In today's digital world, webinars are crucial in lead generation across all marketing funnel stages. Whether they are conducted live or made available on demand, webinars (also known as web seminars) attract a significant audience. They serve various purposes, from raising industry trend awareness to enabling potential buyers to gain valuable insights through semi-anonymous product demos, aiding their decision-making process.
After much deliberation, you have decided to host a webinar. You put in a tireless effort to finalize the topic, speaker, and content to guarantee an irresistible webinar that drives many registrations. Now, the question is, how do you spread the word effectively? While hoping for organic discovery is good, it may only sometimes yield the desired results. However, fear not! You can achieve and even surpass your webinar goals by employing an effective webinar promotion strategy. This strategy encompasses engaging social posts, a robust landing page, a captivating title, and several other essential elements.
Effective webinar promotion is essential to ensure the success of your company's webinars. Fortunately, you can utilize many strategies and tools to promote your webinars before, during, and after their occurrence. Let's explore these proven methods to generate more demand and secure higher registrations for your upcoming webinar.
Promoting a webinar offers several benefits:
Promoting your webinar relies heavily on timing. Hosting a webinar at the best times and days consistently yields higher registration rates, maximizes its success, and increases attendee satisfaction. Here are the optimal times to schedule webinar promotions:
Among all days of the week, Tuesdays attract the highest number of webinar registrations, with approximately 24% of all sign-ups occurring. Monday follows closely with about 17% registrations, while Thursday comes in at 16%. Wednesday and Friday account for 15% and 14% of registrations. While Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays also perform well, prioritize key promotions on Tuesdays.
The early working hours, specifically between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m., witness the most webinar sign-ups. Particularly, 8 a.m. experiences a notable spike in registrations. It's advisable to send a reminder email early in the morning so they are among the first emails recipients see upon reaching their workplace.
Launch your promotions around 3-4 weeks before the webinar, gradually increasing the frequency as the event approaches. During this period, about one-third of total registrations typically occur. The most significant spike, almost 70% of registrations, happens during the final week and on the webinar day.
Read and Learn: How to Add Energy, Impact, and Results at Every Stage of Your Webinar
Advertising on your properties can effectively promote your webinars on your website and attract more attendees without any additional cost! Here are some ways you can effectively feature upcoming webinars on your website:
Consider creating a dedicated webinar landing page, if you don't already have one, to regularly showcase scheduled webinars. On this landing page, you need to outline a few essential components clearly:
Your homepage is one of the most visited pages on your website, making it an excellent place to promote upcoming webinars. You can use this prime real estate to showcase your company's support for the webinar and emphasize its value for site visitors. By boosting your webinars openly on the homepage, you demonstrate your company's belief in the initiative and increase its visibility among your audience. Here, you can also make a webinar announcement to capture attention.
Consider incorporating a call-to-action button that promotes your webinar in the sidebar of every webpage. Alternatively, drop a blurb about your webinar on the homepage for increased visibility and engagement. An example of a compelling CTA could be: "Don't miss our upcoming webinar! Click here to register."
Display upcoming webinars on your Resources and Events pages. Doing so ensures better visibility for your webinars and makes it easier for your audience to find and register for these webinars. If you're a product or service maker, highlight how the webinar complements what you offer.
Utilize a hero banner on your homepage and blog to draw attention to your webinar. This dynamic content promotes the webinar and keeps your homepage engaging. Remember to include a banner ad on your blog as well. By featuring the same banner in both locations, you ensure consistent visibility and effectively promote your webinar to visitors across different website sections.
You can connect with individuals who have already expressed interest in your products or content by advertising upcoming webinars on follow-up landing pages and pop-ups. Consider including a tip or two on what they should read or prepare before the webinar to get the most out of it.
Write blog posts before and after the event with topics that complement your webinar, and include a link to your webinar landing page within the posts, along with webinar-specific CTAs. Before the presentation, a simple post with the webinar's description can be effective, but try to be creative in your approach. For instance, you can create a five-question Q&A with a guest speaker to highlight key takeaways and demonstrate the value of attending the webinar.
After the webinar concludes, engage in post webinar activities. Engage the speaker to write a blog post about the topic or create content based on the webinar transcript. Ensure you obtain a transcript for those who prefer reading over listening and for ADA compliance purposes.
Webinar promotional activities can extend beyond the digital sphere. Think about offline channels where you can market webinars and reach a broader audience.
Product-focused businesses and SaaS companies frequently promote their new products through various sections like a "news" section, feed, splash screen, or dashboard on their website. If your site has a dedicated section for products or announcements, consider using it to promote your webinar actively. By giving the event more visibility across different digital touchpoints, you can create additional opportunities for conversions and increase the webinar's overall impact.
Promoting the webinars through email is the most effective marketing channel, driving approximately 56% of our registrations. Remember to send out your first promotional emails 3-4 weeks before the webinar and increase the frequency of emails in the week leading up to the event.
Most webinar technology providers offer the option to create email sequences and automate the process. You can establish a specific workflow for webinar promotion via email, customizing it according to your requirements.
Send a personalized webinar invite email two weeks before the webinar, including all relevant details, such as the topic, date, and time, along with a clear call-to-action for registration. Collaborate with your sales team to create personalized messages for critical accounts. By offering one-to-one attention, prospects will appreciate the customized approach, and your sales team will value the visibility of your campaigns and the marketing support they receive.
Sending a registration confirmation thank-you email isn't just a polite gesture; it also serves a vital purpose. It confirms attendees' registration, ensuring they know their submission was successful. Additionally, it offers an opportunity to remind them about the upcoming webinar. Include a prominent call-to-action to "Add this webinar to your calendar" in the thank-you and follow-up emails to encourage attendees to schedule the event.
To maintain engagement and reinforce the value of attending, send value-building reminder emails two weeks and one week before the webinar. Remind registrants about the date and time while sharing relevant blog posts, previous ebooks, or webinars covering similar topics. Emphasize the webinar's hashtag and encourage participants to tweet if they have questions.
As the webinar approaches, send two final reminder emails—one the day before and one the day of the webinar. These timely reminders help participants arrange their schedules accordingly and ensure they don't forget about the webinar.
To manage the promotional process efficiently, consider using marketing automation, like the Hubilo email marketing engine, which allows you to schedule all the emails simultaneously, reducing worry and ensuring a seamless webinar promotion.
The Thank You webinar email is crucial to this workflow, particularly following the invitation. Split this email into two segments:
For Attendees: Send the webinar recording to your registered attendees. Ensure they can access it without having to fill out any additional forms. Include the next steps, such as social links, e-books, and offers. Remember to incorporate UTM tags in these links and direct registrants to a landing page before they access the recording.
For No-Shows: Provide the webinar recording to those unable to attend. Share a link to the dedicated landing page created for the webinar recording to track and measure conversions.
The remarkable thing about social media is that it's less likely to oversaturate your audience than email. Moreover, there's a high probability that you have a significant portion of your email audience connected with you on social platforms. It allows you to use social media for marketing the webinar. Being active on social media is always valuable as it demonstrates your engagement in the conversation and your online community awareness. So, engage in the following social media activities to promote your webinar effectively:
Tweet frequently about your upcoming webinar and utilize relevant hashtags. Consider providing your audience with a hashtag during and after the event. Remember to select a unique hashtag for each webinar to make it easily discoverable.
Post at least once a week on Facebook and LinkedIn in the weeks leading up to the webinar. Schedule promotions on these platforms, ensuring you use high-quality imagery, compelling webinar content, and a strong call-to-action (CTA) to entice your audience.
On Instagram, visual appeal plays a vital role. When promoting your webinar on this social network, ensure it aligns with the platform's expectation for captivating visuals. Utilize background images optimized for Instagram as the backdrop for your webinar title and essential details, including the time, host(s), and name. Conclude the post with a compelling call to action urging users to sign up for the webinar.
Promote your webinar effectively by harnessing the power of video, which significantly impacts search engine optimization. Before the webinar, invest time in crafting a compelling promotional video. After the webinar, upload the first 10 minutes so potential attendees can preview its content before registering and viewing the entire recording. Utilizing video not only enhances engagement but also helps in reducing bounce rates, making it a valuable asset in your webinar promotion strategy.
While avoiding spammy behavior, promote your upcoming webinar in relevant groups and forums where you are an active member. Remember to share information about the event in relevant LinkedIn Groups where the content will benefit the audience. Before posting, review the group's rules, as they may require you to place the post in the Promotions tab.
Take the initiative to write an original article on the webinar topic and publish it on LinkedIn. Include a registration link at the end of the article to encourage your LinkedIn network to register for the webinar. Although it requires effort, promoting your thought leadership within your LinkedIn community will yield valuable results.
Try engaging your audience through Facebook Live or another live-streaming tool by offering sneak peeks or post-event wrap-ups. Alternatively, announce the webinar on a podcast to attract those who may need more time to commit to a full-hour session.
Consider experimenting with paid promotions on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to expand your reach and attract a broader audience to your webinar. With its massive outreach of 2 billion users, Facebook is an excellent place for advertising. Utilize warm ads to target people familiar with your work, such as those on your email list or recent website visitors. For these ads, incorporate personal details to capitalize on their existing awareness of your brand and work.
For cold ads, focus on targeting people unfamiliar with your work. Utilize Facebook's targeting settings to reach this audience and avoid personalization in these ads. Instead, solely emphasize the webinar title and relevant details.
Once the webinar concludes, upload the slides to SlideShare. This way, you can continue to share valuable content and engage with your audience even after the webinar has ended.
Consider collaborating with relevant brands to co-promote webinars. Partnering with an industry influencer can boost your webinar's credibility and provide added value for your audience. Additionally, it offers the opportunity to reach a wider audience, significantly expanding your marketing reach. Prioritize relevancy in partnerships, as aligning well with another brand can create a more impactful and beneficial collaboration. Partnering with others can offer new perspectives to your audience and present specialized viewpoints.
To ensure a smooth promotion process for your partners, make it effortless for them to promote the webinar. Provide easily accessible marketing materials that they can readily use. To maintain consistency across channels, share the marketing pieces, such as branded imagery, registration link, sample emails, and social media posts, with your partners as early as possible
Involve your employees in your webinar promotion plan and leverage their networks, especially if their social connections align with your target audience. Your employees can be one of your most valuable assets on social media when it comes to spreading the word about your webinar. LinkedIn says employees typically have ten times more connections than a company's followers. To simplify sharing the webinar details, provide your employees with links and pre-written social media copy that they can easily share on their social platforms.
Optimize your registration page with simple yet effective adjustments to boost registrations:
Minimize the number of form fields to the essential ones required for registration. Including only necessary fields can improve the user experience and encourage more sign-ups.
Enhance your landing page by incorporating a video. Studies have shown that adding a video can lead to an impressive 80% increase in conversion rates, making it a valuable addition to your registration page.
Communicate why your audience should register and emphasize what they can gain or learn from attending the webinar. Keep this information concise to maintain an engaging and user-friendly registration page.
Just because a visitor didn't register for your webinar doesn't mean they lack interest or won't register for a future one. Only 2% of web traffic converts on their initial visit. By employing retargeting ads, you can effectively allocate your ad budget to individuals who are already familiar with your brand and have displayed interest.
Embrace paid media without hesitation. If you have the budget and aim to boost webinar attendance, consider supplementing your organic efforts with paid media. For instance, running a PPC ad on Google for a relevant search term can effectively spread the word and drive more attendees. Consider experimenting with targeted video and display campaign ads. Avoid scattering banner ads everywhere; focus on advertising opportunities on websites highly relevant to your audience. This way, you can maximize your advertising efforts and attract potential attendees to your webinar.
Ensure a seamless video experience by using the best webinar tools. The impact of an industry expert's valuable insights diminishes if the technology used for recording could be better. Your webinar's content may offer unparalleled industry knowledge, but its value could be improved if attendees need help accessing and listening to the event. Choosing the right webinar software elevates your webinar to the platform it deserves, enticing people to join in and attentively listen to your presentation.
Establishing a regular webinar cadence can build momentum and retain your audience's attention. By doing so, your audience will anticipate the next installment, increasing the likelihood of them registering for the entire series. If you decide to host a webinar series, use a single hashtag for the series instead of individual hashtags for each webinar.
11. Nail the topic and title
A dud of a webinar title and topic can render any promotion ineffective. Therefore, before finalizing a webinar topic, research to identify subjects that resonate with your audience. Determine which types of webinars are receiving the highest registrations and attendance rates. Monitor trending topics on social media that are capturing your audience's attention. Assess the popularity of blog posts to gain insights into what interests your audience. Your sales team can also be a valuable resource for generating ideas.
Once you have selected a topic, craft a clear webinar title with a distinct takeaway. The most effective webinar titles often fall into the following categories:
For webinars with substantial topics and notable speakers, consider issuing a press release about the event. Email the press release to your preferred online industry journalists to attract media attention and coverage.
Promoting your on-demand webinars allows more people to view the webinar conveniently. Surprisingly, 84% of B2B customers prefer replays over live webinars. After completing your webinar, share the recorded version on your website, and consider creating a central webinar library to establish your company as an expert with a wealth of educational video content. Promote your on-demand webinars on your Resource page, as well as in nurturing campaigns and other relevant channels.
Download Hubilo's Essential Guide to Repurposing Webinar Content
Encourage all employees to include a link to your webinar (pre- or post-event) in their signature lines for a designated period. This simple and cost-free strategy capitalizes on the numerous individuals that your customer support team, sales team, and account managers interact with via email daily.
For added effectiveness, create a clickable CTA image that links to the landing page URL for the webinar. It allows team members to add it to their email signatures easily. In some cases, IT teams can assist by pushing these images directly to individual email signatures, streamlining the process for minimal effort.
Of course, you will promote your webinar, but have you considered the presenters' efforts? They have access to a distinct audience that might differ from yours. Get more visibility by encouraging your external speaker to send an email and post on social media about their upcoming webinar with your company. This simple tactic can be an easy win for expanding your webinar's reach.
Mobilize your employees' networks, which are crucial to your webinar promotion plan. Their social networks can be one of your most potent assets in spreading the word. According to a LinkedIn report, employees have ten times more connections than a company has followers. Leverage this strength to extend the reach of your webinar promotion efforts.
Create an internal contest to encourage team member participation in promoting the webinar. Offer a cash prize or an equally exciting reward to the team member who generates the most registrants. Friendly competition among teammates can be a motivating factor.
Personally invite your internal subject matter expert to contact their connections and invite them to the webinar. A personal invitation through email or phone carries more impact than any mass communication.
During your current webinar, announce your next upcoming webinar to your audience. Leverage your follow-up lists and include information about the upcoming event in general communication, such as weekly or monthly newsletters. This approach maximizes the chance of attracting interested attendees to your future webinars.
Consider writing a guest post for a blog that shares the same target audience as your webinar. Include a compelling call to action in the post, encouraging readers to register for the webinar.
Utilize sliders or pop-ups on your website to promote the webinar. While some find them annoying, they can be effective in driving registrations. Remember to deactivate them after the webinar to avoid unnecessary intrusiveness.
1. Why is webinar promotion important?
Webinar promotion is essential to attract an audience, generate interest, and maximize attendance, ensuring the success of your webinar.
2. How far in advance should I start promoting my webinar?
It's recommended to start promoting your webinar 2-4 weeks in advance to allow sufficient time for audience registration and preparation.
3. What are the key elements of an effective webinar promotion strategy?
An effective promotion strategy includes crafting a compelling message, choosing the right channels, creating promotional materials, setting a schedule, and tracking results.
4. Which channels can I use for promoting webinars?
Common promotion channels include email marketing, social media, your website, blog posts, paid advertising, industry forums, and collaborations with influencers or partners.
5. How can I create an engaging email campaign for webinar promotion?
Craft personalized emails with compelling subject lines, highlight the webinar's value, include visuals, use clear CTAs, and segment your email list for targeted messaging.
6. What are some effective ways to promote webinars on social media?
Share teaser videos, countdown posts, eye-catching visuals, and interactive content like polls or quizzes. Use relevant hashtags and engage with your audience.
7. Can I use paid advertising to promote my webinar?
Yes, paid advertising on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google Ads can help you target specific demographics and expand your reach effectively.
8. How can I leverage my website and blog for webinar promotion?
Create dedicated landing pages or blog posts about your webinar, optimize them for SEO, and use them to capture leads and direct traffic to registration pages.
9. Are there ways to promote webinars to my existing customer base?
Yes, you can use email newsletters, in-app notifications, and personalized invitations to promote webinars to your existing customers.
As trends and technology in digital marketing continue to evolve, the avenues for promoting webinars expand. The key lies in creating thought leadership content that genuinely educates and delivers value to address consumers' pain points. When you prioritize providing valuable insights, promoting webinars becomes a straightforward process. By adhering to these webinar promotion guidelines, you're well on your way to success, as promotion constitutes half the battle. Remember to keep your audience in mind throughout the webinar planning process - from selecting a topic to scheduling social posts and designing your landing page. Once you have taken care of these aspects and publicized your webinar on relevant channels appropriately, your webinar is poised for success.
No matter what topic your webinar focuses on, these promotion ideas can accelerate the number of registrations you receive from a broad audience. In addition, the webinar hosting platform you choose to use plays an essential part in your webinar strategy, as well as a platform that handles things like email automation and landing page design will elevate your events and make the planning process much more manageable. Hubilo's event marketing tool helps spread the word about your webinar worldwide. The easy-to-use platform allows you to build personalized event landing pages, manage event ticketing, and communicate with attendees directly. Want to know more? Request a demo right away to find out more!
Hubilo is the webinar platform built for marketers that helps you 2X your pipeline. Founded in 2015, Hubilo's powerful engagement features, dedicated client experience team, and custom branding tools have helped create over 12K virtual events & webinars, creating hundreds of millions of minutes of high-engagement experiences and counting. Headquartered in Bengaluru and San Francisco, Hubilo's 200+ employees are dedicated to enabling webinars & virtual events that convert.
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