Basler Used Livestorm to Reach 80% Of Annual Target in One Quarter

Humble beginnings

Founded in 1942 as a humble repair shop for electrical equipment, Basler Electric has evolved to become a leading manufacturer of products fueling the power industry worldwide. In 2012, the company acquired a full-service, ISO-certified plastic molding company to ensure a self-sustaining supply of plastic parts and help drive its expansion.

Growing the product to grow the company

Headquartered in Highland, IL, Basler now boasts a large global footprint of facilities and products that can be found in over 140 countries. We had the pleasure of speaking with TJ Landrum, Basler Electric’s VP of Marketing, who came from a 15-year background in the highly specialized electrical industry. He was brought into Basler in September 2020 to accelerate product growth, break into new lines of product, and leverage their core technical expertise to open up new business opportunities.

Leading 20 talented individuals, TJ oversees everything from product strategy and development to the full spectrum of marketing communications aimed at setting the company apart. Not only does he have to deal with a fiercely competitive marketplace, but also a set of highly technical B2B and B2C products.

Complex product lines required in-depth training

In order to properly explain Basler’s complex products and services and stand out from their competitors, TJ realized that he needed to host one-to-many product and application training sessions that had the ability to reach their diverse, global audience. In fact, he shared that he had a KPI of 1,000 customers and prospects to reach for the year. TJ knew that webinars would be the best solution, but the problem was found in the platform that he tried: Microsoft Teams.

Because Microsoft Teams was already being used by his company for internal communications, TJ thought it could work for their customer-facing webinars. However, he explained,

We had done a couple of customer training events on MS Teams prior, but we really weren't getting the reach that we wanted to do.

Upgrading Microsoft Teams to utilize the live events feature was not an option either, as it would entail the use of cloud services. This posed a significant roadblock for the Basler team, which relied on internal servers to host the majority of their applications. TJ said,

We can't use the full MS Teams live event functionality because that requires cloud service; we greatly limit our use of cloud services so that we can better manage our network security.

With an aggressive goal to hit for the year and a platform that did not fit with their technical infrastructure, TJ admitted, “We quickly realized we needed another solution.” He then turned to online research to look at options on the market for a platform that would answer their pain points.

An all-in-one engagement platform

After testing 10 different platforms, TJ came across a popular Zoom alternative called Livestorm and found that it was the best for what Basler Electric needed for its webinars. In particular, he was sold on four main points.

What he noticed and enjoyed right away was the fact that Livestorm ran 100% off of a browser. He explained,

Besides not needing to download any programs, the browser support is also big, as lot of folks in our industry are slower to update their IT systems.

Besides the seamless browser-based experience, TJ was also pleased with the ability to reach an extended audience that could be expanded further with a simple upgrade. He told us,

Most of our training would see several hundred people signing up so the flexibility to go up to 1,000 is important because we want a broad audience reach.

For the veteran Marketer, having a comprehensive marketing toolkit at his disposal was non-negotiable and he was particularly impressed with Livestorm’s registration flow and customization capabilities. TJ explained,

We wanted a seamless registration process that we could promote through various means. I like having the custom registration fields, as that ensures that we’re capturing the right data.

The fourth aspect of Livestorm that won TJ and his team overcame down to the platform’s analytics and reports, including attendance rate and replay statistics. TJ said,"The attendance data export really nicely. We leverage these reports to run follow-up campaigns to re-engage folks for further education."

Reach, engagement, and goal attainment

After just five months of leveraging Livestorm, Basler was able to establish a regular cadence for their training webinars, running an average of two per month. The platform not only helped their team save 6-8 hours per event, which freed up much-needed bandwidth, it also yielded a number of other remarkable results.

With Livestorm, TJ and his team were able to open up to the rest of the world with ease. Their global reach impressed him, especially given the global nature of their product and the number of registrants who are outside of North American. He explained,

Livestorm has provided us the opportunity to quickly and easily manage events and reach different time zones. That was not something we were able to do prior and it's very important for us.

Next, the video engagement platform lived up to its claim, as the Basler Electric team saw consistent attendance and replay views after each virtual event. TJ elaborated,

Our live attendance rate is around 40% on average, which is right where we want it based on benchmarks. We also have a strong 10% to 20% (of registrants) who view the replay after the event.

Finally, while TJ and his team were faced with an aggressive target of 1,000 unique participants to reach for the year, he told us that he saw overwhelming success with reaching engaged customers and prospects through Livestorm. "We are more than on track for the year and will be ramping that up to 2,000 next year”, said the VP of Marketing, adding "For the first quarter, we've already reached 788 unique participants (out of 1,000), so we're well ahead of our goal."

Full steam ahead

When asked about Basler Electric’s plans for Livestorm going forward, TJ told us, "We plan to continue to use Livestorm because it's been a great tool. We're in the process of planning a fall series of seminars. Our ability to reach customers globally, which we hadn't taken advantage of before, is easy with Livestorm." We thoroughly look forward to helping TJ and the team at Basler Electric beat their next targets.

To get the same results as Basler Electric, create a free account on Livestorm now.