I deliver a lot of webinars; a LOT of them. Sometimes they’re under the Green umbrella Marketing banner, sometimes they’re delivered under the banner of our partners. The success in terms of getting registrations and people showing up live varies, and that’s because marketing a webinar involves several key steps. If you’re thinking about running a webinar or wondering how you can improve the results your getting for webinars you run already, here are some quick points to show you how to effectively market your webinar.

Set your webinar up for success

1. Be clear on your audience: Who is your ideal attendee? Are you focused specifically on one of your avatars? Consider their interests and pain points making sure to address these in your title and blurb.
2. Set a goal and specific objective: Why are you running this webinar? What are you trying to achieve? It could be audience building, lead generation, brand awareness, positioning you as the expert, educating existing clients, improving retention or simply selling a product!
3. Choose a compelling title: Select a timely, relevant title that addresses a pain point or interest. Make it valuable and offer solutions or insights that participants can benefit from. Also, DON’T call it a webinar! Referring to it as a live event or masterclass can increase sign-ups massively – ask us how we know!
4. Create a compelling landing page: The landing page for your webinar should include a clear and attention-grabbing headline, describe key benefits and learning points, date and time (obviously), a speaker bio, and a registration form. It needs to look good from a design perspective – you can go through the pain of designing something every time however I’d encourage you to use something like Eventbrite as this takes care of all of this and more for you.

Promote your webinar in as many ways as possible

1. Leverage email marketing: Send a series of engaging emails to promote your webinar – we usually send 3-5 in the 7-10 days leading up to the webinar itself. We’ll also send personalised invitations, reminders, and follow-ups to ensure the webinar is front of mind for our audience. These emails communicate the value and benefits of attending the webinar – think what’s in it for them!
2. Shout about it on social media: Use your social media presence and network to create a buzz around your webinar. Create engaging posts, share some teasers in your video content, and use hashtags to increase visibility. If your goal was to increase your audience, think about using paid social media advertising to get in front of a new prospects. (Although I’d limit your ads to running no more than 5 days prior to the webinar – otherwise you get registrants who forget to appear!)
3. Collaborate: Who are the relevant partners, influencers or industry experts you can ask to promote your webinar to their audience. Seeking partnerships with businesses that have a shared audience can massively increase your reach.
4. Include it in your content marketing: Create valuable content related to your webinar topic; create blogs, videos, or podcast episodes where you can add a call to action for people to register.
5. Get the branding right: I’ve talked about using the webinar in your content marketing and social media – making this engaging means having something visually engaging available. Make your graphics pop! They need to stand out in social media feeds and communicate the experience that an attendee is going to receive. In my experience, making the speaker front and centre on these images really helps improve sign-ups.
6. Pick up the phone: You might not have time to call everyone on your list to see if they’re going to register, calling a few key prospects should be possible for most businesses though! Getting people registered is one thing – getting them to show up is another. A quick call on the day of the webinar as a reminder can go a long way to maximising your results.

Successful webinars are a product of interactive and personalised marketing campaigns. Those campaigns are personal and create a sense of FOMO. Build this into the messaging around your webinar and it’s hard to go wrong!