Having received considerable feedback on my webinar articles, I felt it was important to provide some additional detail on webinar planning.
As the number of webinars continues to increase and their effectiveness remains second only to website design (according to a recent Marketing Sherpa study), it is important that webinar providers differentiate themselves from their competitors. Since my previous articles dealt with webinar content and its flow, I will instead discuss the necessary steps for a successful webinar promotion. Some of these steps have been taken from the new webinar handbook I am currently writing.
There are several critical steps when planning a successful webinar.
Know your audience
What topic will they find engaging? What are the key words that will attract and stimulate them? Why would they want to attend your webinar ”“ what can they hope to gain?
These are very important questions that you should be able to answer. You might even want to survey your target audience to obtain some informative responses.
The refinement of these responses coupled with your subject knowledge will help you construct a profile of your target audience. Segmenting your prospects by numerous criteria ”“ such as by position ”“ is also important. If you can attract a number of highly targeted people to your webinar, you will have a very good chance of accomplishing your goals.
Development of the invitation and landing/registration page
The invitation and landing/registration page is really important. Be careful not to oversell. Be enthusiastic and briefly informative but don”™t ”“ overtly ”“ sell. Using the appropriate jargon is also very helpful. The purpose of the invitation and landing page is primarily to entice the prospect and most importantly, to convert them. The best way of accomplishing this is by mentioning the purpose and content of the webinar and most importantly, its benefits ”“ how it can help them. Although some providers build their own landing page, in many cases, the landing page is provided by the selected webinar service. Particularly in this case, the text on your page is very important and can greatly affect the percentage of people who sign up for your webevent.
Your invitation strategy
You should start promoting your webinar two to three weeks before the event. These promotions are performed through multiple touch points including the major social media platforms. Depending on the budget, webinar promotions can also include advertising. Many webinar developers use up to four email broadcasts ”“ usually with slightly different content to better reach their target audience. By tracking the number of signups, they can readily determine which message is most effective.
Your content
Your content should be laser targeted on the topic the audience expects. This is of prime importance. Did you deliver what you promised to your audience? Did you talk about your experience or results? If so, it will help enforce you as an expert in the eyes of the audience. If it”™s pertinent, one way of demonstrating your expertise is by providing best practice and analytics from some real life experience or solution.
Analytics and follow-up
One important analytic is the number of people who remained throughout your webinar. If you see a drop-off in your presentation, it probably reflects that something was wrong or lacking. This is another reason why exit surveys and analytics are so important.
Within a week, post a recording of your webinar on your website and publicize this several times across an eight-day period. On average, you can generate more than 20 percent more eyeballs just by doing this. Make sure to have them sign up before they can view this recording.
For this article, I have included a sample template (courtesy of Marketing Sherpa) below that demonstrates many of the planning stages involved in the webinar development.
Webinars are effective marketing tools when professionally planned and executed. Many companies have greatly benefited by them by increasing sales, branding themselves as experts, building attention and driving more business to their website and company.
Bruce Newman is the vice president at The Productivity Institute L.L.C. in Carmel. He is also a social media strategist and the designer of a new service, wwWebevents.com. Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and the Productivity Institute blog. Bruce can be reached at bnewman@prodinst.com.
