Automated Webinar Management
for Scalable Customer Communication

For the ECM/DMS provider, an automated webinar process was implemented that connects GoToWebinar directly with the Marketing Automation solution and website communication. The goal was to stop organising webinars as isolated, standalone measures within the webinar platform and instead map them as fully integrated campaign processes.

Prior to implementation, several hundred webinars per year were offered covering the automation of business processes and AI-driven information management. Operations were handled largely within GoToWebinar: webinars were created there, invitations were either sent directly from GoToWebinar or manually transferred to an email marketing solution. Registration, however, took place via GoToWebinar's own landing pages – meaning design, branding, user guidance and transactional communication were only controllable to a limited degree.

With the entergon Hub, a ready-to-use middleware is employed to connect GoToWebinar bidirectionally with the Marketing Automation solution. The initial creation of the webinar continues to take place in GoToWebinar. After that, the entire process runs automatically: webinar parameters are transferred, Marketing Automation objects are generated, the website is updated with the relevant webinar information, and the complete participant and status logic is prepared for each webinar.

Webinars were a central pillar of digital customer and prospect communication for the ECM/DMS provider. At the same time, the underlying process was highly fragmented. Registration, confirmation, reminders, follow-up and website publication ran across different systems and required numerous manual interventions.

The key challenges were:

• GoToWebinar was used as an operational webinar platform in isolation from the website and Marketing Automation
• GoToWebinar's own landing pages could not be adapted to the desired degree in terms of corporate design, brand management and conversion logic
• Confirmation emails, reminders, thank-you pages and follow-up communication were only partially brand-consistent and controllable across processes
• Webinar links had to be manually transferred into email marketing processes depending on the approach
• New webinars also had to be maintained manually in the content management system and on the website
• Depending on the scope, each webinar generated around two to three hours of manual effort
• Participant status, cancellations, waiting lists, replacements, attendance information and follow-ups had to be processed with considerable coordination effort
• Using webinar contacts for downstream nurturing and sales was difficult because webinar data was not consistently available within the Marketing Automation logic

This created a classic scaling problem: the more webinars were held, the more the operational setup process burdened the marketing team. The challenge was therefore to automate the process in such a way that webinars could still be created easily in the webinar platform, but would then automatically function as complete, brand-consistent and measurable Marketing Automation campaigns.

For the ECM/DMS provider, an automated webinar management solution was implemented based on the entergon Hub. The Hub handles communication between GoToWebinar, Marketing Automation and the website. The architecture follows a clear principle: create the webinar once initially, then let automatic object generation, synchronisation and process control take over.

The current process works as follows:

Initial webinar creation in GoToWebinar

The marketer continues to create each new webinar initially in GoToWebinar and maintains the basic webinar parameters there – title, date, description, maximum number of participants and technical webinar information.

Automatic transfer of webinar parameters

The entergon Hub takes over the relevant key data and creates the webinar along with a participant database in the middleware. At the same time, the parameters are passed to the Marketing Automation solution.

Automated generation of Marketing Automation objects

For each webinar, the required objects are generated automatically and logically linked to one another. These include in particular:

• Invitation mailing with registration button
• Registration form
• Permission or confirmation mailing
• Reminder emails
• Thank-you and confirmation pages
• Follow-up emails
• Target groups
• Status fields
• Campaign logic and campaign flow

Automatic website publication

Via a web publishing process, the webinar is transferred in real time – with all necessary parameters – into a webinar overview on the website. This eliminates the need to manually add each new webinar in the content management system.

Status and participant management

A dedicated status logic is prepared for each webinar. Relevant statuses such as registered, confirmed / accepted, cancelled, attended, did not attend, waiting list or error are maintained automatically and assigned unambiguously to the respective contact. The email address serves as the unique identifier; one registration per webinar is possible per address, while a contact can participate in multiple webinars simultaneously.

Waiting list and replacement logic

For webinars with limited participant numbers, availability on the website is displayed via a visual traffic-light system. If a user registers when no places are available, they are automatically placed on the waiting list and informed accordingly. If a place later becomes free – for example through a cancellation – the next contact can automatically move up and be re-contacted.

Follow-up and recording

After the session, attendance information from GoToWebinar is processed. Follow-up communication can be sent depending on status – for example, separately to attendees and non-attendees. The link to the webinar recording is automatically inserted into the corresponding follow-up email.

Campaign flow and object linking

All generated objects are brought together in a campaign flow. This automatically creates a complete, structured and reusable campaign logic for each webinar. Once the webinar has been set up initially, the user no longer needs to worry about manually creating and linking the individual objects.

In the medium term, the start of the webinar process is to be moved entirely to the CRM. A campaign with the campaign type "Webinar" will then be created in the CRM. The webinar-specific parameters will be maintained directly on the campaign. On this basis, the webinar will be created in GoToWebinar, all further parameters and objects will be generated in the Marketing Automation solution, and the webinar will be published automatically on the website. A switch to the Microsoft Teams solution could also be made. This and other webinar solutions are offered by entergon as an integrated end-to-end solution.

Result

The ECM/DMS provider now has a seamless, automated webinar process – from initial webinar creation through website publication, registration, confirmation, reminders and waiting list management, right through to follow-up and recording.

What was once a manual, cross-system process has become a scalable Marketing Automation architecture. The webinar platform remains responsible for the technical delivery, while the Marketing Automation solution is the leading system for communication, campaign logic, personalisation, status management and follow-up. The website is automatically kept up to date with current webinar information, and all participant data can be used for further nurturing and sales processes.

With automated webinar management, the ECM/DMS provider has significantly improved operational efficiency, brand quality and scalability. Particularly notable is that webinars are no longer treated as isolated standalone measures, but as fully integrated, measurable components of Marketing Automation.

The specific benefits:

• Drastically reduced manual effort for creating and maintaining webinars
• Automatic creation of all relevant Marketing Automation objects
• No manual maintenance of new webinars in the content management system
• Brand-consistent landing pages, forms and transactional communication instead of GoToWebinar standard pages
• Consistent user journey from registration through to follow-up
• Automated reminder, confirmation and follow-up communication
• Status-based follow-up for attendees, non-attendees, cancellations and waiting list contacts
• Transparent participant and status management within the Marketing Automation solution
• Automatic waiting list and replacement process for webinars with limited capacity
• Better use of webinar contacts for nurturing, sales and reporting
• Greater process reliability through standardised campaign flows
• Reduced dependency on manual coordination and individual knowledge