Webinars are a common part of many B2B marketing plans as a way to build brand awareness, generate new leads, and deepen engagement with prospective and existing customers.

One of the reasons for their popularity is they are fairly easy to put together and promote, and can be repurposed on multiple online channels like company websites and social platforms.

But, there are barriers too. For example, it’s becoming harder to get new webinar (and podcast) programs noticed, unless you already have an established following in the marketplace or a large advertising budget. Also, many B2B webinars don’t stand out because they follow the classic 45 min presentation with 15 minutes of Q&A format.

If you want to get the most out of your webinar investment and drive sales, think through the main objective and brainstorm with your team on ways to shake up the traditional format so that you stand out and keep visitors coming back for more. Here are four easy ideas:

1. Make them short — 20 minutes instead of the normal 45-60.

• People will love you if you can figure out a way to deliver valuable content while also taking as little of their time as possible. Focus your message only on what your audience cares most about or needs to know in order to take action.

2. Make them Q&A sessions only.

• Offer people an opportunity to hear answers to questions about a topic that they care about and for which you (or the sponsoring speaker) are experts.

3. Brand them as educational opportunities.

• Share meaningful industry research and/or trends
• Show customers how to use the latest version of your product
• Demonstrate best practices on how to get the most out of your services

4. Invite a customer or industry guru to be the main speaker.

• Use an interview format to ask the speaker questions for 15 minutes, on topics you know are on people’s minds. Then open it up for listeners to ask questions for 20 minutes or so. This format minimizes the time spent on designing a formal presentation, and it helps you target the content to business problems and pain points common to multiple people in your category.

The point: It’s noisy out there and while webinars can be a valuable part of the B2B marketing mix, many companies deliver a me-too message and format. Think about how to make yours engaging and interesting so that they get noticed and gain traction.