Social Media Marketing 1st Edition by Melissa Barker, Pamela Everett Nollkamper, Donald Barker, Nicholas Bormann, Nicholas Bormann, Krista Neher, Krista Neher

Exercise 1

Inspired Marketing LLC Generates Sales from Webinars
After selling education products in person at conferences and through other Internet marketing channels, Inspired Marketing LLC found that webinars were an extremely efficient and powerful way to generate leads and drive sales of its products. Inspired Marketing launched a free webinar program, which has now become their primary source of sales. Through webinars, they have been able to connect with prospects and convert them into customers for their business.
History…………
Inspired Marketing LLC, located in Columbus, Ohio, was cofounded by Sean Malarkey and Lewis Howes in 2009. After an injury interrupted his football career, Howes focused his attention on the web. Malarkey and Howes had a strong background in social media and Internet marketing prior to founding Inspired Marketing, and they discovered the power of webinar marketing early on. Initially, based on his own experience and success on LinkedIn, Howes wrote a book on LinkedIn marketing. Then, according to Howes, "I started creating digital products to sell, but I didn't have a good way to reach potential buyers. I was traveling all over the country to sell books, speak at conferences and host events. I was hustling, sleeping on couches and pulling in only a couple of thousand dollars a month."
Inspired Marketing's challenge was to find a scalable way to market its educational products. The targets for the products are entrepreneurs, small business owners, and professionals across many industrial sectors. The company needed a marketing tool that would allow it to reach many people in different geographies, without high travel costs.
Strategy……….
Inspired Marketing discovered webinar marketing when Howes participated in a webinar and offered a $150 product for sale at the end of the session. Surprised by the high initial sales, he began to explore ways to take advantage of webinar marketing.
Inspired Marketing began by offering free webinars on a variety of educational topics. The webinars allow the firm to reach large numbers of people around the globe and to serve two main objectives. First, webinars are powerful lead generation tools. To generate leads, or potential new customers, Inspired Marketing offers webinars on relevant topics. When a participant signs up for the webinar, he or she provides an email address that allows Inspired Marketing to send offers on future webinars or products.
Second, Inspired Marketing generates direct sales from the webinars. For example, at the end of a webinar on Twitter tips, attendees are able to take advantage of a special offer on an educational product about Twitter. This approach allows Inspired Marketing to directly reach thousands of prospects with a targeted sales message that can lead to immediate sales.
In addition to recording free webinars for lead generation, Inspired Marketing produces a number of fee-based webinars in which participants pay to participate. The fee-based webinars are also recorded and made available for sale, creating an additional revenue stream.
Results……..
The results from the webinars have been tremendous. During its first webinar in 2009, Inspired Marketing generated over $12,500 in sales through a single sixtyminute call. Over the next year, Howes devoted substantial time to webinars, leading him to later estimate that he had "done about 300 of them live over 2010." Currently, he continues to do between three to five webinars per week.
Inspired Marketing has come a long way since its initial webinar, and in January 2011 the company had sales of $250,000 from seven webinars. The firm currently reaches over 50,000 people worldwide. It also anticipates $2.5 million in sales during 2011.
According to top leadership in the company, free webinars have been the most effective tool for Inspired Marketing in finding prospects and in driving sales. By providing valuable content for free, Inspired Marketing is able to build relationships and showcase its expertise, which makes people want more information and services from the firm.
Inspired Marketing shows how a company of any size can leverage webinars to find and connect with potential customers, generate leads, and drive sales. Even companies that don't directly sell products through their webinars have the opportunity to build closer relationships with their customers and prospects and to derive positive brand equity.
By providing free content that is highly valuable to prospective customers, webinars provide a starting point for building a relationship. Since webinars tend to be longer (about an hour for most) and fairly in-depth, they provide an opportunity to build trust and position a company as thought leaders.
Review Questions for Inspired Marketing Case Study
1. What was it about Inspired Marketing's product that made webinar promotion so successful?
2. Part of the company's strategy, as described in the case study, was to provide some information and then hope that listeners would pay to get more. Is there a danger that people will listen in for free, then never buy anything? Why or why not?
3. Compare and contrast the benefits of selling a product in person at a conference versus via webinar. While Inspired Marketing obviously chose to focus on webinars, other firms still go to conferences. Which types of products do you think are more likely to be sold in person and which online? Are there any changes in technology that might cause these practices to change?
4. Compare the revenue-generating strategy of the Podfather (first case study in the chapter) with that of Inspired Marketing. How do podcasts and webinars differ in these cases, as well as generally in their revenue strategies? Make an argument why one medium would be more effective than the other, and then provide the most compelling counterargument against this position.