RealPage creates broadcast-quality, pipeline-generating webinars with ON24

RealPage launched its video department a dozen years ago with the goal of creating informative, enticing content that could be leveraged for lead generation.

“When I came on, no one at RealPage had concrete ideas for how they wanted to execute on that goal,” says Jeffery Tracy, a veteran of television news production and currently RealPage’s Director of Video Marketing.

Even without a clear plan, the RealPage team forged ahead with content generation. In the rush to create material, presentations tended to consist of slide sharing, screen sharing and unstructured conversations with customers.

“It was pretty boring,” Tracy said. “So I made some suggestions: you need to see faces. You need to avoid long, boring, drawn-out slides for folks to read while trying to listen to you at the same time.”

RealPage needed to simplify content delivery while making it more engaging and easier to access. And for that, Tracy says, he and his team turned to ON24.

In the first year of producing webinars with ON24, RealPage created 25 webinars. Now Tracy and his team are doing 160 annually, and that number continues to increase.

“Everything we do is broadcast quality,” he said. “We don’t do anything with PowerPoint. We don’t do anything that is single-person presenter. Everything is done through our control room. We use broadcast television techniques and methodologies. And ON24 supports our high production demands.”

While much of the content falls into the category of thought leadership, there’s no doubt about its purpose for Real Page. “Lead generation is ultimately what it comes down to,” Tracy said. Using ON24, the RealPage team can see who their viewers are, what they watch, and what questions they’re asking. “It’s part of the process of them ultimately signing on as a customer,” he said.

“Webinars have gone from having a negligible effect on our pipeline to being our biggest pipeline generator,” Tracy said. “We have a users’ conference in July, which is our biggest lead generator, but webinars are right there with it.”

The constant engagement enabled by ON24 is a large part of that success. “Engagement is a way to turn that cold lead into something that’s warm, a sales marketing qualified to a sales qualified lead,” Tracy said. “We’re making it as easy as possible for sales reps to cut that time down from initial conversations to when we can get somebody to sign on the dotted line.”