An In-Person Event Alternative for Financial Advisors
June 2020 Study
INTRODUCTION
Why Did We Perform This Study?
Simplicity Lone Beacon has been executing campaigns in the digital space for over 6 years now. Webinars were always a part of the digital marketing ecosystem, however their rise in popularity over recent months given advisors’ inability to perform traditional live seminars created new opportunity in the marketplace.

Given past success metrics, Simplicity Lone Beacon had the ability to not only learn from, but to directly apply strategic improvements based on its 1st party data on-hand.  That, coupled with national empirical data as well as from specific advisories across the country, led Simplicity Lone Beacon to perform a new study and analysis on recent metrics.

While improvements are being made along the way, there’s a lot more opportunity in the webinar (and digital) space from an end-to-end conversion standpoint, which is as (if not more) important than simply getting people to register and attend. Here are some of our findings and specific metrics pertaining to recent webinars, both on-demand and scheduled days/times, from Q2 of 2020.
Setting the Stage
This study was performed across 21 different markets, utilizing 25 webinars as our data points consisting of both on-demand and scheduled webinars. The data presented below are averages of those 25 webinars.

  • On-Demand Webinars are defined as webinars that can be viewed at any point just by signing up.
  • A Scheduled Webinar is available only at a certain day and time, registrations sign up beforehand and receive an access link the day of the webinar.

What Is in The Study?
ON-DEMAND WEBINARS

  • Averaged Data From 18 (On-Demand) Webinars Across 21 Total Markets
  • Campaigns Range from ½ Month Long to 2½ Months Long
  • Webinars Range from 10 Minutes Long to 45 Minutes Long
  • All Webinars Included Some Sort of Database Email Marketing and Facebook Advertising
  • Topics Included
    • “Keep Calm And Retire On”
    • “Victory Over Volatility”
    • “Guaranteed Income”
    • “Active vs Passive Investment Management”

SCHEDULED WEBINARS

  • Averaged Data From 7 (Scheduled) Webinars Across 4 Markets
  • Campaigns Range from 1½ Weeks Long to 2½ Weeks Long
  • Webinars Range from 30 Minutes Long to 48 Minutes Long
  • All Webinars Included Some Sort of Organic Website, Database Email Marketing, and Facebook Advertising (Some Included Radio Mentions)
  • Topics Included
    • “Retirement Roadmap Comprehensive Planning”
    • “Social Security”
    • “Principles of Retirement Protection”
    • “Estate/Legacy Planning”
    • “Market State of the Union”

THE DATA
Webinar Registration & Viewership Metrics
Registration Data Points
Webinar registrations came from a combination of platforms, including Facebook, Database Marketing, and Organic leads. Overall, Scheduled webinars outperformed On-Demand webinars from a registration standpoint.


WEBINAR ENGAGEMENT DATA POINTS
The webinar landing pages were optimized to be viewed on both desktop and mobile. On-Demand Webinars could be instantly accessed, whereas Scheduled Webinars were only available at a certain day and time. Overall, On-Demand webinars had a higher attendance rate, but Scheduled webinars were viewed for longer.


Webinar Timing & Content Metrics
ON-DEMAND WEBINAR
The data will show that a shorter webinar will perform slightly better than a longer one, but the overall consensus based off of the data and the webinars studied is that it is the quality of the webinar, not the length of time, that ultimately impacts the length of webinar viewed.

10 MINUTES

HIGH – 95% of Webinar Watched

LOW – 60.5% of Webinar Watched

 

 

30 MINUTES

HIGH – 63% of Webinar Watched

LOW – 33% of Webinar Watched

 

 
SCHEDULED WEBINAR
Based on empirical data, and webinars we’ve ran over the past few years, we have focused on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays for Scheduled webinars. We found that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning and afternoon had similar attendance rate and webinar viewing rates.


CONCLUSION
Summarizing Our Findings
Simplicity Lone Beacon has found that webinars are a great tool to introduce more leads into the top of an advisor’s sales funnel. We will continue to utilize webinars as supplemental educational content and as a promotional avenue to help fill the top of the sales funnel and help nurture existing prospects and clients within it.

Moving forward, we would recommend a strategic combination of on-demand and scheduled webinars, even continuing into a post-Covid world where live seminars might start to become more prevalent. Both types of webinars, on-demand and scheduled, serve a very uniform purpose in that their goal is to engage and educate, which is paramount and reflects our values of education and information.

We do not feel what webinars are meant to replace dinner seminars, referrals, broadcast, or other digital advertising, but rather as another platform to bring new people an advisor’s funnel and help close existing business.
IMPORTANT DATA POINTS

  • Length & Content
    • 10 – 25 Minutes in Length
    • Quality of Content is More Important Than Length
  • Scheduled Date & Time
    • Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday at 11am or 6pm
    • Give Registrants Multiple Dates/Times to Pick From
  • Attendance Rate
    • 61% for On-Demand
    • 45% for Scheduled
  • Appointment Requests
    • There Were Twice the Amount of Requests for Scheduled Webinars

 
APPENDIX
CASE STUDY #1 – Knoxville Market
FORMAT: On-Demand, 30 Minutes, Retirement Theme

CAMPAIGN LENGTH: 1 Month

MARKETING PLATFORMS:

  • Organic Website
    • 893 Total Web Sessions During 1-Month Campaign
  • Database Email Marketing
    • 1, One-Off eBlast Deployment
    • 4, Weekly Database Email Deployments
  • Facebook Advertising
    • 1, 2.5 Week Campaign Ran on Facebook Spending $950

WEBINAR METRICS:

  • 23 Unique Registrations Took Place
  • 11 Unique Registrations were from Facebook
  • 3 Appointment Requests were Made
  • 18 Unique Viewers for the Webinar
  • 26% Attendance Rate
  • 49% of the Webinar was Viewed

 
CASE STUDY #2 – San Diego Market
FORMAT: Scheduled, 40 Minutes, Social Security Theme

CAMPAIGN LENGTH: 1.5 Weeks

MARKETING PLATFORMS:

  • Organic Website
    • 604 Total Web Sessions During 1.5-Week Campaign
  • Database Email Marketing
    • 2, One-Off eBlast Deployment
    • 2, Weekly Database Email Deployments
  • Facebook Advertising
    • 1, 1.5 Week Campaign Ran on Facebook Spending $2500

WEBINAR METRICS:

  • 262 Unique Registrations Took Place
  • 157 Unique Registrations were from Facebook
  • 35 Appointment Requests were Made
  • 111 Unique Viewers for the Webinar
  • 4% Attendance Rate
  • 75% of the Webinar was Viewed
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