How Protolabs used ON24 webinars to reimagine its marketing strategy

The manufacturing industry has changed drastically within the past 50 years. On the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution, Protolabs is upending the traditional manufacturing process by making every step digital or online-based. The end result is that Protolabs speeds up the manufacturing process, producing items within days instead of months.

The Machine Learning and AI technologies that define the fourth industrial revolution are difficult to understand and hard to manage.

This means many manufacturing companies struggle to educate channel partners and prospective clients on the complex solutions and products these new technologies can provide.

Protolabs recognized this education gap and decided to make a difference. First, it presented customers and clients with relevant, valuable and digestible content. By leading with value, Protolabs established itself as a trusted resource and thought leader within the industry—leading to an increase in prospects and customer conversions. But, to achieve this, it required a shift in marketing strategy.

With the help of ON24, Protolabs transformed its webinar program from a sales-centric, ad-hoc approach to a value-add integrated program. Instead of leading with topics like Why Protolabs for your Business, Protolabs decided to focus on hot industry topics like, CNC Machining: How to Reduce Cost and Accelerate Production and used digital experiences powered by ON24 to share their perspective with the market.

• Identify and Repurpose Best Content. Using the in-depth data that ON24 captures, Protolabs knows which webinars are good candidates for repurposing content and what will resonate best with a larger audience base. Protolabs can take that data and expand content into multiple outlets such as hosting webinars on-demand on for sales teams to reference, furthering ABM efforts, accelerating deals to specific subsets of customers and repurposing highperforming webinar content live at trade shows for speaking engagements.
• Secure Platform. Protolabs’ customers value intellectual property and are protective of their products, especially those still under development. ON24 provides Protolabs with assurance that its webinars are secure and protect the anonymity of all attendees.
• Tracking Analytics. Furthermore, ON24 provides the insights and analytics to show Protolabs when a webinar is most successful. Through ON24’s out-of-the-box partner referral codes, Protolabs can easily track webinar registration and attendance sources. Knowing which sources like email or LinkedIn Ads generated the most attendance helps Protolabs decide where to double down their efforts.
• Customized Audience Experience. Through personalized content experiences such as customized registration pages, Q&As and attendee polls, Protolabs can easily qualify or unqualify an individual for nurturing or sales follow up.