Update: We created a much more complete, and updated version of this article in our Webinar Promotion Checklist
Promotion comes as one of the main reasons people don't like hosting webinars. Here are some tips and advice to boost your webinar promotion.
This post is a checklist designed to help you get more people to attend.
Mandatory elements before you get started with your webinar promotion
- Set a great topic with a unique perspective
- Set business objectives (metrics to watch)
- Spend time on your headline
- Create a killer deck
- Design a great landing page
- Set up a marketing pitch and visual elements
- Pick something to offer your audience
- Have a guest to bring expertise to the conversation
- Get to know your potential audience
Things you can do before the webinar
One simple way to promote your webinar is to use your attendee's network. Use social shares during registration or during your webinar. You can also suggest email forwards.
Bring in your own network (A.K.A. messages you can control)
- Add a "learn more during our webinar" CTA in your blog posts
- Add a blog widget or clickable image to your site
- Promote it on your homepage
- ask a high-level employee, or even your CEO, to publish a LinkedIn post
- Build a relevant Twitter list and reach out to them
- Twitter cards with one a click signup (no friction equals more conversion). Use Zapier to hook the card to the signup form
- Oldie but goodie: shoot an email to your database
- Never forget to send email reminders 1 hour before and 5 minutes before. Registering does not mean that they will actually show up
Webinar related & market communities
- Related LinkedIn groups
- Slack channels, it is better if you are already active in those groups
- Forums or Facebook groups depending on your industry
- Growthhackers.com or Inbound.org
Pro tip: You can also apply those principles to your guest audience (if you have a guest).
Promotion continues after you pressed start
People usually stop at step 1. They don't see their own webinar as a traffic drive. My advice is pretty simple, though. Give a great presentation, be insightful, and interact with your guest and audience.
- Give a great presentation
- Interact with your audience through polls, Q&A, etc
- Share great, “tweetable”, insights
If people think it's great, two things can happen: People will come back or they will share it with their own network
Also, look for a share button during the webinar. Or, even better, a Twitter integration. We don't provide it yet, but it sure looks good!
Long tail promotion
Try to deliver a special attention to your attendees after the webinar has ended. Send the video, the slides, a transcript of the questions, maybe even some data. This way, you ensure more visibility and a better conversion next time. Never forget people could not show up. Pick a tool that handles post-webinar emailing for non-attendees.
And don't forget to repurpose your content (blog post, Slideshare, public post-mortems...). Create awareness around your webinars and the value they can bring. Maybe people won't miss them the next time.
