ZEISS Boosts Engagement, Continuing Education with ON24 Webinars

After 175 years, ZEISS, a German manufacturer of optical systems and technology, has some insight into running, promoting and managing a global business. Not only that, but its team clearly understands how to keep up with trends and changes within its industry.

Today, that means digital outreach. The organization uses webinars to connect with customers and prospects in more than 50 countries. Specifically, ZEISS uses continuing education webinars to teach its users how to use its microscopes efficiently.

But ZEISS needed to do more than instruct. It needed to engage. So, its Asia Pacific marketing communications team switched to ON24 to power its webinar programs. Here’s what they had to share.

ZEISS’ need for a new webinar platform

In the past, ZEISS showcased its products during talks at universities around the APAC region. The team would book a room or lecture hall, advertise the date and time of the event and hope for attendance.

This meant two things: the team never knew how many people planned to attend and they had no way of effectively keeping in touch with attendees. These two factors blinded the company’s ability to see how events affect lead generation and pipeline.

ZEISS switched to virtual events to continue building relationships with customers and prospects. But the team quickly realized not all webinar solutions are built the same. They needed a service that could:

• • Analyze and Collect Data – With virtual events, it’s much easier to know who attended and what they did. The data behind these two factors were instrumental in tracking leads and building pipeline.
  • Integrate with Martech and CRM – ZEISS needed a solution that’d fit within its tech stack and integrate with other solutions like Marketo. Doing so would help automate analysis and actions, hand data over to sales faster and accelerate pipeline.
  • Engagement Tools – ZEISS needed a webinar solution that empowered it to engage its audience. It needed a platform that empowered it to open a two-way street with participants through tools like polls, surveys, links to social media channels and more.
  • Extensive Customization Capabilities – The ZEISS name has been running for nearly 200 years. It’s a name and brand that should be featured in every type of virtual event. Customizable webinars would go a long way in helping it to do so.

ZEISS sees audience engagement clearly with ON24

The ZEISS team turned to ON24 Webcast Elite to check off everything on its webinar wish list. With ON24, ZEISS can gather actionable data about webinar attendees and help drive lead generation and pipeline growth.

Quick Wins Through Branding and Engagement

With ON24, ZEISS has set up a webinar program that pulls in more attendees than it did with face-to-face events.

Additionally, the company’s marketing team can easily create custom webinar consoles that highlight the company’s branding, drive engagement with attendees and builds better relationships with participants.

With polls and surveys, ZEISS can easily gather feedback, respond to audience suggestions, and plan future webinars.

ZEISS Fuels Seamless Pipeline With CTAs

Embedded engagement and CTA tools also help the organization to quickly identify interested prospects. If someone isn’t the company’s products — or a customer is interested in additional solutions — they can say so by clicking a button.

With that click, attendees can immediately jump into a demo with a live Q&A from a computer or mobile device. This simple approach allows ZEISS to scale its demos and reduces the need for on-site visits.

Certifications and Training Simplified

Many ZEISS clients are academics and researchers who need to stay on top of the latest developments and techniques. Often, that means they must obtain certifications and continuing professional education credits. 

To help audiences pursue professional development, ZEISS uses ON24 to set up a certification program easily. With this program, ZEISS can use its webinars to provide instruction and automatically issue certifications and continuing education credits to attendees who meet the right conditions. 

Since obtaining CPE credits is a requirement for many professionals, the ability for ZEISS to issue credits is highly valuable. Since launching its continuing education certification program, ZEISS’ marketing team has seen its webinar attendance rate increase.

ZEISS Content On Demand

Sometimes quality leads and customers don’t have the time to attend a live webinar. For ZEISS, that is no longer a problem.

With ON24, ZEISS implemented an on-demand webinar strategy to connect with would-be participants at a time that’s convenient to them. On-demand is so effective, in fact, that the company has taken its once-a-week live webinar and turned it into a five-part on-demand webinar series.

The Future of ZEISS’ Webinar Program

With a reinvigorated webinar solution in place, ZEISS has grown its webinar program into the company’s second-highest pipeline-producing channel.

At its current state, the company uses webinars for educational purposes, but the team is looking to expand to other audiences in the future. They hope to incorporate webinars into the sales cycle higher up the funnel to nurture leads.

The team is also planning quarterly, large-scale, topic-specific virtual events that focus on the different industries and areas for which ZEISS manufacturers produce. These events span multiple days with three live presentations daily featuring trending and relevant topics and discussions with key opinion leaders in the industry.