When we first started answering questions on Quora, we wanted to build visibility in our target market. Eventually, we learned a lot about the market and the other webinar tools.
What makes a great webinar?
First, define your goals. What do you expect from this webinar? This will help you determine what kind of presentation you want to give. It will drive the whole content creation process and even the tools you choose to use.
1. Spend time on your webinar headline
Eventually, this will be the first attribution factor of conversion in the registration process. Your webinar title can act like a newspaper headline and draw in your audience. Great headlines make people want to hear what you have to say.
2. Define success metrics
Again, be specific. You probably want to get something from this event, otherwise you wouldn't spend so much time on this! Find actionable metrics.
3. It's ok to give a sales pitch, sometimes
Sometimes a sales pitch is ok, but context is important. When you are doing a demo webinar or an onboarding webinar, people are coming specifically to learn about your product. Promoting your product at these points makes sense. Otherwise, it's better to avoid beind pushy.
4. Attending your event must a no-brainer
Your webinar needs to be easy to attend. Tools that require downloads, have bad onboarding processes, or complicated registration logistics are a no-go. Find a webinar tool that solves these common problems.
5. Take care of everyone
People will register and not come, but that doesn't mean that they aren't worth following up with. In fact, a large number of registrants do not plan on attending the webinar at all! They sign up so they have access to the replay afterwards, so that they can watch it later on their own time.
6. Have guests
In every use case, it is always great to have guests when hosting a webinar. Experts add legitimacy to your webinar. The ideal number of guests maxes out at two, as having more than two guests can affect your retention rate.
7. Get to know your audience
Even if you're not doing a lead generation webinar, try to drill down into your data. Data is great for improving your content as well. But not every webinar tool provides relevant data.
What is the best webinar software?
Okay, we admit it- we're kindof biased on this one! But to keep it simple, the best webinar software fixes problems and drives your business. Existing webinar tools have some issues.
Here are the main problems:
- Poor UX (extra installs, antique UI...)
- No real data about your audience
- No communication between tools
You should look for a tool that will solve those problems 😉
Here's the original post on Quora
What time is best to host a webinar?
The common idea is that you should:
- Aim for mid-week webinars for best attendance (Wednesday - Thursday)
- Begin promoting it one month before
- Run webinars between 10am PST (1pm PST) and 12am PST (3pm PST)
- It depends on your audience too. You can even do some research during your webinar by sending a poll to your attendees asking the best time for them to attend the next one.
See what we said about this on Quora
How do you drive people to your webinar?
Never underestimate your content during the webinars. If you produce something high quality, people might talk it and share your content. This will give you more acquisition leverage the next time.
Search for leverage inside your network
- Related blog/LinkedIn posts
- Blog widgets
- Homepage promotion
- Relevant twitter lists
- Twitter cards
- Email database
and Outside your network
- LinkedIn groups
- Slack communities
- Forums or Facebook groups
- Growthhackers.com or Inbound.org
What are some good examples of B2B companies who do webinars?
My personal favorites are :
- Kissmetrics for marketing and analytics
- Invision for tips around design
- Uberflip or Mention for content marketing
- CartoDB or MongoDB give great weekly demos of their solution
They all have two things in common: solid promotion and great contnet. It's no surprise that webinars have become their main source for leads.
