Webinerd to Watch: NASA

It’s no surprise that NASA is on the cutting edge. From exploring the far reaches of our solar system to putting men on the moon to exploring Mars’ surface, NASA’s fingerprints and footprints are literally everywhere.

But one area you might not expect them to be leading the way is in leveraging innovative marketing and technology solutions. After all, they are still a government operation, right? And most government operations aren’t exactly, ahem, synonymous with technology and innovation.

But skeptics of the organization’s technology prowess (at least here on Earth) were recently proved wrong. That’s because NASA hosted their annual Virtual Career Summit through the ON24 platform, providing insights into their range of scholarship, fellowship, and internship opportunities, and answering prospective applicants’ questions in real-time. NASA provided details on eligibility requirements, tips for the application process, and candid advice from previous awardees.

NASA did this by taking full advantage of ON24’s many unique interactive features in order to maximize the value of the career summit. The event had nearly 1,500 attendees who asked more than 1,000 questions, including via ON24’s live Q&A feature and through social media widgets that enabled questions to come from Facebook and Twitter.

While many webinar providers are simply white label templates, NASA leveraged ON24’s customizable features to create an engaging, NASA-branded audience console. NASA incorporated video content throughout, featuring subject matter experts who discussed the career options available at NASA. The webinar showcased alumni of their programs who spoke compellingly about the excitement and benefits of working for the most decorated space agency in the world, often over B-Roll footage. The webinar was also made available afterward for on-demand viewing.

All of us Earthlings could learn a thing or two from NASA’s approach. They leaned heavily on interactive features to make the webinar feel personal, even with thousands of participants. They took the time to customize an appealing interface. And they used webinars in a unique way — for a career summit. For all of us who are strictly using webinars to educate potential buyers, we should take a step back and ask ourselves the different ways we might be able to incorporate webinars into other campaigns. Clearly, in many ways, NASA webinars are out of this world.

Want to learn more about how you can make your webinars astronomical? Check out our Webinar Best Practices Series for the latest tips and tricks to maximize your marketing ROI.