The hardest part of running a webinar is seldom getting registrations; with the right marketing techniques, you get several people signed up. The challenge is ensuring that most of these people follow through on their intentions to attend the webinar.
If you have gained high registration numbers, but have seen very little attendance in comparison, here are some tactics you can leverage to increase webinar attendance:
1. Offer content that speaks to your customers and prospects
Your customers and prospects would get many webinar invitations in their inboxes every week. The proliferation and success of this platform mean that many companies are connecting with national and even global audiences to build attendance from a greater pool than a particular city.
You will struggle to gain registrations and attendance if your topic does not speak to your intended audience or feel impactful enough. To make your webinar stand out, you need a highly relevant topic to your audience; it cannot merely be a commercial for your product. But how do you know what topics to target?
There are a few ways to discern this:
- You can examine your website analytics and social metrics to pinpoint a topic that generates interest and leads.
- Find something that targets the pain points of your customers and prospects; you can speak with your sales team to get a better idea of what this might be.
- Go for something timely. For example, if the end of the year is approaching, you might talk about what your customers and prospects should do to prepare their business for the new year.
2. Get your landing page right
Your landing page is the gate between you and your attendees. Keep in mind that it is not the place for ‘Twenty Questions’, if you want registrations, ensure that your forms only collect essential information such as a name, email address, phone number and company name. Too many requirements could become annoying and might put people off.
Also, keep the copy on your page simple and straight to the point. You want your visitors to have the right information and context, but you do not want to give them too much information.
While you are getting your landing page right, optimise it for sharing. You want to promote your webinar through social media, and the more shares you can get from those already attending, the better.
3. Promote your webinar on LinkedIn
Promoting your webinar on LinkedIn is an excellent place to drive registrations and encourage attendance. You can set up an event page on LinkedIn with information about the event and a link to your landing page. Here, people can put themselves down as attending and receive updates posted directly to the page.
Posting about your upcoming webinar is also a good idea to increase awareness and attendance. It is best practice to line up some posts promoting your webinar in the weeks prior. On the event day, you can also use LinkedIn to post reminders for one or two hours before to ensure that people have updates on their feed.
You can also strategically target the users that will most likely be interested in attending your webinar by sending out invites. You can narrow it down to individuals with similar interests and job titles as those who should attend.
4. Build a steady queue of email reminders
You should create a thoughtful yet steady cadence of emails to remind your attendees and customers of the event.
Send your first email in advance, as people need to plan for it. Your audience likely has little time to spare on short notice. So, you need to give them enough time to learn about, plan for and register for your webinar.
You will need an email workflow aimed at people who have not registered, letting them know that the event is a couple of days out and that they can still sign up. For people that have registered, it is best practice to send them a reminder a day before and then the day of the event. Make sure to include the link and other necessary information.
All this becomes easy to accomplish if you leverage a marketing automation platform and line up your email promotions and reminders before the event. Sending out generic emails will not be enough to encourage people to attend. As I mentioned, they probably receive many webinar invites, and if your email does not stand out, they might delete it before opening. So, you should ensure that your emails have a touch of personalisation.
5. Get your sales team on the phone
Your sales team can provide invaluable marketing support when promoting a webinar. Sales representatives can network with their contacts and invite them directly to the webinar. This type of direct outreach not only increases the visibility of the webinar but also has a much higher chance of generating attendance.
Your sales representatives can draw on their knowledge of customer needs and wants to generate interest in the webinar content. They can do this by providing targeted messaging and personalising invitations to ensure they are relevant to the recipient’s interests. Doing so brings more people to the webinar and ensures that those attending are more likely to engage with the content.
Resonate can help you increase webinar attendance
At Resonate, we are a full-stack B2B marketing firm. We specialise in the B2B sector as that is where our passions lie, and that is what we are good at. If you would like to initiate B2B marketing for your business in 2023, please reach out to us. We are experts in optimising B2B marketing to drive leads and sales and believe in taking a strategic approach to getting the best results.
Please visit our Marketing and b2b sales page for more about our services.
