Webcasts and webinars are essential in a marketer's toolbox for B2B lead generation and brand awareness campaigns. With the advent of YouTube and iTunes, marketers are also increasingly using videos and podcasts for these initiatives. Unlike user-generated content, which is mainly viewed for entertainment purposes, B2B rich media enables companies to communicate corporate messages to a highly qualified audience and generate sales leads.

An Aberdeen report (The CMO's Strategic Agenda for Small and Mid-Sized Enterprises, November 2006) found that "Companies that adopt closed-loop marketing processes are more than three times as likely to report a greater than 50% return on marketing investment (ROMI) than those that do not."

This raises a very intriguing question - how can you strategically leverage rich media for comprehensive closed-loop marketing and B2B lead generation campaign?

Three Phases: Rich Media Marketing Program
From my perspective, there are three distinct phases for deploying rich media or webcasts in a marketing program: pre-event promotion, event delivery and post-event analytics and reporting. Each stage takes a strategic look at how, when and why companies should leverage rich media for their lead generation campaigns. By leveraging these components, marketers can achieve strong results for their sales lead generation programs and maximize their marketing investments.

• Pre-event promotion: Our customers frequently ask us how and when they should leverage rich media to promote their online campaigns. We have found rich media, whether via an in-banner video ad or email video message, to be effective for driving email click-through and open rates and increasing event registrations. The average click-through and open rates of rich media based email campaign can perform better than traditional emails. The key is to keep these messages short (under 120 seconds long), personal, and relevant to your target audience.
  
  
  
  Sample Bannercast On-Demand Banner
  For example, a large, multinational semiconductor company leveraged an on-demand, in-banner video ad to invite software developers to register for a series of eight technology webinars. These Bannercast On-Demand ad spots experienced a 10% click-through rate, higher than standard industry rates of .5-2%.
  
  And one more point to remember - if you're using rich media to promote a webcast, conference or other event, our research has determined that starting your promotions 2-3 weeks ahead of the live event will drive a majority of your registrants.
  
  
• Event delivery: Once you've started promoting your campaign, it's important to know how rich media can augment your audience's experience and engagement with your brand and company during the execution of your campaign.
  
  We often ask our clients - "Would you hand out blank business cards to your prospects?" Of course not! Then why would you let a webinar, video program or other campaign out the door without your company look and feel? Additionally, interactive elements, such as Q&A and polling, enhance viewer's experience with your company and message.
  
  Continuing our example about the multi-national, semiconductor company, all aspects of the event were customized with the customer's branding and messages from the banner ads; event registration page; to the final look and feel of the webinars. At every touch point, viewers could request additional information or ask questions. Viewers were engaged. Content was relevant. And the company reaped the benefits.
  
  
• Post-event analytics and reporting: Finally, no campaign is complete unless you have the tools to review, measure and analyze the success of the campaign to refine future campaigns and drive even more quality sales leads.
  
  
  
  By giving each marketing campaign a unique identifier, this large semiconductor company was able to track the effectiveness of various campaigns and make adjustments accordingly.
  As marketers, a key point of a closed-loop approach is understanding which source(s) provided the majority of leads, but also drove a higher quality of leads. This can be determined by the interaction that prospects had with your message, such as number of minutes viewing the content, questions asked or number of document downloads. Most importantly, a lead-scoring component filters out the A and B sales leads, streamlining the transfer of sales leads to the sales force for follow up and reducing the overall sales cycle.
  
  For our customer, our lead scoring engine incorporated 15 registration and interaction criteria. This enabled the company to score and prioritize leads, as well as speed up the sales cycle.

Results for Multinational Semiconductor Company

By leveraging rich media for a close-loop campaign to promote the company's eight technology events comprising the program, the company averaged 1,300 unique attendees per program. Overall, 9,200 individuals spent an average of 45 minutes being exposed to the company's brand, products and messages.

Now you tell me, what other medium can deliver this type of value?