How Merrill Corporation leverages ON24 data for content creation and distribution

The financial information industry is full of a wealth of information and complex subject matter that requires deep expertise to navigate. As a SaaS provider in the M&A arena, Merrill Corporation ensures that it always provides an outlet for its clients to gather the proper insights and education.

For Merrill, these insights came mainly from internal and external industry experts as well as internally sourced data. And, like many large global corporations, Merrill sought to save time and money it had traditionally spent conducting formal research to source this data across global regions — an effort that typically costs organizations multiple thousands of dollars a year and months of labor.

Merrill started utilizing webinars to support these efforts. Through webinars, Merrill hypothesised that it could not only deliver valuable information but also use the data to gain better insights into trends and themes. It could then use this proprietary information to produce even more content to support its entire marketing and PR strategy.

As it began thinking about how to repurpose webinars for on-demand multimedia consumption — everything from podcasts, blogs, white papers and beyond — it turned to ON24® for support.

ON24 allows Merrill to easily conduct research that it then uses to produce custom content like Market Trends Reports, Press Releases and more across its entire marketing and communications strategy. Its “just in time” webinars with integrated video serve as a way to generate content, engaging clients with real people speaking in real-time. Merrill runs all of its webinars with an output first approach, building each event around its desired data or research outcome. ON24 tools help facilitate this process:

• Real-time Analytics with ON24 Webcast Elite. Live webinar capabilities produce immediate insights and analytics and let Merrill adapt in real-time to customer responses. The ability to quickly shift focus is pertinent to sourcing better data and higher engagement.
• Engagement with Live Q&As, Polls and Surveys. Merrill integrates all of these tools into its webinars to tailor to its different client types, uses cases and buying centers. At multiple stages or levels of understanding in the buying or selling process, different ways of engagement ensure optimal response and data collection. Merrill makes polling and Q&A a part of the natural flow of conversation and involves expert panelists so that audiences feel connected.
• Infinite Scale. Merrill’s webinars with ON24 host thousands of people at a time across EMEA, APAC and North America. ON24 seamlessly supports this volume with high traffic capabilities and enterprise scalability.