B2B marketers are rethinking event strategies & budgets. 🤔 Fuel ROI with webinars in 2025. Read the Forrester report

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Varian increases viewership | Customer Case Study | ON24

B2B marketers are rethinking event strategies & budgets. 🤔 Fuel ROI with webinars in 2025. Read the Forrester report

Get started
Get started

Varian presents polished virtual events, increases viewership with ON24

  • Reached and engaged more clinicians with live and on-demand webinars

  • Customized consoles for each webinar series

  • Improved engagement with current and potential customers

Capabilities

Industry

Use Cases

Number of Employees

  • 10,000+

About

Varian Medical Systems is an American radiation oncology treatments and software maker based in Palo Alto, California. Their medical devices include linear accelerators (LINACs) and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, and brachytherapy.

Introduction

The mission of Varian, a Siemens Healthineers company is to create a world without fear of cancer. In pursuit of this goal, the company has pioneered a range of vital cancer-fighting tools, including radiotherapy and radiosurgery products. Varian’s Intelligent Cancer Care connects the latest technologies, data and treatment pathways to make care personalized and accessible.

As a leader in this highly specialized field, Varian has long used virtual training and education to reach employees, customers and medical professionals worldwide.
When the pandemic hit, Varian’s major events went virtual. Its webinar series was essential to its education and training programs — but their existing platform didn’t provide the flexibility and engagement the company realized it needed.

Varian realized it needed a webinar solution offering high production values, customization, streamlined data collection and interactive, engaging features. So, it turned to ON24.

Problem

Craving a more engaging, professional, and customizable webinar solution

Until 2020, Varian relied on Webex to develop and deliver all its webinars. The platform of choice, however, had its shortcomings, including a lack of customizability, limited interactive features and lacklustre analytics.

“Webex was good enough for a while, and we had a library of over 150 events housed there, another reason we stuck with it,” says Karen Kigin, Varian’s senior marketing manager of events and promotions.

But then the pandemic hit — and Varian wanted to create events and educational resources that stood out. “Our major user conference was going online and we wanted to make it bigger and better than our typical webinar,” Kigin said.

“We hired a production company, who did an okay job. But we knew we could have done it just as well in house, with the right tools,” Kigin said. “For the cost of hiring the production company for one event, we could use ON24 and all its bells and whistles all year long.”

“ON24 has allowed us to step up our game in terms of our appearance during a web event, and in how we can engage and interact with customers during the event. This allows us to be more strategic in how we implement webinar programs.”

Karen Kigin, Senior Marketing Manager, Events and Promotions

Solution

Polished, interactive webinar experiences, live and on-demand

On Kigin’s recommendation, Varian purchased ON24 Webcast Elite to host multiple webinar series, which focus on thought leadership, emerging ideas in oncology, and the safe and effective use of Varian technology. ON24 enabled Kigin and her team to finally differentiate each series through branding and customization.

ON24 also offered enrichment features Varian hadn’t had before — polls, quizzes, evaluations, related content and call-to-action demo requests.

To ease the transition between webinar platforms, Varian created a reporting system containing both Webex and ON24 data.

“This offers a whole picture of where we’ve come from and where we are,” Kigin said. “Webex would give a report showing how many attended live, but nothing that really combined that data with playback and other information. The fact that ON24 does that so easily is very appealing.”

ON24 lets Varian measure the success of an event through registration numbers, and by examining who engaged with the platform by downloading resources, clicking through to related content, requesting a demo or asking questions. That information can be shared with sales teams.

Additionally, Kigin and her team use ON24 Engagement Hub to house on-demand webinars and other always-on engagement opportunities.

“We send our invitees to the Engagement Hub to register for events,” she said. “Once there, they also see our other events and webinars; they can binge-watch the content anytime.”

“We encourage customers, through links in emails and elsewhere, to visit the hub as much as possible. It makes our job easier if they’re there, exploring for themselves,” Kigin said.

Results

Implementing ON24 has transformed Varian’s training and educational offerings. “Right away, ON24 provided a more polished, customized experience,” Kigin said. “The analytics are fantastic; much more useful than what we had previously.”

“ON24 has allowed us to step up our game in terms of our appearance during a web event, and how we can engage and interact with customers during the event,” Kigin said. “This allows us to be more strategic in how we implement webinar programs and individually brand them.”

The platform has also helped sales. “No one will say that attending a webinar made them purchase a multi-million-dollar medical machine,” Kigin said. “But a great webinar can increase customer confidence. During many of our events, our customers share their experiences, which helps move potential customers along the selling cycle.”

Overall, says Kigin, ON24 and Varian have proven an ideal match. “We consider ourselves to be first in class and I think ON24 is first in class with what they do.”

“A great webinar can increase customer confidence. During many of our events, our customers share their experiences, which helps potential customers gain the information they need to make a purchasing decision, wherever they are in the sales cycle.”

Karen Kigin, Senior Marketing Manager, Events and Promotions

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