Webinars are excellent for engaging your audience and offering highly scalable, cost-efficient methods of collecting audience data. They provide opportunities to nurture working leads, help you connect with a larger audience, and increase brand awareness.
Content Marketing Institute found that 57% of marketers used webinars last year and the digital tool’s popularity has continued to skyrocket in recent months with little indication of slowing down.
To ensure your own webinars are successful, we’ve put together our list of 18 webinar marketing tips to get the best results from your next event.
What is Webinar Marketing?
At its simplest, webinar marketing refers to using a web-based seminar as a promotional tool to create brand awareness, generate leads, and boost sales.
Webinars work for most industries and verticals and are suitable for audiences of any size.
They can take several formats, including workshops, panel discussions, lectures, multi-day seminars, meetings, etc.
Webinar Marketing Tip #1) Select a webinar topic that applies to a large audience but is relevant to your brand.
When choosing a subject for your webinar, look for topics that align with your ideal audience but aren’t too targeted, as this could limit your reach.
Avoid hitching your brand to a sudden hot trend unless you’re already an expert in that field. Jumping on the bandwagon never delivers longevity.
You don’t want to be just another event. You want to stand apart from the crowd. From a high level, what topics do you excel at and have authority on as a brand?
Once you identify them, focus your webinar around a single central theme to pull the audience in by communicating a clear message. Discussing multiple major topics will only confuse attendees, reducing audience engagement, and potentially driving attendee churn.
Webinar Marketing Tip #2) Promote the actionable skills that the audience will walk away with.
Another webinar marketing tactic to consider is promoting the takeaways attendees will gain in the form of real-world, actionable skills. This will only increase engagement during your webinar.
As attendees use the skills later, they’ll call your event to mind, fostering a more meaningful relationship with your brand and encouraging attendance at future events.
Webinar Marketing Tip #3) Use social media to market your webinar.
Share images, video, and other updates regularly on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms. Create an event page, use targeted social media ads, and work with influencers and other partners to share your content to their followers.
Start promoting when you initially launch your webinar promotions, and continue highlighting during and after your webinar for maximum impact.
Recommended Reading: 19 Social Media Tips For Event Promotion
Webinar Marketing Tip #4) Set up an automated email response for registration confirmation and webinar reminders.
Automatic email responses can save time, help attendees get the information they need, and ultimately boost attendance.
Use autoresponders for registration confirmation, thank you notes, webinar reminders, updates, and more.
Webinar Marketing Tip #5) Use paid ads to target your preferred audience and generate leads.
Paid ads can lead to money well spent if you want to get specific about who you reach. Look for opportunities to connect with your ideal audience where they are, then figure out how to pay to play on those channels.
Test ads for best results and lead generation.
Webinar Marketing Tip #6) Collaborate with partners to host a webinar together.
Partnering with a sponsor or complementary service provider helps each host to benefit from audience crossover. This also puts your brand in an excellent position for lead generation while organically expanding brand reach to the partner’s audience.
As an added bonus, you can split the cost for even more savings.
Webinar Marketing Tip #7) Use an event platform to host and manage your webinar.
Using an event platform like SpotMe can take the hassle out of webinar planning.
An event app you can brand allows for smooth integrations with most social media and marketing tools, offering a single access point for webinar and all other virtual events.
Breakout sessions, personalized agendas, two-way communication, gamification, and customizable branding are just some of the ways SpotMe can help you streamline your event, reduce organizer workload, and boost audience engagement for your next webinar.
Webinar Marketing Tip #8) Utilize your website to feature and promote your webinar.
Your website is ideal for promoting your upcoming webinar. It targets current and potential customers, clients, and colleagues. Consider building a landing page for it or highlighting it on your home page.
It also adds authority to your event, especially if you are in a regulated industry.
All of the above can help your event show up in search results and get the word out to those who want to stay in the know about what you’re offering.
Webinar Marketing Tip #9) Choose the best day and time based on your audience’s behavior.
A little data analysis will go a long way when determining the best day and time to host your webinar.
This can be especially important if your industry has defined peaks or lulls throughout the day, week, or year.
Aligning your webinar with your desired audience’s downtime periods can boost attendance.
Webinar Marketing Tip #10) Target warm leads with an email campaign.
Reaching out to contacts on your mailing list as part of an email campaign can produce positive results.
Connecting with people already familiar with your organization — either from attending a previous webinar or downloading ebooks from your site, for example — increases their likelihood of registering, compared with those unfamiliar with your product or service.
Webinar Marketing Tip #11) Actively engage your audience before, during, and after your webinar.
Don’t leave your audience unattended.
Utilize tools such as surveys, Q&As, and interactive polls provided by your virtual event platform to connect. Chat features via text or video can also boost attendee engagement and help create meaningful connections.
Using these tools, launch event apps early for pre-event networking that carries on through and after your webinar.
Want more networking tips? Check out 20 Tips for Hosting a Successful Virtual Networking Event.
Webinar Marketing Tip #12) Practice really does make perfect when it comes to successful webinars.
Before the big day, do a practice run-through (or several) of your webinar.
Don’t rush sessions; do a full “dress rehearsal.” This is invaluable for helping you identify sections that need firming up and additional preparation, as well as sessions that may need to be added or cut.
Giving people a quality experience when they attend your webinar is just as important as getting them excited about attending.
Webinar Marketing Tip #13) Publish incentivized guest posts to create event hype.
Choose popular, relevant third-party publishing platforms for informative guest posts. You’ll drive interest and event hype and provide added-value for the reader. On your website’s homepage, add a webinar registration page link to make it easy for those looking to join.
Want added incentive? Consider offering a discount for anyone who registers through your guest post.
Webinar Marketing Tip #14) Choose guest speakers who have their own following.
Reach out to influencers and industry leaders, inviting them to participate in your event as a guest speaker or panel guest.
You’ll not only put your webinar in front of a larger audience, but you’ll also make an influential association in attendees’ minds between your product or service and the guest speaker’s niche authority. This can automatically raise the audience’s perspective of your event.
Recommended Reading: 3 Key Ways to Prepare Guest Speakers for Digital Experiences
Webinar Marketing Tip #15) Tease agenda content out over several days.
Rather than dropping your entire event agenda online at once, tease out snippets of your webinar schedule over several days.
This can pique interest, encourage visitors to stop by your event website multiple times, and increase event registration potential.
Webinar Marketing Tip #16) Launch an event app before your webinar date.
An event app that allows attendees to begin networking the moment you launch your event webpage will boost engagement and increase networking among attendees who have already registered.
Webinar Marketing Tip #17) Use a branded, custom registration form.
A branded, custom registration form can increase attendance numbers. Choose fields relevant to your event and only ask what is absolutely necessary.
Too many fields could turn registrants away from your event.
Webinar Marketing Tip #18) Create a video library for attendees to use during and after the webinar.
Create a video library and keep a copy of all webinar sessions. Make them available for review following your event.
Attendees can revisit favorite sessions or catch parts of the webinar they may have missed when it was live.
Want more webinar marketing tips? Check out Your Marketing Team’s Guide To Generating Leads With Virtual Events
