Brands have a space for everything digital in their marketing toolbox. Webinar is no exempt. It is live seminar hosted on the web. Initially used for communication, it’s now used to kick branding up a notch.
Actionable Tips for Marketing Webinars
Webinar marketing is not a smooth ride. Not even for large organizations. They may have some leverage. But success in webinar marketing is possible only when the below-listed actionable tips are followed:
Make it Entertaining
Online audiences hate to be bored. Pew Research Center’s Internet/Broadband factsheet shows 18-35 year olds make up the biggest chunk of Internet audiences.
People in between these age groups are millennials and they get bored easily. Author Julie Williamson even wrote a piece on Forbes, dishing out insights to enterprises as to how they can stop millennials employees from getting bored and leaving the organization.
When you host a webinar, bear in mind your audiences will be mostly millennials. Don’t want to bore them? Then make the webinar as entertaining as possible. The average duration of a webinar is 60 minutes unless it’s for internal training. Merge information with entertainment, so the webinar reflects infotainment.
Verbal and visual content make a webinar entertaining. The introductory and closing script shouldn’t be overly long. And reduce repetition. People pick up information quickly when they are in the right mood. An interesting webinar can bring the right mood. A tedious webinar, on the other hand, only induces a big yawn, nothing else.
Set Attendee Registration Goal
To excel in webinar marketing, entrepreneurs need to set attendee registration goal. The goal must focus on:
- Persuading a certain number of people to register for the webinar.
- Converting all the registrants into attendees.
The second goal is harder to achieve. The typical webinar attendance rate is 25%. That means if 100 people register for the webinar, only 25 of them would actually attend it. This simply means you need to work 4 times harder than the pace with which you are working right now.
Attendee goals should be realistic. For example, a startup enterprise cannot expect industry influencers attending its webinar. Increased marketing outreach can bring more attendees, but limit the volume of promotion.
A webinar is not something to be advertised, rather something from which attendees can get some value. Make sure the message gets through to them. This brings us to our next point.
Adjust Your Copywriting Style
Normal copywriting techniques are not useful for webinar marketing. The narrative for pushing a webinar cannot be overly catchy as though the webinar is some kind of product to be purchased. There should be subtlety. The message that attending the webinar can benefit the attendees should be sent across to audiences in subtle manner.
Highlighting catch phrases is a tried and tested copywriting technique. When it comes to webinar marketing, selecting the right catchphrases could be a challenge. As stated above, the copywriter cannot use promotional phrases.
Any phrase that triggers a sense of urgency should be avoided. It’s wise to replace phrases like “Join now” or “Register now” with simply “Join” or Register.” Graphics accompanying the written message can increase the visibility of the banner on social media and other digital platforms. Visuals are now a part of copywriting. Do bear that in mind.
Pick a Convenient Date and Time
Host the webinar in a time that’s most convenient for attendees. People who attend webinars are typically employees, freelance professionals, interns and clients. The timing of the webinar should suit them.
If a webinar is only for employees, it could be hosted at any time. But if it includes outsiders, the right timing is 6 to 7 in the evening. This is when people clear the desks, but still have the hangover from the day’s work.
Not all days in a week are equally good for hosting a webinar. Don’t even think about hosting the webinar over the weekend. People set all kinds of work related thoughts away from their minds during the weekend. The last thing they want to hear is anything remotely resembling the professional world. Mondays are not good for hosting webinars because people still have the weekend hangover. Tuesday and Wednesday are most optimized.
Because of varying time zones, international registrants may find it difficult to attend the webinar. For example, US time zone and East Asian time zone are diametrically opposite. If you are in US and host the webinar at 1 pm, a registrant from Indonesia would have to attend it with sleepy eyes.
Create a Quality Landing Page
Landing page optimization is key to webinar marketing success. The landing page content cannot be promotional. It must be concise and offer onlookers a very short glimpse of what the webinar is about, when and where it is going to be hosted and what value they can get from it.
Use email marketing to spread the news about the webinar. When you send email invitation, embed the link to the landing page. Run PPC ads on social media informing users about the webinar. Use the same graphic on the ad banner that you put on the landing page.
People would know about the webinar via the landing page. Unless it is high quality, they won’t be interested to register for the webinar. Experts suggest adding a FAQ section to the landing page. You can use third-party tools for building a quality landing page for sending invitation. Here are some of them:
WebEx: It’s the brainchild of Cisco. Webinars apart, WebEx is also used to conduct online training courses. WebEx’s highlights are screen sharing and remote control feature. The free version is pretty much a joke as it allows up to two people. This is the only thing about it that’s a turn off.
Clickmeeting: What I liked most about Clickmeeting is the level of customization it offers. It takes only a few clicks to get started. Plus the presentation tool that makes audience interaction more engaging. Clickmeeting’s understanding of big data fascinates me. Its built-in stat algorithms generate user insights and derive predictions and trends by analyzing the attendees.
Onstream Webinars: This tool banks on a new concept – allowing users to add tabs to the original presentation window, which makes the whole set up seem like a browser. Ease of use is guaranteed when one install Onstream Webinars. Aside from these, Onstream Webinars let users put documents into the library from where they can easily pick them up, during a live webcast.
There are several other tools. Compare these tools to select the best one.
Summing Up
Webinar marketing works like a treat – for both B2Bs and B2Cs, if done right. The five tips discussed here in this article can guide marketers to finding the right way.
Webinar Photo via Shutterstock
Aira Bongco
I think that it is more important to offer something of value. These people will get out of their way to listen to you so you need to give them something that is worth their time.
shasha
Nice list of ideas here…it would be great if more webinar leaders would follow your advice.
One point I would add: It’s very annoying when the leader of the webinar is late to the show. As the leader of the webinar, you should get to the webinar at least five minutes before the scheduled start time