An approach to shareholder engagement

Bekaert has been leading the steel manufacturing industry since 1880 and employs nearly 30,000 people worldwide. Today, they operate in 45 countries and supply steel solutions for building construction, automotive vehicles, and everything in between. One out of every three tires contains Bekaert's steel wire! Impressive right?

A news report in webinar form

Bekaert Digital Communications Manager, Fabian Deceuninck is the mastermind ensuring investors remain informed of critical information in a timely and effective manner. Additionally, he prepares significant quarterly updates. Rather than simply sharing updates in a static email, Fabian has raised the bar by engaging shareholders in webinars with a panel of analysts. 

Investors benefit from expert advice and guidance provided by analysts in an interactive webinar based format. This has proven to be the best solution to retain an open line of communication rather than a 1-sided email.

The main goals of our webinars are to inform shareholders about their investments. We give them comprehensive financial updates. 

Their webinar goals? First and foremost, shareholders are informed of all the latest developments regarding their investments and receive detailed financial updates. It's of course a legal requirement for investors to receive this information and webinars allow Bekaert to go above and beyond in their communications. Analyst calls with Bekaert’s CEO and CFO are also broadcasted publicly to uphold their commitment to transparency.

Professional grade broadcasting

Fabian is thrilled to see more and more people tuning in with every new webinar. Bekaert has adopted an integrated approach, combining the power of Teams and WebinarGeek to host their webinars. They use RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol) to broadcast through WebinarGeek in the highest professional quality available.

We see that there is an increasing interest, which is important for us, because of course we have KPIs and we want to reach more people.

Let's break it down. While the interview between the analysts, CEO, and CFO is a conference call on Teams, it is also simultaneously streamed through WebinarGeek to a larger audience. 

But why do this when they could just conduct the interview entirely through WebinarGeek? Well, there are a variety of reasons why! 

Instead of being dependent on the streaming quality of a browser, webinars broadcasted with RTMP are streamed in the highest quality available. Professional-grade that is. This is possible because the stream is processed by a computer’s encoder instead of the browser. To do this, the recording must be done through a native application. 

OBS is a popular free solution, but Teams is also suitable for this purpose. The interview is simultaneously streamed through WebinarGeek, with all the benefits our features provide; custom branding, live chat, interactions, data tracking, and so much more. Plus viewers can watch from any device and any browser, they don’t need to download anything in order to see the professional results of an RTMP stream! 

For hosts with the support of a technical team, RTMP also opens a whole world of advanced videography effects and creative productions. 

Interested in getting started with RTMP? Click here.

Accommodating demanding schedules

For registrants who weren't able to make it to the live broadcast, Bekaert has them covered with a replay they can watch at their convenience. 

Webinars are automatically recorded, so it’s as simple as flipping a toggle to enable the replay. The webinar is then automatically accessible for viewing after the broadcast.

This is especially important when catering to a demographic with demanding schedules. Investors want that information at their convenience, and Bekaert delivers on all counts and more. 

In addition to the replay, the Bekaert team also generates an o-demand version of the broadcast in 1-click.

An on-demand webinar allows new registrants to watch the recording. Whereas a replay is only accessible to those who registered for the original live event.

Repurposing content and collecting data

Bekaert's future plans? While their primary goal is to continue expanding their audience and reach, they’re also building their collection of on demand content. With WebinarGeek, it's super easy to transform a recording into an on demand webinar, all while keeping the same URL.

On demand webinars are a big advantage for us. We don't have to fiddle with all kinds of settings and such, it goes smoothly.

Bekaert doesn’t skip a beat when leveraging the data they collect from their webinars. The team optimizes segmentation and communications according to viewer’s behavior. How long they watched for, when they joined, what messages they sent, what interactions they completed. This helps fine-tune their content for future webinars. 

Why did Bekaert choose WebinarGeek?

Well, it's all about simplicity, ease of use, and the flexible options available. They evaluated other tools, but WebinarGeek quickly won them over, especially with the RTMP capabilities. They've been using it right from the start, and it's been a game-changer.

I think RTMP was something that won us over. Along with the simplicity of the tool, I think it's just important to try it out and see which approach works best. 

Fabian says starting with webinars is a breeze. Just sit in front of your laptop and present, then gradually expand. With WebinarGeek, they have both RTMP webinars and WebRTC webinars at their disposal. The possibilities are endless, and Bekaert knows how to make the most of it.

So there you have it! Bekaert is taking the webinar world by storm, connecting with their shareholders and sharing their success stories in style.