Webinars in Place of In-Person Events – A New Normal?

Understand Public Sector Preferences & Consumption

Like many of you, recent events have caused us to cancel or postpone our in-person meetings, events and conferences based on government guidelines to create some social distance to protect ourselves and our community. Many of these events and meetings were crucial to our business from both an educational and business development perspective.

While it’s a good thing for our nation, marketers will need to review and revisit their plans for reaching target audiences and could affect the way our business works not only over the next couple of months, but we may well feel the impact on our businesses for the next 18-24 months.

Social media, webinars and virtual events are critical activities in keeping your business rolling, making contacts, and educating your customers who may be self-quarantining. The good news is, many of those working in the public sector were already leveraging these tools on a regular basis, so we won’t have to start from scratch.

According to our most recent Federal Media & Marketing Study (FMMS), three-quarters of federal workers reported watching live webinars during the workday, and at least one in five were watching recorded webinars on their own time (weeknights and weekends). We foresee this number growing over the coming months. In this new environment for engaging our audiences, it’s important to maximize specific content and optimize the timing and length of these virtual events.

Market Connections’ Content Marketing Review found both federal and state and local audiences most want webinars to include research and data supported content and highlight specific examples of past performances. In addition to these key elements, they also wanted to see content tailored to their organization type and product specifications.

CASE STUDY: Learn how client, Lockheed Martin, used thought leadership research to create a webinar and other marketing assets.

Market Connections has also found that over one-third of federal workers and nearly one-quarter of state and local workers were already spending 30+ minutes on webinars. Approximately 50% of feds preferred watching a webinar during the lunch hour (between 11 AM and 2 PM).

While nothing replaces great face-to-face opportunities to meet and connect with your public sector customers, webinars may be a great way to build on your relationships, provide them useful insights, educate them and provide a virtual social touch point; not only during times of isolation, but also as part of our regular marketing planning.

Learn more about webinars and the public sector:

Learn more about creating research-based thought leadership content for webinars.