A Guide to Webinar Success
June 4, 2020

In the wake of the pandemic, many businesses have shifted their live events to online webinars – and many don’t have the right skills or experience to make them a success.

Live webinars are known to be powerful lead generation and engagement tools. They can drive revenue and make you a thought leader in your particular industry. But making sure you have the right amount of attendees is no easy task. Nothing feels worse than putting time, money and effort into promoting your webinar to only have a few people attend.

A lot of us fall into the trap of maximizing registrations, but ultimately attendance is what matters the most. When prospective clients attend your webinar, it’s your opportunity to engage with them in real-time and build a solid relationship. This is crucial for the buyer’s journey. Yet, we all have inboxes flooded with webinar invitations every day. And even if you manage to beat the competition, how do you make sure that busy C-level executive that can’t make time for lunch has time to attend your webinar?

Valuable & actionable:

The key starting point is a strong topic. No one will clear their schedule to listen to a product commercial. And with all the invitations people receive daily, you have to make sure that your topic resonates with your target audience. Take a look at your data: what content/topics are generating the most interest?

Choose a topic that is aligned with your content strategy, and also make sure to address common pain points your leads face. The choice of speaker matters too: they have to be credible, have a certain authority, relatable and ready to answer all types of questions related to the topic.

Time it well:

Ideally, your webinar duration will be around half an hour. Limit the webinar to an absolute maximum of 45 minutes. Committing to an hour is simply too long for most people these days. Be sure to leave time at the end for a live Q&A.

Reminders:

Make sure you have an email sequence in place before you deliver your first invitation. Send at least 3 reminders to people who register – we recommend 1 week before, 1 day before and 8 am on the day of the webinar. This can be automated using your marketing automation platform or webinar platform.

Thank you’s and gifts go a long way:

  • Make sure the reward you are giving is noticeable in all invitations and registration page.
  • Remind the attendees about your gift at the start of the webinar and mention that they have to attend till the end to redeem it.
  • Customize the reward email with follow-up content and a call to action. It will be your best-performing email so use this opportunity to drive engagement.

Welcome feedback:

Maybe your attendees joined without being enticed by a gift. There’s still an opportunity to sweeten up the deal via a follow up. Post-webinar surveys are a great way to get additional engagement and to further qualify your leads. At this point, you can send a thank you gift for sharing their thoughts. This can make a sales rep’s job easier afterwards, and can ensure more success for your next webinar.

Webinar attendance is important to building relationships with your prospects. However, all is not lost if you do not get as many attendees as expected. Not everyone will attend your webinar but even the no-shows may end up as customers. Be sure to share the recording with all who registered, and continue to use it as a valuable piece of content in your marketing arsenal. Webinar recordings can serve as an evergreen content to your website. Record your webinar, promote the recording, and extend the lifespan of your content.

Check out our previous webinars here and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter if you’d like to be part of our next conversations.

Klangoo NLP
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