Effective webinars come in many different scales and styles—from the kind of formal presentations you’d give in person, to live audio conferencing accompanied by screen-sharing, panel discussions, interviews, and Q&As. Webinars can be used for any type of virtual gathering, such as teaching employees to use new software or presenting a new product to long-time customers. Webinars are an affordable, effective way to deliver your message to the people who need to hear it. A likable webinar host can develop relationships with their audience, while successful webinars can build significant audience engagement. They can even be a revenue source, depending on how they’re structured.
Ready to get started? In this article, we’ll cover the business case for marketing with webinars, the essential components of putting on a webinar, as well as the tips you need to make it a success.
What is Webinar Marketing?
Webinar marketing utilizes online seminars (A.K.A. webinars) to not only reach and connect with a broader audience but also promote your business. Marketing webinars can be used as lead generation tools, and are best known for their application and success at every level of the sales and marketing funnel and each step along the buyer’s journey.
Practical use cases for webinar marketing include:
- Demonstrating products and services in a live setting
- Showcasing company expertise and thought leadership
- Hosting Q&A sessions to engage with a target audience
The goal of webinar marketing is that, by providing valuable and free information, participants will realize their need for a company’s particular product or service–or their need to upgrade to a premium version of it. In terms of benefits reaped by companies that employ webinar marketing, consider the following:
- 75% of sales and marketing professionals see webinars as one of the best ways to generate high-quality leads
- Between 20% and 40% of those who attend a webinar become qualified leads
- With valuable content and thoughtful execution, you can reach a webinar conversion rate of about 19%
Webinars for sales and marketing purposes are popular, effective and offer a captive audience for up to an hour. Very few other marketing channels offer that level of ROI or engagement. Whether you use webinars to bring new leads into your sales funnels or to generate revenue by providing demos and direct sales, opportunities abound to use this content form to reach external audiences.
Running a Successful Webinar
Whether you’re a salesperson, a marketer, an HR lead, or a Director of Communications, the general process for running a successful webinar looks very similar. Here, we’ll cover general guidance on the webinar best practices that’ll help you achieve the business goals you’ve associated with your event.
Choosing a Webinar Type
The type of webinar you ultimately decide to produce depends on what kind of business you have. Regardless, the format should be a natural extension of the product or service you offer. Here are four of the most common webinar types employed by today’s companies.
1. Educational
These webinars are great for service-based companies. For example, if you’re a B2B digital marketing agency, a webinar about the latest Google algorithm changes and their impact on website search engine optimization might be a natural fit. Educational webinars are an effective way to show your expertise in your industry, while also generating new prospects.
2. Training
Consider using webinars to teach your audience a hands-on skill. For example, if you run a health and nutrition company, you can produce a webinar that shows attendees how to create a healthy weekly meal plan from scratch. Training webinars can also be valuable tools for employees onboarding or process training when used for internal communications.
3. Product Demos
If you’re launching a new product or releasing a new feature within an existing product, host a webinar that gives an overview of its benefits and how to use it. This type of event can also be useful for introducing employees to new software that they’ll be required to use.
4. Question and Answer (Q&A)
Introducing attendees to a topic and giving them the opportunity to ask you questions about it accomplishes two goals: first, it positions you as an expert on the topic, and second, it creates an opportunity for tremendous engagement with your audience. Plus, knowing what your audience really wants to hear from you is helpful for future content and marketing planning.
Planning a Webinar
Once you’ve chosen a format for your webinar, you’ll still need a solid plan for your event. Advance planning and dedicated practice are essential to day-of success, but there are four other elements that should be accounted for in any webinar plan or proposal.
1. Content
This is the most important part of a good webinar. Make sure that your presentation is interesting, engaging, and contains valuable content your audience can use to improve their business or solve a problem. Good content does not guarantee a successful webinar, but a successful webinar cannot happen without it.
2. Engaging Presenters
We’ve all sat through bad presentations. Some move too quickly. Others are too long. Many try too hard to be funny. You know who’s the best presenter in your office. Recruit them to lead the webinar. If you’re including them on the webinar team, have them present to the team beforehand. Incorporate the team’s feedback in the final presentation, and have the presenter practice enough to ensure a smooth, professional performance on the day of the event.
3. Professionalism
Make sure your presenter is fresh and well-rested. Make sure they know the content front-to-back or have someone at hand who can jump in to answer the tough questions. Be certain that your audience won’t be distracted by disruptions like a stray colleague or loud noises in the background.
4. Schedule Sensitivity
Your audience is taking time out of their day to be with you. They’ve chosen your webinar over some other task that’s sitting on their to-do list. Respect their time by planning to start when you say you will, and ending the presentation at your scheduled time (ideally, 30 minutes of content with a Q&A section to follow).
Keep these guidelines in mind as you put your content plan together and prepare to host your next webinar.
Preparing to Host a Webinar
One of the most important tips in this article is also the simplest: think of your webinar as you would any other event. You’ve probably put together dozens of presentations for conferences, meetings, or trade shows before. Preparing for a webinar requires exactly the same skills and components. The only logistical difference between a webinar and an in-person event is your location: you’ll be in your office, instead of a convention center or meeting room. Here’s a basic list of the different components you’ll need to put on a webinar:
1. Conferencing Service
This may be the most important element in the success or failure of your webinar. Your software is the tool you’ll use to deliver your presentation to your audience, so be sure that the platform you choose has your full confidence.
2. Camera and Microphone
Your computer’s built-in camera and microphone should work when you start producing webinars. If your webinars are successful, and you start to produce more of them, you may want to consider investing in professional audio and video equipment.
3. Location
This tip likely sounds intimidating and may bring to mind images of newscasts and studio lots. But a webinar studio isn’t as demanding. All you need for your webinar studio is a quiet, clean, echo-free room that nobody will wander into while you’re presenting.
4. Reliable Internet Connection
Nothing is more distracting or disruptive to a video conversation than garbled audio and a blocky visual feed. Imagine the same effect during a painstakingly promoted webinar. Make sure your studio’s internet connection can handle the bandwidth laid out in your software’s specs. Use a speed test over the course of several days to determine when your network has the most bandwidth, and on the day of your webinar make sure that any of your colleagues that are on the same network aren’t doing any bandwidth-heavy work.
5. Trials and Testing
Ask a colleague to watch or listen to a practice webinar before your presentation date. Get feedback about the audio and video quality, your voice and on-camera presence so that you can be as prepared as possible for the real thing. Taking the time and effort to address these pitfalls before your presentation will help you avoid potential embarrassment when you’re ready to roll.
Marketing a Webinar
It’s not enough just to produce a good webinar—you have to make sure that people know about it, register, watch and interact. Teams using webinars for training or internal communications should conduct their own internal awareness building by sending calendar invites and a series of reminders before the event takes place. If you’re in sales and marketing and want to reach an external audience, you’ll need to leverage the different marketing channels that are available to you. Utilize every tool at your disposal to get the word out to your target audience, and you’ll see those registrations soar.
Email Marketing
If you have an email marketing list, you already have a built-in audience of potential attendees for your webinar. Email is an effective tool for promoting your webinar, but it’s also effective for post-webinar follow-up. Consider offering those who attend a discount or free consultation. Make the entire webinar available for those who attended to watch it again, and for those who missed it to tune in later. Often, those who signed up, but were unable to attend the live event will watch it later. Creating different email sequences for those who 1) didn’t sign up, 2) signed up but didn’t attend, 3) attended but didn’t purchase will ensure that each person who demonstrated an interest in your webinar topic will still be on a path to conversion.
Social Marketing
Consider both paid and organic webinar promotion on social media channels. Facebook Ads, for example, can be especially effective for promoting webinars. For B2B businesses, LinkedIn is where you’ll likely generate the most interest in your event. Make sure your posts are engaging and consider using video, which has a high level of engagement in both ads and organic messages.
Webinar Landing Page
This is one of the most important elements for converting visitors to webinar registrants. A successful landing page includes:
- An attention-grabbing headline
- Strong visual elements such as photo and video
- A list of benefits attendees will receive from your webinar presentation
- A strong Call to Action to register
- A simple way for registrants to share your webinar landing page via email and/or social media
Website
Capture visitors who may not be ready to buy yet by promoting your webinar across your website. If you’re promoting content on social media or in email, make sure there’s a call-to-action on those pages that sends them back to your website to register. Another option is a registration pop-up for your website.
Leveraging Industry Influencers
Finally, reach out to the VIPs in your space and ask them to promote your webinar. Better yet, get one to co-host, which will give you access to their established audience.
Measuring Your Webinar’s Effectiveness
Webinars are great for communicating important points, but they can also be valuable data collection opportunities for your organization. Although there are no hard-and-fast rules regarding the metrics that define a successful webinar, associating your webinar with the desired action and measuring its performance against completions of that action makes it possible to determine whether your webinar was effective. If you aren’t sure where to begin, there are several metrics you can consider when measuring the success of your webinar.
Conversion Rates
How many people who visited your webinar’s landing page went on to register? How many of the people who registered actually attended? How many of the people who attended made a purchase? These are all important “big picture” data points.
Engagement
Getting people to show up for your webinar is great; getting them to engage is much better. An engaged audience is more likely to convert. Did they download your webinar assets? Post about it on social media? Ask questions during the Q&A session? Length of time viewed, the number of downloads, poll responses, questions asked and viewing sessions on-demand after your live event are all metrics you can use to qualify leads based on their interaction and engagement.
Social Lift
Want to know if your audience liked the webinar? Ask them. Emailing attendees a brief survey is an excellent way to find out what you did right, as well as what you can improve upon in the next one.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Compare the amount of time and money you put into the webinar with how much revenue it generated (or the value of any other type of conversion action). Was it worth it? If not, do you have a clear idea of how you can boost your ROI next time?
What Webinars Can Do for Your Business
Few other marketing channels give you the ability to connect directly with your prospective customers, no matter where they are in the world. And when you combine the potent communication opportunities created by webinars with the ability to capture interaction and engagement data, you’ve got a recipe for powerful relationship-building.
Follow the steps above, whether you’re new to webinars or whether you’ve got dozens under your belt. With time and practice, you’ll be able to leverage this affordable and effective strategy to grow your organization’s bottom line through sales and marketing webinars.
