they’re actually further into the buying cycle than they thought and be open to a demo of your product. 

Having this information that can only be obtained through conversation adds a level of enrichment that can guarantee your leads are truly qualified. B2B buyers have limited time, so you can even reduce the sales cycle if you engage them meaningfully in the moment. So how can you keep potential customers on your page longer?

How to Lower Your Bounce Rate

Are you seeing a high bounce rate on some of your content pages in Google Analytics (if you need help finding this information out, The Chat Shop will jump on a call with you to discuss how).

You spend a great deal of time developing your website so that it’s eye-catching, fast, and has meaningful content and testimonials – so let’s keep those prospects engaged on your page!
Longer engagement with your website increases the likelihood that the visitor will look to take that ever-important next step to explore more about what makes your products and services unique. But engagement isn’t the only goal we have.

As marketers, of course we want people to spend as much time using our content and learning as possible– but don’t lose sight of the real goal. You’re not just looking for engagement– you’re looking to connect with people and start meaningful conversations that convert them into MQLs.
Many B2B brands see a high exit rate after a prospect downloads a piece of content or registers for a webinar– is that true for you? This means that your finely curated content got engagement, and even got a lead– but there’s no way to know if it’s truly qualified.

Here’s a tip:  Take a look at your user journey – are you immediately displaying a generic thank you message while the content is automatically sent to their email address? This almost always results in the prospect leaving your site, never to return. By taking a different and more proactive approach, you can engage with the visitor before and after they have completed their action. This gives you the opportunity to converse with them, and guide them through your site. 

Using Live Chat to Get More Leads

Even if you have “live chat” active on your website, you maybe aren’t using it the most effectively. One of the most important facets of live chat is the proactive message strategy– the idea that your chat will send a fully automated message to invite your visitor to engage in a conversation. This tactic can drive great results by showing initiative to the customer and being fully available for whatever they need.

Here’s just one example of a proactive message strategy: 

Let's say this visitor has completed a form fill and registered for your upcoming “SEO trends for 2022” webinar. 

Customers are typically trained to leave a webpage once they have the content they’re looking for. This is what leads to the high bounce rate we mentioned earlier. So how can a proactive message strategy overcome this and keep people on the page after the download? 

Rather than sending a bland “thank you” message after the download, you can send a proactive chat message like “Happy Friday! We are looking forward to seeing you at our SEO trends for 2022 webinar! Are you currently managing your SEO externally or in-house?” 

By asking this question (or any qualifying question), you’ll increase engagement and reduce the opportunity for that prospect to leave your site and check out what your competitors offer. Conversation can also uncover what stage the prospect is in their buying cycle. 

This is just one proactive messaging example– for all our clients, we do a deep dive into their analytics, identify the content pages that are driving the most traffic, and focus on increasing the conversion metrics of those pages. We’ll build the perfect proactive message strategies that connect with your audience perfectly. We then implement and test to continue to optimise the lead generation process. 

It’s time to use the incredible content you’re creating to generate the marketing qualified leads you need. Do you have great content pages driving the most traffic but aren’t generating MQLs? If so, then take a look at our latest report here, which has 5 tips on increasing conversion and engagement and generating more qualified leads.