Ann Handley: State of Webinars in Content Marketing

Hello everyone and welcome so much to Webinar Days 2023. For the new people tuning in, welcome so much to the annual event for everyone doing webinars. My name is Amelia and I'm your host as we come together to help you take your webinar game to the next level. I'm very excited to share with you that Webinar Days is being hosted and organized by TwentyThree. Our video tools are used by marketers at growth companies as well as the largest enterprises to do video and webinars. With Webinar Days, we see it as part of our mission to move the market and to move the industry of webinars and digital events forward. We strive to inspire everyone here who's participating and organizing webinars to do even better. Today we have a very special guest and someone who's guaranteed to inspire. We have the one and only content marketing legend, Anne Handley. As per tradition, she will share her latest on the current state of content marketing and tell us all about the biggest trends in the field of webinars and content marketing. But to join Anne for a fireside chat, we have Thomas Mattson-Migdell, the CEO and co-founder of TwentyThree, as well as a digital pioneer that has been working with video software long before video first became the everyday reality for a lot of companies. And before I hand it over to Thomas, let me just check in because you are tuning in not from our headquarters, but you are located in Finland right now, isn't that right? I think we'll get an award for the most exotic location today. Anne, live from Miami, and I'm here in a video studio in Helsinki. So it's snowing here, but the view looks... I guess we have to start off by asking Thomas, what is the weather like in Finland? And then Anne, you will get the same question and you'll get approximately 20 seconds to describe it for us. Well, thanks, Amelia. Yeah, I mean, here it's snowing. It's beautiful. Stunning first winter days, I think, here with snow, so beautiful. But Anne, take it away. I mean, what's up? You're in Miami, I hear. I'm in Miami Beach. Yeah, it's not snowing today. And you can see behind me that it's a little overcast. So, you know, it's not nearly as inclement weather as probably a lot of other parts of the world, including Boston, where I am from. But it's gorgeous here today. And that beach right down there is exactly where I will be. Post our time together today. Yeah, I'm sure the weather in Boston is a little bit more like the weather here in Denmark, where I'm located as well. You know, it's a little gray, not quite cold enough to be snowing, but it definitely feels that way. I just want to welcome you both so much to the stage and thank you so much for taking this chat. And I'm going to let the two of you dive into this fireside chat. So thank you so much for joining and I will catch you guys at the end of the session. Thank you, Amelia. Great, Anne. So we're back again with this session here. Per tradition at this point, I guess. I can't even recall how many times we've done this. Four or five times or something at this point. So good to have you here. What's the state of Anne Handley to begin with before we get into the state of webinars? What have you been up to? Yeah, I think we're going to talk about this in a little bit. But, you know, live events are 100 percent back. So I have been traveling just like a fiend all over. And yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's been fun to be back in person at events and connecting with people directly face to face. And so that's kind of what inspired this scene today, because I was feeling like I needed some just R&R. So I came to Miami Beach just to sort of chill. And I thought, you know what? I think this is the perfect place to join you, Thomas. So yeah, so it's been really it's been really fun. Just being back in person. Great. And we're getting the chat here that we have a little bit of an audio. I think it's the thing called RASPY. I don't know if it didn't do it before when we were testing. Is it any better? I can see in the chat any better if I tweak it a little bit? Yeah, perhaps we should we try without AirPods or what can we do? Perhaps let's start with some tech issues. That's always a good way to start a webinar. Actually, yeah, live in person. Let me double check. We want to try taking AirPods out. We'll see. Just saying. OK. Let's see. Could that be it? What do you say, Chad? All right. How about now? Is this any better if I do if I just use the computer? Oh, beautiful. Stunning. There's a heads up in the studio here at least. So can you also hear me or is it amazing now? OK, Amelia says amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. All right. There we go. Well, we start with some authentic tech issues. Always good. But and we're together today here to to do the state of webinars. Fireside chat is always a tradition at this point in time that we do it every year. And I mean, so much is happening in the world. All the paradoxes of, as you say, live events being back, you know, video and webinars being the second best thing to being there in person. Everyone recalibrating all these things. We're seeing so much still innovation and growth in webinars. But I think we wanted to start off a little bit with the with your sort of state of the union. And then we'll start discussing from there. And and and everyone in the chat be ready with all your questions or comments, because we want to make this really as participatory as possible. Yeah. And over to you to some physical slides and all our good traditions here live from Miami. Yes, exactly. As per our tradition, as as Thomas said, it's yeah, I think it's been like four or five years. I'm not exactly sure how long, but I thought what I would do is just share a couple of stats from our annual content marketing research. It just came out last month and it concerns the state of content marketing in our state of content in marketing. And so I thought just to ground our conversation today, which is focused on webinars, but just to ground it in sort of a little bit of a broader context. So here we go. So here are my PowerPoint slides or I guess they're analog with two ends like a log slides. Yeah, we'll do it that way. All right. All right. So we asked marketers, what are the tactics? There we go. Tactics and channels that produce the best results. And we talked about this a second ago, but in-person events right at the top there. Next webinars and next email. And I think this is interesting just to put this again in a little bit of a broader context, because this was research that we did toward the third quarter of. Yeah, second tail end of the second, but mostly the third quarter of 2023. And in-person events are definitely back. And that's what drove the most. There we go. Drove the most results, which I think is that tracks perfectly with my experience and maybe with yours too, Thomas. The next one, the webinars at 51 percent. And I think in terms of why would that be? I think because one of the things that we've learned in a post pandemic world is how to do webinars differently. I think if there was any silver lining from a global pandemic, and believe me, I have a very hard time even putting those two things together, silver lining and global pandemic. I think one of them is that we did learn to show up in ways that were different because we couldn't physically meet those who we sell to. We couldn't physically meet those who we market to our audiences. And so I think using webinars in a way that was more authentic and that would maybe challenged us as marketers to how do we do this in a way that's going to feel more connective and not like old school webinars. So I think that's that's what's driving that. And then the third one, email. You know, Thomas, I'm a massive fan of email. I think email has always been the workhorse of marketing, always will be. I just think it's a it's a fantastic way to connect with audiences, vastly disrespected, often not well used very often. But at the same time, when you do it well, it absolutely it absolutely works. So I think that's the first trend. Yeah, and incredible how high the numbers actually are on webinars compared to physical events. Right. That's quite exciting because I think we're seeing this trend on on on the physical events that opposite they're also shifting to be more participatory, more meaningful for when we're actually doing webinars. And I think that's the whole point of email. It's a really important tool for when we're actually together. Right. And we've invested the time and effort to do it because if it might as well have been a webinar, then then it should be a webinar. Right. And so we're I guess we're putting those two together. But yeah, email always the hit, I guess, since the 90s. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, almost since that. Well, since since direct mail, really, but definitely since you know, since email and the 90s. And I think the second trend that that is sort of embedded in the state of content marketing and 2023 heading into 2024 is is this word authentic? And I after our conversation, Thomas and I talked yesterday just about what we're going to talk about today. And after our conversation yesterday, I was talking to the folks I'm on vacation, the friends I'm on vacation here with. I was like, Miriam Webster dictionary word of the year is authentic. And I was like, no, I heard that. So I was like, here's my here's my slide from Miriam Webster. And so why did they choose it as the as the as the word of the year? It's based on search traffic on Miriam Webster dot com. I think it's it's MW dot com. And the reasons that they chose it is because all of these things down below, I had to make myself like these are my PowerPoint notes down here. But are the rise of artificial intelligence and celebrity culture and our sense of identity and again in a post pandemic world and also social media was driving more people to actually look up the word authentic. And one of the things that they said that was really interesting about it, I think, is that the line between what is real and what is not is a little blurry. And the definition of authentic, like when I ask you, like, you know, how do you define authentic? Like, you kind of know what it means inherently. But at the same time, it's like, how do we apply that to our work? And so I think it's interesting that, you know, that based on search results that Miriam Webster named it, their word of the year is authentic. And I think it relates perfectly to the conversation we're having here today because the challenge for all of us as marketers is always like, how do we show up more authentically for our audiences? But especially around, you know, the in the context of webinars and video and how are we showing up in ways that is actually going to connect and feels real and also in the context of artificial intelligence. So I think it's really an interesting word of the year and single choice. That's incredible. Yeah. And Miriam Webster, obviously the English Dictionary website. So very big data point that we're looking for that aspect of life. And I guess webinars really is in many ways, you know, the ultimate authentic side of video, right? Because it's live to tape and it's pretty, you know, it might be programmed, it might be a little bit scripted, but most of the time it's also where the magic can happen when you're really live and there authentically. So very interesting. Yeah, I just had a great idea, too. You know, I know it's late afternoon where you are in Helsinki and I don't know where everybody else is tuning in from today. I mean, it's only 10 in the morning here in Miami, but it's Miami Beach. So anything goes. But I was thinking every time we say the word authentic, we could turn it into a drinking game. So when the comments are on say authentic, take a shot. So there you have it. That's perhaps the best tips for webinars 2024 from Anne Handley. Authentic as your drinking game when you're planning your webinars. That's a good one. All right. Amazing. Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Let's keep going. All right. Yeah. Second, second big trend that I wanted to talk about today was that another piece of data from our content marketing research, the most recent content marketing research, is that we asked marketers, what is your biggest challenge when scaling your content marketing programs? And this top one here, I think, is so relevant to a conversation that focuses on webinars because not enough repurposing. Content is hard. It takes a lot of energy and resources to produce the kind of content that is really great. There's a lot of coordination that takes place. And so I think the notion of not enough repurposing with content marketing, I think is super relevant to our conversation here today. And I think also there's a lot of opportunity in using webinars and video, especially around with the rise of AI. It makes it so much easier to say, take a webinar, strip out the text and publish it as a blog post or to condense it and make, you know, make little like short little clips to share on social, for example. And so, yeah, I think this pain point I expect is not going to be as high next year. But remember, this is like this. This came out just that we asked marketers about this sort of when we were only about six months to seven months into AI. So I think next year I'd expect that that's going to drop a little bit. Oh, so interesting. Yeah, definitely. And I guess we should definitely talk about sort of webinars as sort of the input side of video production, right? Because for many, in many instances, this is actually if you're doing a lot of webinars, this might be your main sort of time based production method. So there is so much to gain from extracting it. I think also something we've been very busy at with 23 the last year in terms of putting the webinar tools and the video tools together. So suddenly a lot of these things are much more easy than they used to be. Because there's a lot of problems on tooling and webinars overall for how to actually make that content repurposing easy to do. So it's not a 10 hour project to do it, but it's just kind of a natural thing of doing the webinar. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was kind of hoping you would say the word authentic, but I guess you couldn't work that into the work. I think we only are on Red Bull up here. Red Bull's HQ is next door apparently. That's awesome. Yeah, so that was another sort of major, well, a big data point that stood out to me anyway, and that I think is going to, you know, that we're seeing now, but I think I expect will shift. And the third bit of data that I wanted to share with you is that we asked marketers what content types produce the best results. So once what specific types and you see here case studies, 53% produced the best results, videos at also 53% produced the best results. And finally, thought leadership, ebooks and white papers and all of that. These are sort of the top three. Now again, these are content types. But what I found that was interesting about this is that when we dug into the specifics behind this particular PowerPoint slide, I guess, if you will, we found that actually that very often it's a people are playing with formats a little bit more that they're experimenting with. You know, how do we deliver a case day like a case study when, you know, 10 years ago would mean a blog post, right? Or it would mean a, you know, a quick collection of case studies published in an ebook, for example. But I think now what we're seeing is much more experimentation with marketers. So a case study as a video, for example, is much more effective than say, or could can be much more effective. So I think marketers are playing with formats, they're experimenting a little bit and they're kind of, we're kind of disrupting ourselves, if you will. Well, like we're thinking about, is this really the best way to tell a story? Is there a way that we can maybe do this more? Wait for it authentically. So there was one for the chat there for all of you out there. I hope you got some good stuff ready to, we'll do one here. No, having challenge. Okay, okay. I don't know why. I think that's such such an interesting data point. Where are you on this sort of modern mix, right? In some regards, you can say, content marketing is almost taking over marketing, right? It used to be a little fringe thing on the on the side of overall marketing, but the but the sort of with the big sort of shift from paid and big tech advertising platforms to to earned and owned and media. I mean, where are you on the and then you have video, which is a huge part of content marketing nowadays, almost becoming its own video marketing kind of category almost right where you are navigating as sort of the you know, as somebody that that has, you know, been so influential in defining the movement of content marketing and the term where you want all these sort of categories starting to intermix and take over and dominate almost. Yeah, I think, first of all, I love the fact that every everybody is is sort of playing along with the drinking game, at least in spirit. So I love that. Thank you. So yeah, so where am I with the mix? I mean, yeah, to your point, Thomas, I think that, you know, we used to have content marketing as a little silo within the marketing department content was sort of its own little thing. But now we are seeing it, you know, not only throughout, you know, embedded throughout the marketing department, but also throughout the the funnel, you know, it used to be that we would use content top of funnel and we got really good at top of funnel like brand awareness, drawing people to us lead generation. But I think we're seeing it, you know, throughout throughout the funnel and honestly across the organization as well. And so, yeah, I think it is absolutely much more much more forward than it than it used to be and much broader than it used to be. But in terms of like, you know, tactics, I mean, I don't know, I feel like I get asked this a lot, you know, it's like, well, what should I focus on? Should I think about video? Should I think about webinars? Should I think about a newsletter? Like, what should I do? And I honestly don't really think it matters. I mean, I think it it matters that you answer two questions. Number one, like, what is really going to resonate with your audience? What is important for them to know about you? And how do you tell that story the best? How do you connect with them the best? And then the second thing, what do you actually enjoy doing? And I think this is incredibly important for for teams that are really strapped for resources, which is, in my experience, basically any marketing team out there, even if you work for a global company, I feel like I've never spoken to a marketer who is at all I have all the resources I need. I'm good. You can, you know, give that money to, I don't know, the mail room or something like that. And so I think, you know, the the the fact that you have to have a it has to spark joy within you, whatever you're creating. I think you've got to have that element. And, you know, I think that's the key to being a marketing team. And I think that's the key to being a marketing team. And so I think, you know, the the the fact that you have to have a it has to spark joy within you, whatever you're creating. I think you've got to have that element. And, you know, maybe it sounds a little a little soft. But I think, listen, if you're going to show up in a way that is authentic to who you are into what your audience needs, you've got to it's got to be real, it's got to feel like it's, it's it brings you some joy, because without that joy, like no great content, was ever created a gunpoint, right? It just doesn't happen that way. Great content was never created at gunpoint. That was a good, that was good line in there. Yeah, no, it's it's so interesting, also, I guess, organizationally, how you set these teams up for the nowadays and external video agencies, content agencies, and how you even mix those two together with your in house. And I guess the power of the story, to your point, is ultimately what it all comes down to. But yeah, great perspective, that is also a personal choice. But then I guess also, as I think I know, we both really are focused on this idea that COVID also really made a lot of people much more comfortable being on camera, right, and getting used to it. So, so I guess there's still some, some putting it all together. But let's get back to that when we talk AI, because I think also seeing the chat, everyone wants to talk AI, so we need to have our take on that in the end. Great, and okay, super interesting with with with the with the with the talk points here, I think let's let's and data points, I think let's let's, let's hit the nail on the AI. And this is where we'll we'll say that the paradox of AI is obviously authenticity. And even even even a moving field at this point, right? What does it even mean? And I think video is so interesting, right? Also, as you alluded to the idea that text, you know, sort of the first frontier of the AI killer apps that we're seeing now is really about text, right? And, and text is such a big part of video in general, both in terms of how we label our content, and how we label our content. About how we repurpose it. And how we make it accessible SEO, everything around it. And then obviously, we have the whole generative side that hasn't really hit video yet, but but still might be sort of 1224 months away from really hitting video with all the paradoxes of that, right? Are we trying to doing for do fake videos? Me speaking Spanish, even though I don't speak Spanish? Or we all we're trying to make better video or more authentic videos? Where are you on the whole kind of AI and in content that I mean, it's such a arms race just now, especially on the tech side, which is your, you know, sort of your your heritage of where you where you started many years ago? Yeah, yeah. So I think, yeah, I saw some some questions in the chat just about like, how is AI going to affect marketing? And like, should be we what should we be concerned as as marketers? And like, listen, I am a writer, ultimately, like, that's who I am to my core, I am a person who that's how I writing is thinking for me. Writing has been how I've built my career. And so yeah, I've applied it in marketing, but fundamentally, I'm a writer. And so when I first heard about the rise of generative AI, like when chat GPT, you know, sort of slid onto the scene in November of 2022, just about a year ago, actually a year ago, tomorrow, right? November 30 of 2022. Like that I remember that because it was just such a moment for me where I was like, Holy, wow, like what is going to happen? Because for the first time, I was actually impressed, you know, AI had existed for such a long time, but it was the first time that it felt accessible to somebody like me who could just, you know, fire up the platform and just see how it worked. And so I kind of had to go through this moment where I was like, Holy, wow, like, what does that mean for me as a marketer? And then what does it mean for us as marketers more, more generally, like, how do we how do we navigate this sort of new AI infused world where robots can write blog posts, and where I've come to, you know, a year hence, and what I had to work through, like in those in the first few weeks and months after I started playing around with, with AI tools is that it, I actually see it as an asset to us as marketers, I don't see it as a, as much as as a writing tool, like in the traditional, the purest sense of the word, as I do an efficiency accelerator, and I'll give you a really specific example of that. So I have a friend who works in marketing at a tech company, and she uses AI to outline blog posts, not really a blog post, like, like give a sort of outline to freelance writers to say like, this is the points that we need to hit. It used to be, she would have five tools that she would have to go to and now she just has to go to the one AI tool that they're using to assemble that it makes her incredibly efficient, what used to take her, you know, two days to do now she can do in an afternoon. And so I think that that's the kind of thing that that is a really useful use of a really helpful use of AI. The way that I use it is I think of AI in a few different categories. One is a utility player, like those are tools like Grammarly or something that can just help you with with spelling and grammar and things like that. And then the other is like, I use it a lot to think through a bigger idea that I might have to offer me a different perspective. And that's why I say fairy godmother because it brings me things that I, it feels a little bit magical to me like things I wouldn't have thought of before. And a very specific example of that is I was giving a talk this past July to a group of entrepreneurs, but also included in the audience was the wives or husbands of the entrepreneurs. In most cases, it was the wives, but it was the entrepreneurs that were the most important ones. So these like entrepreneurs is an audience that I'm totally comfortable with, like business people I get. But how do I actually talk about marketing that in a way that is not going to bore the heck out of the spouses that were there? And so what did I do? I fired up my fairy godmother AI tool and I said, Hey, I just I use it as kind of a content therapist, if you will. You know, I said, Listen, I'm going to be speaking to this group. And you know, I just outlined here my fears are that people are going to be bored. Like how do I talk about marketing in a way that's going to be helpful to me? And so that's the way that I think that for me, that's the sweet spot of AI is just using it as an efficiency tool and using it as a tool to help me get to the top of the list. And you know what, Thomas, it was actually super helpful just in terms of giving me that different perspective. And so that's the way that I think that for me, that's the sweet spot of AI is just using it as an efficiency tool and using it as a as you know, I would call that more the utility end of things and then also just sort of a fairy godmother is how I think of it. And then the category is not at all like I don't it's a choice that I sometimes make. It's like I don't want to fire up AI first. I rarely fire it up first when I'm thinking about like when I put together my bi weekly newsletter, for example, I never start with AI because again, to me, writing is thinking and I need that process to like I need to do the internal process to have anything that's useful on the other end. And so yeah, I think no AI like is a is a is a choice that we can make to also interesting. Yeah, I think definitely that that Fosse that Fosse friend that that helps you recontextualize something or or adds a different dimension to it. We had this amazing experience this year where we were together with some of the leading video agencies in the world where we're working on a manifesto for those types of agencies. And we had done this very collaborative process, right. And then when our team members just ran it through chat, you'd be in the in the end, right. And, and it definitely added a few things that we hadn't thought about at all. So, you know, as a creative process. Yeah, I think from our side, I think it's so interesting also in terms of especially your perspective and that, that the first thing that's going to hit video in terms of AI is text. So, so I mean, some of the things we've been working is on is that we're now auto transcribing all videos, which suddenly just changes a lot of things. For example, just searching if you have 1000 videos, you can find anything in those videos that was not in the title or in the description, but actually product names, people, terms, you know, so even there it starts being this more kind of creative element, right. And then obviously you start adding that you can make that accessible on the web page and, you know, for SEO and the transcription or, or the whole creating a blog post out of it, etc. Right. So we're definitely seeing this even sort of also if you have 1000 videos, you have a lot of titles that we can even start, you know, suggesting videos, you might be doing just a sort of a creativity generator, right. So I think there's so much happening on text and video just now that is so exciting, right. Also in terms of your point about concept repurposing that, that literally getting a blog post auto generated out of the transcription of a webinar is nowadays something you can do in minutes or seconds even. And then you can you can debate how you didn't work on that or whether how much you edited or, but even just as an icon that it's there already makes you dive into actually fixing it to be something you would want to publish, right. So I think there's so much happening, right. I think from our side, we're very concerned on the on the whole fake video thing. And if you stop trusting what we're seeing on camera, you know, am I a real person or or am I an avatar currently talking to you, right. It's some very dark stuff we're playing with here that potentially is interesting, but also potentially could lead us to a lot of dark places, right. So we're even working on being able to, to label that that something is not heavily AI manipulated or hasn't been through a process, right, but only has the normal video effects of the lightning, or whatever it might be that you know, nothing is real at the end of the day, but everything might might be authentic. So, yeah, yeah, I think it's interesting that what you just said there a second ago just about, you know, making sure that you have some guidelines around it. And, you know, part of the research that I didn't make an analog slide for, so I don't have it with me. But we asked marketers, you know, how many of you have some kind of policy around how the organization is using generative AI, how marketing teams are using generative AI, or whether they should use generative AI, like how many of you have had those conversations internally. And at the time of the research anyway, which again is like, you know, beginning of the third quarter of this year, the beginning of the third quarter, it was, it was like something like 65%, 64, 65% of organizations did not have any kind of generative AI policy. And so I think that's an opportunity to start those conversations internally if they have already started and come up with a policy about here's how we will disclose where we use it and how we're using it. And then how do we think about like, at what point in the, in the, you know, in the creative process or at what point in marketing do we use generative AI tools and make sure that everyone on the team is clear of it or clear around it. I think a really great thing to do, at least as an exercise for an organization, is to come up with that, those, that policy and write it down. Wired Magazine on their website has published an actual page that says, here's how we use AI tools. Here's how we will disclose how we're using AI tools. And if you go to Wired Magazine or if you Google Wired Magazine, you know, AI policy, you'll find the page. But I think that's such a smart thing for them to do because to your point about like what is fake and what is not and how are we using these tools and how are we not. I think the more that we disclose, and maybe this is my background as a journalist coming out, but I think the more that we disclose, the more that our audiences will trust us. And at the end of the day, that's the, that's what we want to do. We want to just not just connect with audiences, but inherent in that is that we want them to trust us, like that we are the best solution. And I think that starts like those little touch points all along the way, I think are so key. And so thinking through the policy, how will you use it? How will you, when do you disclose? And how do you disclose? I think thinking through all those questions and then maybe holding the team accountable. That's why I think I like that Wired Magazine posted publicly because that is the ultimate in accountability. Just putting it right out there. Yeah, I love that. That's such a creating that transparency and the declaration that such an important perspective and definitely also something we're thinking about as toolmakers, whether we can embed that into the product so it becomes really easy to do. But yeah, I guess we're early on this one. And a lot of things are moving very fast. So it's going to be a very interesting field to track here. Let's get some questions in here. First up, we have Richard, who asked, how will webinars develop in the future? Richard also said, please tell me this is recorded 2am in Melbourne, Australia. Start time is a bit tough for me. Yes, Richard, it is recorded and we'll get your answer to you. You're hopefully asleep now. But how will webinars develop in the future? What's your perspective there? Well, I bet Richard isn't doing the authentic like, you know, take a shot thing. I don't blame you. 2am is rough. How will webinars develop in the future? That's a big question. But you know, I think what we're what I'm seeing is that marketers are playing with the webinar format. You know, it used to be that a webinar meant that it was straight up lead generation. It was a lead generation opportunity for the marketing team first and foremost. And I think the content was took us took a backseat very often. And we've all experienced this like you sign up for a webinar. It's like, yeah, it's gonna be so great. It's gonna be so helpful. So useful. And then you get there and it feels a little bit like you've been pitch slapped right there. They're just pitching their services constantly, instead of actually using it as an opportunity to educate and to help them. To further their thought leadership. So we've all had that experience. I think we're beyond that now, though, at least for the most part, we're we're beyond that smart marketers know that that's not the way to go to build that trust and authenticity with the audience. And so and so I think what we're seeing now is that, you know, we're starting to experiment. And, you know, I mentioned earlier that we're starting to sort of disrupt ourselves a little bit like challenge ourselves. What is an actual webinar? How do we actually, you know, create this sort of format that feels engaging, like even I think this fireside chat that Thomas and I are doing like this to me and you know, I'm in Miami, we had a sound issue at the beginning, like that's all it's all great because it's real life and it gives you a better sense of, you know, who we are who 23 is, you know, the whole the whole thing that's part of what we're doing here. And so I think, you know, even things like this, I think are really, you know, it's a good way to play. Another thing that I'm seeing, though, and this is a little bit controversial, I think, is that part of that new formats like I just I just participated in a two day event, two day event earlier this month, all virtual, right? So like this, all virtual, some fireside chats, some presentations, 100%. And this would give Richard an aneurysm, I think, because of his 2am time, but none of them were recorded. So no recording. And that is like, like, think about that, you know, you spend all this time and money and effort putting together this like two day virtual event, and you have to be there live or you miss the entire thing. So I think that's a good way to do it. So that seems crazy in some ways, like from a marketing standpoint, I'm like, wow, like all the things that we just talked about, like repurposing and being able to connect with people like on their terms, not our terms, like all that is right out the window. Like, why would you do that? Well, here's the thing. 10,000 people just over 10,000 people registered for this live event, one two day live event. Upwards of close to 9,000 people actually showed up live. And if that was recorded, I can guarantee you 9,000 people would not have shown up. It would have been something like 3,000. That's an incredible show up right there. Yeah. Right. It's usually like 30%. In my experience anyway, and Thomas maybe have a perspective on this, but in my experience, if it's recorded, about 30% of the people who actually sign up for it will show up live and they think, oh, I'll watch it on demand. Later. But the reality, and we know this, we get busy, we mean to, but we forget on demand often means like no chance. Right. You just don't show up sometimes. And so to create a different kind of experience, right, to actually give it an energy and to give it a vibe and to make it feel like it was truly alive. They said, now, if you are not able to join us, then you miss out. And so I think that's a real gutsy move. It ultimately paid off for this group. But yeah, I mean, I think that's the kind of thing that we're seeing. Let's let's like, like blow the walls off of how we think of a webinar. It's not like anymore. Right. There's, there's so many ways to do it. No, and I think that's a great point, right? Because I think, I mean, as you started saying webinars was almost like a format to begin with, right? It was Legion, top funnel. It was even a genre of the way you presented. I mean, when we launched our webinar product as sort of the first second generation tool that didn't require software to participate or produce. I mean, back then, it was still audio and slides was controversial in 2018. The webinar was video based, right? So that's just how quickly it moved. Right. But it's interesting that even now webinars is more like, you know, it's more strategy. It's more content type. It's more an element. It's basically sort of digital event marketing. You can say overall of sort of adding event thinking into your digital strategies, which so far we haven't been too good at that sort of the next frontier in digital. But I think it's so interesting that we're seeing this sort of massive explosion in formats and genres, as you said, across the funnel, even to doing an invite only webinar or webinar that's not taped or recorded. So we're seeing all these sort of paradoxes and sort of conflicting trends, which I guess it just means that it's maturing, which is a good thing that is getting really deep into our organizations. And we start playing around with the with the genres and the formats. I think one of the things we've been seeing recently is also that even I think we're seeing sort of this counter trend to the original webinar sort of format of, you know, any company probably should as an architecture on the website have that introduction to the company weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, webinar, whatever volume you're running on where you can get that, you know, 35, 40, 50, 50, whatever, whatever you want to call it. It's obviously legion, but it's also engagement. It's like a first meeting. It's meeting some people from the company. And that's kind of where webinars started, right? 10, 15 years ago as this sort of a sign, get some permissions by getting people to sign up, right? But ultimately, it's a very sort of human authentic architecture around not just having the website there, but but also the architecture to start engaging for everyone. Random could be somebody applying for a job or just interested in understanding the company, right? So we're definitely seeing this explosion on formats. So that's super interesting. Let's take one more question here from Christopher. Would you treat attendees at live webinars that are not recorded when a live interruption happens? E.g. urgent phone call, email requiring immediate response? So how would you treat attendees at live webinars that are not recorded? Yes, I guess more from the audience side that if it's a half, if it's a four hour webinar, then probably you do need to catch a break and and and take a phone call or whatever at some point or. Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, so the speakers were, you know, I mean, so the thing is, you know, like, like it's our conversation here today. You know, it's it's it's an hour, 45 minutes, an hour of, you know, of us, you know, just having a conversation. And it felt very much the same way for the for the live event that I was talking about, the no on demand event that I was talking about. And so, yeah, I mean, life happens like, I don't know, a leaf blower happens out the window or landscaping shows up or, you know, I don't know any somebody starts running a vacuum in the other room. You know, I think just just acknowledging what's going on. It's just the same as a live event. Like it's in person event. You know, stuff happens at in person events, too. It's just about acknowledging what's going on in the room as the speaker. Here's what's going on and just, you know, sort of letting the audience in on what's going on. I mean, the worst thing you can do as a speaker is always just to ignore the reality. One time I was speaking at an event and the fire alarm went off. So we can't ignore that. And so we we know we did. We all get up. We went outside in the sidewalk and we just sort of like everyone just sort of like circled around and we just finished the finished it. Finished the talk. So yeah, I think of like whether it's an actual fire alarm or virtual fire alarm, you know, you just you got to commit to the bit and just do it. Yeah, I guess you can also argue that in an in person event that you have the audience 100% full attention at all point in time is probably also, you know, sort of an illusion at this point in time with mobile phones and whatever. Anyhow. Right. So, yeah, great. We will take one more from Lobke. The question is, to what level of detail do you prepare for a webinar? Fully scripted or think through flow and talking points and be more fluid? I guess once again, it's probably a contextual question in terms of what genre of webinars we're talking about or what format of webinars. But where are you on where you currently yourself? Perhaps we could we could ask Anne on on your style in webinars or what different types of webinars you do. Yeah, it's it's a mix of both. I mean, this this conversation with Thomas is obviously not scripted because that would come across as incredibly wooden. But I also think it's true, even if I had a traditional PowerPoint instead of my, you know, if I even if I didn't have these slides, even if I had a traditional PowerPoint, I personally don't script. But I do have talking points. And and the reason why I don't script isn't only so that I. It's not because I don't need it, it's it's because I probably could use it, but it's because I would over rely on it. And, you know, if I see words in front of me, I'm going to start reading them and it's just going to come across as really, just really just boring. And so it I have to literally challenge myself to not to not read. And so the only way that I know how to do that is just to give myself a few talking points on every slide. And thank you, Deb. And I get distracted by the chat. I try not to be. But see, I mean, like I read I will read it instantly. I'd be like, love your paper slides and smiley face like that's how I would present. And so, yeah, I can't do that to myself. So give myself some talking points and and then, yeah, just roll with it. And the other thing, and this is just sort of a general speaking philosophy, I guess, is that, you know, yes, you're going to screw up, like acknowledge the fact that you are like you're going to screw it. You're going to make a grammar mistake or you're going to screw up. You're going to stumble or you're going to pause or I don't know, your mouth is going to get dry. It's like all of that stuff. Yes, it's absolutely going to happen. But it's just just keep going. Just roll with it. It's you know, it's part of of how we are. It's part of our authenticity. You got it again, Chad. You got it again. Yeah, I guess it's also you know, I mean, there are so many genres of webinars, right? I mean, and I mean, when we do like a big we just did this huge presentation also with 600 people in person from flown in from all over Europe. Obviously that presentation you rehearsed a gazillion times. It's not scripted scripted because that doesn't work either. But, you know, talk points are written down, rehearsed slides are, you know, calibrated and optimized continuously. Many, many, many times. Right. And then you have that webinar that you do 50 times a year. And obviously that one in the end, you know it by heart. Right. So so it's all to these sort of at what scale you're running. Is it a is it a one off you're doing? You might be preparing a little bit more or very heavy if it's a very big strategic thing for the company. Obviously, if it's an account manager doing a relational webinar for their 50 clients, it's kind of probably like being in a video meeting anyhow. Right. That that is the authenticity. It's the same slide you would show that you would show on a one on one meeting. And and and you know, the people are looking to relate to to you as an account manager or relational relationship manager for for that audience. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. One of the things that I do, too, and I know we're a little bit over, but I'm just I'll just share this last thing is that you mentioned like, you know, like like practicing and prepping. And what I always do is, you know, anytime before I do a big talk or when it's a new talk, I should say, even like if I'm introducing a new talk, I have a new talk where I'm talking about AI content. I will practice it, but I'll also I'll also record it and I'll just record on my phone and play it back later. That really helps me because you have a very you can't you can't assess yourself in the moment. And so as painful as it is to watch and listen to myself when I replay the video later, it really does help me fine tune the moments. And I record the entire thing and then watch the whole thing. I record it and maybe like 10 or 12 or 15 minute bits. You know, how do I tell this story? How do I how am I conveying this information and just watching it and my recollection when I rewatch it is, oh, I thought that I thought that I made that point stronger. I thought that I told that story in a bigger way. And it just gives you that necessary perspective. So that's just a speaking tip. Just like record yourself, watch it back, and then it'll really help you level up your game as a speaker. That's great advice. I guess even you can also add to it at the social side of it of of getting your colleagues to actually watch your webinars, which is sometimes a little bit of a challenge. It's something we've been working on tooling wise to also make it very visible when there is a live webinar in your company so you can join it and take a quick peek. Right. But also getting that social feedback from from people actually joining your webinar and giving you a few pointers afterwards on on on what was great and what could could be even better. Right. So the feedback loop as anything in life is is always important. Great. And we're coming to an end here. But I guess we had a few questions that were a little bit on sort of how many webinars should you do? What are the genres? What are the formats? So so to finish off, you know, what's the last piece of advice for I guess a lot of people that are sitting looking at at planning their webinar strategy for next year, how to run it at scale, all the different genres and formats. You know, we're not talking about doing four webinars a year. We're talking about doing a lot of types of webinars X amount of times per year. What would you what would the final advice be to somebody sitting doing their planning just now and going in in a week or two to get it all approved? Yeah, well, I mean, you're at 23. So talk to these guys. These guys are the pros. But, yeah, I mean, find a partner who you who you feel comfortable with, you can communicate with, who can help you through the technical piece of it for sure. And then the other thing is just to think about your story. Like, how is it that how is it that you're going to tell a story in a webinar? And I think often in webinars and again, I think this has to do more with their with their foundational roots as a way to as in least in marketing anyway, as a lead generation tool. But think through like, how do we use webinar in a way that is really engaging for the folks in the audience? Tell a story, tell stories, show who you are, show your faces and find a great partner. Great advice. There you have it. Chad, that's the that's the last piece of advice. Thank you so much, Anne, for joining from from sunny Miami. This is Thomas tuning out here from snowy Helsinki. And we'll do it all again next year, per tradition, I'm sure. So so in May, we're talking about that. And maybe even live. Yeah, we were thinking about doing a European live show. We'll see if we could even do that. That could be pretty incredible. Also, because back to webinars, Anne and I have actually never met. But at this point in time, it feels like we're all friends. So I'm sure it would be fun to also have a dinner together. So but that's the magic webinars can do. So thank you so much, Chad. Give a big shout out to Anne and give her some reactions. There's hearts and claps and insights being thrown left and right here. So thank you so much, Anne, and have a great continued vacation when you get to it. All right. Thank you so much. And thanks, Amelia, too. Thank you. See you. I want to give a big thanks to both Thomas and Anne for such a dynamic and in-depth conversation about what webinars can be. I think for me, my favorite part of all of this is and coining to be authentic. The word authentic to be the word of the year really resonates with me. And I think that's something we can all keep in mind. I also want to thank all of you for joining us for our very first day. It's been an amazing experience. And what a day we've had more than 10 speakers over four sessions inspiring us on all around webinars, on studios, on marketing strategies, storytelling, optimization, so much good stuff. And tomorrow we have even more of it lined up for you. So we have Stefan Fagerstram Christensen, who will present fresh from the press numbers from our annual state of webinars report. You will also get some tips on how to get more participants to your webinars from agencies as Obsidian Digital and a video agency, Video Ola. We will get a sneak peek into what a video producer called the greatest innovation and webinars ever. And finally, we will finish the day off with a cocktail hour where we take 10 minutes to check in with different video people from around the world and get their insights and perspectives. And there might be a secret surprise for you waiting for you in the cocktail session as well. So please join us tomorrow for Webinar Days 2020 through day two. I'm looking forward to meeting you there and very excited to see you tomorrow. And until then, stay warm and I'll see you soon.