Engaging customers and building long-lasting relationships takes up a lot of time and energy. You’ve tried social media, content marketing, and networking. Yet, nothing seems to significantly impact your bottom line. But have you tried webinar marketing?
92% of professionals believe webinars are the best way to engage a large remote audience – Source. Because it seems no other digital marketing strategies can match the level of personalized content, immediate feedback, and a sense of community that webinars bring.
After working with 12,000+ enterprise event marketers over the past 20+ years, our team has studied what it takes to create a successful webinar marketing plan to help you build better customer relationships with minimal time and effort.
In this webinar marketing guide, we’ll explore how to develop a winning webinar marketing strategy, which best practices to follow, and how to measure webinar marketing strategy success.
Discover how to increase customer engagement and loyalty with webinar marketing.
What is webinar marketing?
Webinar marketing involves using online seminars and presentations to engage with your customers. Webinars are engagement tools because they attract audiences to your company through the educational or informative value they offer.
Because of their immersive nature, webinars go beyond single-touchpoint marketing tactics like ads or drip campaigns. With webinar marketing, you’re no longer limited by a 60-character email subject line. You can devote the time and attention necessary to address complex issues, discuss questions, offer educational how-to’s, provide demonstrations, and more.
Webinars also allow you to record your virtual event, making it available on-demand and allowing you to build your evergreen content library.
What is a webinar?
A webinar is a live online video conference that allows you to share visuals and audio with your audience. Attendees can view and listen to the presentation from their own devices.
How does webinar marketing work?
Webinar marketing allows you to connect directly with potential customers and establish yourself as an authority in your industry. By providing valuable information and insights, you build trust and credibility, which makes people more willing to buy from you.
Benefits of webinar marketing
Webinar marketing offers many advantages:
- Low cost. Webinars are inexpensive to produce compared to in-person events. You only need a webcam, microphone, and webinar software.
- Wide reach. You can have attendees from all over the world join your webinar. This allows you to dramatically scale your marketing efforts.
- Nurture leads. Webinar marketing allows you to strengthen your relationship with leads and customers by providing useful information. This helps move leads further down the sales funnel and establish long-lasting relationships with customers.
- Higher retention rates. Customers that engage with your content through a webinar are more likely to remain your customers. Webinar marketing builds familiarity and trust, which leads to customer loyalty.
- Lead generation. Webinar marketing is an excellent tool for capturing leads. You can promote your webinar to attract signups and get contact information from attendees.
In summary, webinar marketing is a powerful strategy that every business should use. By hosting live online events, you can reach more people, build better relationships with customers, and significantly impact your bottom line.
Developing a winning webinar marketing strategy
To maximize the impact and reach of your webinar marketing, you’ll need to develop a strategic approach.
#1 Define your goal and objectives
To create an effective webinar marketing plan, first determine your key goal and supporting objectives. For example, your goal may be to activate 100 customers over the next quarter. Objectives to support this could include:
- Promoting your webinar through social media to reach 1,000 relevant viewers
- Getting a high engagement rate e.g. 85% of participants that respond to polls
- Following up with all participants within 48 hours to schedule calls
Other webinar marketing goals could include building brand awareness or driving sales.
Defining concrete goals and objectives will help focus your efforts, guide your webinar marketing strategy and measure your success.
To clearly lay out your goals from the beginning and keep track of them, store them in a structured event brief. Download the ultimate event brief template today.
#2 Choose a webinar platform that will help you achieve your goals
With so many options out there, you’ll want to choose a webinar platform that ensures you reach your webinar marketing targets.
Here are some essential features you should look for when selecting the webinar software that will best support your webinar marketing plan:
A variety of engagement features
Event engagement is crucial if you want participants to stay for the whole duration of the webinar and build relationships between potential customers and your brand. Look for a webinar platform that has a range of interactive features such as an activity feed, networking, breakout rooms, Q&A, polling, live applause, gamification, and more!
A high level of personalization
Make your participants feel special by sending them unique content that’s relevant to them and their needs before, during, and after your webinar. Choose a webinar marketing platform that has targeting features, so you can provide attendees with a personalized journey that will ensure they remember your brand.
Brand customization
There’s no point in running a virtual event as part of your webinar marketing plan if you don’t showcase your brand in any and every way you can. It’s important to find a webinar platform that allows you to use your brand colors, designs, and themes so you stick in your attendees’ minds.
Live captioning
By using live captioning at your webinars, you instantly make them more inclusive and accessible, meaning you can attract a wider audience, enhance the participant experience, and educate effectively. Ensure your webinar platform uses reliable live captioning software such as Wordly AI or AI-Media, so captions are as accurate as possible and there are no misunderstandings. This is especially important in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry.
Templates
Webinars are the fastest type of event you can plan and run. So why not make them even faster to set up by using customizable templates? Some webinar platforms offer ready-made no-code templates that you can simply adapt for your webinar.
Seamless integrations with your event technology stack
Measuring the success of your webinar marketing strategy is essential if you want to improve your future webinars and really get the most out of them. But you don’t want to have to track event metrics and KPIs manually. Source a webinar platform that has deep CRM and MAP integrations (e.g. Veeva CRM, Salesforce, Hubspot, Marketo, Rainfocus) that collect webinar data for you.
Event technology services and support
We all know things can go wrong with technology and that it’s always best to have a plan B. Find a webinar platform that offers professional technology services and 24/7 technical support, so all your webinars run as smoothly as possible.
Security and compliance
Some webinar platforms like Zoom are not the best when it comes to security and compliance. And this can cause huge issues, especially in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry. Make sure your event platform has experience serving high-touch industries and meets all your security and compliance requirements.
On-demand content hub
Turning your webinars into on-demand videos that people can watch whenever and wherever they want is a great way to reach an even wider audience. Especially if they couldn’t attend your webinar on the day. Choose a webinar platform that has an integrated gated content hub so that you can turn your webinar into on-demand content in just a few clicks and make your webinar marketing strategy success last.
The option to host different event types, not just webinars
Webinar marketing is a great customer engagement tool. But the best event marketers we’ve worked with host a variety of different event formats each year to reach and engage with their audience in different ways. That’s why it’s a great idea to look for an all-in-one event platform you can use not just for webinars but also for virtual, hybrid, and in-person events.
Using Zoom Webinars and Events but concerned about its lack of engagement, security, control, customization, and support? Discover our list of alternatives to Zoom Webinars and Events.
#3 Opt for an engaging topic that aligns with your webinar marketing goals and target audience
Select a topic that educates your audience and provides value. For example, “10 Ways to Double Your Sales in 90 Days” or “Studies for Use as a Registrational Study in Cardiology”. Keep the topic focused and specific. A targeted topic will attract the right attendees and allow for an in-depth discussion.
The topic should be relevant, timely and solve a key challenge for your viewers. Conduct research on your audience’s interests and survey existing customers on pressing issues.
#4 Choose the right time of day for your webinar
Does your industry have predetermined peak or lull periods? Are Monday mornings always crazy? Are Wednesday afternoons dependably dull? Selecting the appropriate day of the week and the best time during the day is vital for reaching the largest possible audience with webinar marketing.
#5 Promote across multiple channels
Use social media, event email marketing, PR, and advertising to spread the word about your webinar. Share blog posts, images, video trailers, and email campaigns starting 4 to 6 weeks before the live date. Engage with attendees by posting on LinkedIn and starting a conversation. Build excitement by offering resources or a chance to submit questions on your webinar platform in advance.
Promoting your virtual event or webinar on different channels allows you to reach the broadest possible audience. To maximize visibility, you can make sure you show up in front of them in the format that they prefer to digest content. If you’re like to engage your audience through lengthy written blog posts, don’t promote your event with a meme.
While promoting your webinar, showcase recorded highlights from previous webinars or virtual events, in addition to short interview segments highlighting presenters and speakers. This helps generate excitement and gives a “behind the scenes” glimpse of what attendees can look forward to seeing at your webinar.
Create an engaging pre-event survey to get attendees interacting with your webinar content beforehand. For inspiration on what questions to include, check out our article on ideas for pre-event survey questions.
#6 Create engaging webinar content
To ensure your webinar marketing is interactive and impactful, incorporate a mix of media like slides, videos, images, polls, and surveys. Use visuals to engage viewers; include charts or diagrams to illustrate key points and exercise creativity when introducing topics or transitioning between slides. Share interesting statistics or relatable stories that will provide context for the viewer’s understanding of the topic.
Another trick is to plan to offer incentives such as exclusive promotions or valuable resources to encourage viewers to stay engaged in the full session. As long as these features are easily accessible throughout your presentation, you can guarantee a successful webinar experience!
#7 Test technical aspects in advance and have a backup plan
On the day of the webinar, test all technical aspects in advance and have a backup plan in case of issues. Start the webinar on time and keep the energy high by engaging viewers with questions and discussions.
#8 Follow up with participants
Your work isn’t done once your webinar ends. Follow up quickly by sending resources, a link to your content hub, and an email or call to engage with your customers further. Strike while interest is high to get the most conversions from your efforts. With an effective follow-up sequence, you can turn webinar attendees into long-term clients and customers.
#9 Analyze your webinar marketing plan success
Measuring attendance, engagement, and conversions will show the impact of your efforts and help improve future webinars. Webinar marketing, when done strategically, can significantly grow your business and audience. Implementing these steps will set you up for success.
To know which metrics to measure during your webinar, read our article.
A strategic webinar marketing plan focused on educating your audience, promoting your webinar, and following up to convert leads will help you achieve your goals and grow your business through impactful digital events. Define what success looks like, choose a compelling topic, spread the word, and follow up for the best webinar marketing results.
Webinar marketing best practices to engage your audience
To maximize the impact of your webinar marketing strategies, use the following best practices:
Plan and practice your presentation
Carefully prepare for your webinar ahead of time by building out a section-by-section outline and then rehearsing it. Your content and delivery will come across as much more professional if you’ve practiced beforehand. Review your talking points and make sure you can explain them clearly while staying within your allotted time.
Make sure your webinar runs as smoothly as possible with a detailed run-of-show template. Download ours now.
Focus on valuable content
The content and information you provide during your webinar should be highly useful and relevant to your audience. Share actionable insights, data, case studies, tips, or strategies. Your attendees joined the webinar hoping to gain valuable knowledge from you, so concentrate on providing content that serves their needs and interests.
Engage your audience
Incorporate interactive elements into your webinar to keep attendees engaged, such as live polls, Q&A segments, chat boxes, or surveys. Pose questions to your audience and encourage them to participate. Gamification techniques like leaderboards, points, and badges can also boost engagement. Make eye contact with your webcam as much as possible to make a personal connection with your viewers.
Offer resources and follow-up
Provide resources and materials for your attendees to download during or after the webinar. These could include slides, worksheets, checklists, or other useful tools. Follow up with your registrants and attendees after the webinar through email to share a recording of the session, additional resources, and any other relevant information or offers. This follow-up contact is another opportunity to build your relationship with potential customers or clients.
Test and prepare technology
Conduct a test of all the technology you will use, including your presentation platform, webcam, microphone, and any interactive elements. Work out any issues ahead of time to ensure everything runs smoothly on the day of your webinar. Most webinar tools allow you to set up and test your webinar in advance. And some even offer event technology services to check everything beforehand. Take advantage of this to familiarize yourself with the features and functionality. Preparation and advanced testing are key to a successful, professional webinar.
For other webinar best practices, take a look at our article on how to make your webinars a success.
How to measure the success of your webinar marketing strategy
To determine if your webinar marketing plan was successful, establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and track them. Some of the most important metrics to monitor include:
Attendance and registration
The number of people who register and attend your webinar is a primary measure of success. Aim for a 10-30% conversion rate of registrants to attendees. Look at the number of unique registrations as well as peak attendance numbers. Growth in these figures over time indicates your marketing efforts are effective.
Audience engagement
An engaging webinar will keep attendees tuned in. Use polls, Q&A, chat, and social media to interact with your audience during the live session. Review metrics like the percentage of attendees who participate, ask questions, and provide feedback. High engagement, shown through a large volume of chat messages, Q&A, and social shares, signifies your content and presentation resonated with viewers.
Post-webinar on-demand viewing
The number of people who view the recording of your webinar on-demand also demonstrates its value. Track on-demand video plays, duration of views, and leads generated from the recording. Many of these viewers may end up registering for your next live webinar.
“Customers rank on-demand viewing as the most valuable addition to webinars. Webinar marketing statistics further reveal that besides being able to view it at any given time, viewers also value receiving slides as a part of a presentation, downloading additional resources, and the “watch later” functionality.”– ThriveMyWay
Surveys and feedback
Send follow-up surveys to get direct feedback about your webinar. Ask attendees what they found most valuable, what could be improved, and what topics they’d like to see in the future. Monitor survey response rates and reviews to determine satisfaction and make changes to boost your webinar marketing results. Some webinar platforms allow you to send these surveys automatically straight after your webinar.
Lead generation
Webinars are a proven lead generation tool. Track how many attendees provide their contact information and opt-in to receive additional information. Also, monitor how many of these leads convert to sales opportunities or customers. Generating 5-15% of attendees as leads is a good benchmark.
Reviewing these KPIs will give you a 360-degree view of your webinar success and help refine your webinar marketing strategy to achieve maximum ROI from future webinars. With regular tracking and optimization, you’ll be well on your way to 10Xing your business with webinar marketing.
The all-in-one platform to help you achieve your goals through engaging webinars, in-person events, and hybrid events
It is clear that webinars can be a powerful tool for business growth when implemented effectively. But using an all-in-one, customizable, engaging event platform is key if you want to achieve your webinar marketing goals.
SpotMe is the enterprise event platform to create engaging, personalized, and compliant event experiences that help companies build better customer relationships. With 20+ years of unrivaled experience in the event tech industry, SpotMe is the first choice for enterprise event marketers who run hundreds or thousands of mixed event types a year.
To find out how SpotMe can ensure your webinar marketing strategy is a success, request a demo now.
SpotMe was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: B2B Event Management Technology, Q1 2023 report. Find out why.
