Webinar Promotion | The Ultimate Guide on How To Promote A Webinar

Over the last few months, there has been a huge spike in webinar popularity, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic and strict social distancing protocols.

Businesses have had to pivot in these uncertain times, finding fresh ways to reach their audiences with everyone staying at home. However, the benefits of webinars, which extend far beyond the current global crisis, are not what we’re here to discuss.

We’re here to discuss webinar promotion.

Once you have put in all the effort into creating the perfect webinar, you need to get a return on your investment. You need people to attend. Webinar promotions could arguably be the most important part of the planning process.

Your advertising method will largely depend on your audience, as well as the objective of your webinar. Below, we’ve covered the main principles of webinar promotion.

Webinar Advertising

The ideal webinar promotion strategy is threefold. Dividing your advertising process into three phases helps to streamline your efforts.

1. Before your webinar: Spread the word and get people excited. Landing pages, social media and content and email marketing are all important components of this phase.

2. During your webinar: It may seem strange to advertise an event during an event, but this is important in building your brand. Not only does it showcase your success - it says to the world that people are listening to what you say and sets you up as an authority. You can share live-streaming links, give real-time Twitter updates and advertise your next webinar.

3. After your webinar: You can make a recording available after the fact. This allows you to share your content with those who missed it, and give audience members who did attend a chance to recap.

Before the Webinar

As we’ve already mentioned, to make your webinar a success, you need to have an audience. Your audience needs to be excited and should want to engage with you.

This phase of webinar promotion is about building that excitement. A few key tools are:

The Landing Page

Landing pages are fundamental to your campaign, especially when looking at a webinar marketing plan. Each ad or post you put out will link back to your landing page, and it should be optimised to increase registrations. There are some basic elements each landing page should include:

• An attention-grabbing title: Ensure that you grab the reader’s attention. Studies show that it takes just 180 milliseconds for visitors to make a judgement about your page. Make your time count.

• Eye-catching visuals: Webinar landing pages with a video preview show an 80% improvement in conversion rate.

• Webinar Date and time: Ensure this information is accurate and easy-to-read.

• CTA: The main purpose of a landing page is to convert the user. You should make it as clear as possible what you want them to do.

• Easy-to-use registration form. Your form should be above the fold, and use as few fields as possible. If registration takes too long, or you ask for too many details, many people simply won’t bother.

• A thank you page: Though not technically part of the landing page, this is an often overlooked but essential feature. It gives you a chance to continue your interaction with your visitor. Keep them enticed and give them more information about your brand. Links to social media are a great feature to add to this page, as they offer an opportunity for users to share that they have registered.

Webinar Promotion on Your Website

Your website is the epicentre of your online presence. To redirect traffic from your homepage to your landing page, you can add floating bars (also called notification bars), unmissable pop-ups and banners to your website.

These help to alert your customers to your upcoming event. You should also include a link to the landing page in your main navigation.

Content Marketing Campaign

You can use your already established content marketing practices for webinar promotion.

• Blog about topics that your webinar will cover.

• Interview your guest speakers.

• Design downloadables, such as worksheets, to complete during the webinar and make them available for download on your landing page. You can send any webinar-related content to your audience as a subtle way to remind them of your upcoming webinar.

Webinar Promotion on Social Media

One of the best ways to increase webinar attendance is to integrate social media into your marketing toolkit. There are an abundance of opportunities for promotion on social media, even if you have only basic knowledge.

1. Run targeted ads. 45% of the global population uses some kind of social media on a daily basis. And each of the major platforms - Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram - offer the ability to run targeted advertising campaigns.

2. Use remarketing and retargeting. If you’ve run webinars in the past, where people registered but didn’t show up, you can advertise to them using retargeting. AdWords, Facebook, and LinkedIn have robust retargeting features, allowing you to retarget mailing lists or visitors to your website.

3. Encourage social sharing with easy social share buttons. Allowing your audience to promote your webinar through sharing is a good way to diversify attendance. You can nudge them into your webinar promotions by adding social share buttons on the webinar registration page. Similarly, when you send webinar confirmation emails or reminders, you can provide an easy option for those who have signed up to share the details of the webinar with just a click. It’s become commonplace to embed social share buttons in email communications, so it should be easy to execute.

4. Create prepared tweets for your audience to share. Before the webinar, think about creating a library of pre-prepared tweets for your audience to share. This way, rather than having to craft their own messages on the fly, you can give them an “easy button,” something that is shareable and paints your webinar in a good light. This can go a long way toward motivating them to actually share something during the webinar. Because you’re also tapping into your attendees’ audience when they share your content, it’ll give your webinar an extra boost.

You should also ask your guest speakers to mention your upcoming webinar on their social media platforms, should they have one. ‘Leveraging other people’s audiences’ or LOPA, allows you to greatly extend your reach without incurring additional costs.

Remember LOPA. Get your guest speakers and sponsors to share your webinar on their social media.

During Your Webinar

When an event is happening, tools like live streaming and Twitter help tell the world about it. This is your chance to showcase your success. Although you may attract new registrants to join your webinar during this phase, it’s not the main point.

The purpose of this phase is to showcase the ongoing success of your event. In this way, you create even more excitement about the next webinar. It’s a way to get people talking about your brand. This phase of your advertising campaign about playing the long game.

1. Live-streaming: Let people who aren’t there know what they are missing. Use platforms like Youtube and Facebook Live.

2. Webinar tweets: Tell them what they are missing. Encourage your audience to share snippets of the conversation by creating pre-prepared tweets. Entice those who aren’t there.

3. Announce your next webinar during your event.

After Your Webinar

Once the webinar is over, don’t let the conversion just die there. A lot of effort goes into connecting with a large group of people, and not seizing the opportunity to further connect with your audience is a waste. In this way, the potential impact of the webinar is maximised. There are many opportunities to help you continue the conversation.

Here is how to promote a webinar after the event:

1. Social Media sending a simple thank you email after the webinar helps to keep your brand fresh in the audience’s mind. You can also include a link to future webinars, additional reading material, and a link to your social media.

2. Make a recording available allowing your clients to revisit the webinar also keeps the conversation going. You can send the recording via email, as well as make it available on your website. When sending an email, you can segment your list into those who attended and those who didn’t - sending different emails to each.

3. Blog about the success of your webinar use your current content marketing strategies to showcase your success. Introducing your next webinar at the end of your blog helps build the excitement. Keep your momentum going.

Webinar Promotion Best Practices

1. A catchy webinar name and relevant title are essential to the overall success. Ensure that you have thoroughly thought out the way your image as a company correlates with your webinar topic. A really successful webinar could help establish your brand as a thought leader.

2. Remember that your webinar acampaign should be tiered. Don’t just give up after the event happens. Your advertising should continue during and after your webinar.

3. The webinar landing page builds the foundation for your campaign. Every ad or link about your webinar that a customer follows will lead them to your landing page. That’s why it’s so important to ensure that it is well optimised.

4. Utilise your pre-existing online and social media platforms to promote your webinar. A holistic approach to digital marketing is always best.

5. LOPA! Connect with industry leaders and utilise their audience. This has two benefits: extending your reach and improving your credibility.

6. There are many different ways on how to promote a webinar, you need a firm strategy in place to maximise the potential of your efforts. It is all in the planning.