Tech PR: “Please Join Our Webinar” (Uh, I’ll Get Back to You)

Posted by on Apr 1, 2010 in Blog, Driving PR Performance, Social Public Relations | 0 comments

The note came in from a puzzled marketing colleague: “No journalists attended our webinar.”  No surprise, really.  Journalists view webinars as a kind of TiVo in reverse — 100% pure commercial, uninterrupted by news. They’re too busy chasing stories to sit through an hour-long ad.

Still companies continue to invite journalists to log on to webinars.  The usual response: “Uh, yeah, let me get back to you on that.”  They seldom do.

Webinars are marketing vehicles that often provide useful information for customers and prospects.  Given the intended audience, they almost invariably have a sales angle, too.  Sorry, but journalists don’t have 45 – 60 minutes — the typical webinar length — to sit through a sales spiel.

But wait, don’t media themselves host webinars?  Yes, editors routinely moderate co-sponsored webinars featuring multiple vendors addressing a given theme.  These events tend to bring out the Willy Loman in presenters.  Elbow-to-elbow with competitors, each speaker feels compelled to sell, sell, sell. Yuk.  Typically the only journalist present is the editor-moderator, and he’s there because the publisher made him do it.  Does the editor himself see any news value in his own webinar or plan to cover it?  Ask him and you’ll hear: “Uh, yeah, let me get back to you on that.”

Moral of the story: Webinars are wonderful for customers, but anathema to media.  Don’t raise internal expectations that press will attend or write.  Alternately, try hiring actors to pose as reporters.  They’ll log on, for sure.

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