10 Simple Hacks To Get More Views for Your Webinars

Introduction

Content, landing pages, great title, impressive-looking slides … these are just some of the components that you need to run a webinar campaign.

But do you know to pull all these components together and tie them in a neat little bow? Do you know fashion an effective webinar campaign strategy out of all these marketing tactics?

Sure, content works well, but where does it come in? What type of content should you create, when should you post it and on which platforms? The same questions can go for landing pages, or really any campaign strategy you use.

Before we go into answering all these questions, let’s first answer, “why webinars?” Why are they such a crucial part of your brand marketing?

Why You Should Use Webinars

When we talk about content, articles, YouTube videos, infographics, white papers and case studies are probably what spring to mind. But has it ever crossed your mind that webinars too, are content? In fact, webinars are a more optimized selling tool than probably any other type of content and 91% of b2b professionals prefer them over other types of content.

Here are some reasons why you should use webinars:

• People learn a skill so that they can implement it. Training delivered on a webinar, therefore, is likely to grip the viewers’ so that they don’t miss what you are teaching.
• No one wants to be left behind. Viewers know that there are other people attending the webinar at the same time as them. If someone else sees fit to attend, then other people want to reap the same benefits.
• Answering questions in real time is good because you get to gauge your audience’s understanding of the subject matter and their level of interest in your product/service while also impressing them with your expertise.
• Lastly, you can connect with many people at once and talk to them in a personal way.

Companies that use webinars report impressive conversion rates. Adobe for instance reports a 19% conversion rate. Such a conversion rate is definitely on the higher end, but it is proof that you too can do it. Instead of a measly 1% conversion rate, your webinars too, can have higher conversions.

Here’s how.

10 Simple Hacks To Get More Views for Your Webinars

1. Promote Your Webinar at Optimal Times

Timing is a key ingredient when it comes to reaching your audience. You want to send out your promotional content when your audience members are most likely to see it.

Below are our proposed best times for webinar promotion, according to data gathered from 350,000 webinars:

Although it’s okay to launch promotions on other days of the week, promotions that are launched on Tuesdays have been shown to drive higher registrations.

The time of day also matters a lot. People get a lot of emails in one day and by the end of the day, you are most likely to be at the bottom of a long pile of emails. However, in the morning, you stand a higher chance of having your email seen and read.

You are likely to remain top of mind when you promote your webinar over a longer period of time. Start with a lower frequency of emails and as you draw closer to the webinar date, increase the frequency of times you send out your promotional content.

2. Leverage Your Website

It’s okay to invest in paid advertising but even as you do, don’t forget that you can advertise on your website for no cost at all.

Below are a few ideas:

• Web pages. Create an events page and add your upcoming webinars to it.
• Banner ads. A banner ad on your home page will be the first thing that visitors see when they log into your website. Your blog should also have banner ads.
• Exit popups. Grab the attention of visitors and customers as they exit your website.
• Landing pages. This is a great way to get people to opt-in. This should run from as early as the first week so that you get an email list of leads to nurture.
• Include links to your webinar on your blog posts.

3. Use Email

As mentioned in hack #2 above, landing pages are so crucial to any webinar campaign because they are how you will build and nurture your email list.

Your emails can take different formats but should always be catchy enough to ensure a high level of engagement.

Note: Your email conversion rate will of course depend on how much work you put into it. For your email to convert better, it must include the following:

• A catchy webinar title
• When the webinar will run, i.e., date, time and length of the webinar
• Who will host the presentation, and any guest speakers in attendance
• Call to action buttons and/or links
• Why people should register/what value you have to offer

57% of webinar registrations come from email, so make sure you put in a little extra work in this area.

4. Be Aggressive On Social Media

Social media is a great way to stay engaged in great conversations with your audience. You can promote on any social media platform, except it has to be one that your audience frequents. Therefore,

• Tweet about it. Use a hashtag that will make your webinar standout.
• Promote on FaceBook. Run some paid ads on FaceBook. Add links in your FaceBook posts so that readers get redirected to landing pages promoting your webinar.
• And don’t forget LinkedIn. If you are targeting professionals, post on LinkedIn or run LinkedIn ads.

It’s great to put in as much effort as possible into organic marketing. However, if you need to give your organic traffic a boost, paid social media ads will come in handy.

In addition, join some relevant groups and talk about the webinar in them. A word of caution here: The last thing you want when you are in a group is to appear spammy. If you are going to promote to group members, introduce your topic as naturally as possible.

5. Use Influencers

Industry influencers are great for these reasons:

• They add credibility to your webinar
• They give you a whole new audience to tap into
• Influencers work with a lot of brands, so you want to provide them with everything they need so that their work is as easy as clicking to share, forward or comment.

Influencer marketing can result in 6 times higher returns on marketing spend. While this is encouraging, the biggest challenge that marketers have is identifying the right influencers to partner with.

You can find influencers:

• On social media. Check who your customers follow or who your competitors engage with and find people with similar traits
• Among your customers
• Through referrals
• Using tools like mention

6. Get Your Employees In On It

Brands rarely use employees to market their brand but when you come to think of it, employees can actually be a valuable marketing vessel. Here’s why we say this:

• Your employees likely have more reach than you do. According to , an employee’s network of connections is 10 times bigger than your follower base.
• When you succeed, your employees benefit as well (at least we hope they do). By virtue of this, they will promote you.
• It’s an opportunity for them to showcase their professional side.
• Promotions gives them content. You already know that content is difficult to come up with. A promotion is a way for your employees to engage with friends and groups without actually having to do any work creating content by themselves.

7. Make Registration Easier

Let’s assume you have created and published great posts, you have worked on your web pages and you have created awesome landing pages. You have also promoted your webinar on blog posts and on social media. But somehow, people seem to be bouncing off just before they convert.

In such a scenario, it is highly likely that your registration process needs some work.

A long form for instance is one of the reasons why most people don’t opt in. If you are asking for too much information, you are likely to see less registrations.

Too much information isn’t necessary when getting webinar registrations. The fact that they are registering means that they intend to attend. Once they are on the webinar, they will know a bit more about you and will probably leave you more of their details.

Other ways to get more sign ups include:

• Add a short video to your landing page. This has been shown to result in up to 86% more conversions.
• Stress value. Remind people why they should sign up. For instance, “Learn how to 3X your conversions in this webinar”, reminds people what attracted them to your landing page in the first place.

8. Personalize Your Invites

This is a tactic that works very well especially when you want to convert key accounts. Personalized communication is a great way to show your audience how much you value them.

In addition, salespeople who handle key accounts will be involved in your webinar promotion and this is will result in more views.

9. Create a Webinar Series

A webinar series is better because you can use a series of webinars to nurture leads over a period of time. If lesson 1 leads to 2 and so on, people expect to have a certain level of mastery by the time they are done with the last lesson.

That is not to say however, that one-off webinars don’t work. They do. But if you see the opportunity to make your webinar part of a series, people will not only sign up, but they will start looking forward to future webinars.

10. Choose the Right Topic, Nail the Title and Create Valuable Content

Choosing the “right” topic can mean several things:

• Is it relevant to your audience? E.g., are you talking about enterprise software to people who want a simple tool?
• Is it timely, or evergreen?
• Does it have enough content to warrant a webinar?
• Are you addressing a pain point?

Social media and other forums that your audiences frequent are great places to find trending topics. You can also talk to your sales, customer care and marketing colleagues to find topics that could interest their customers.

Once you decide on a topic, word your title properly to make it catchy and more likely to convert. Lists, how-to content, and trends, tend to convert higher.

For example: “10 ways to organize your mailbox”, “how to create a converting funnel in under an hour”, “what the latest research from X means for your brand”, etcetera.

All your promotional work leads to one place: Your webinar. Therefore, you must ensure that the content of your webinar is valuable.

Conclusion

Webinars are a very powerful tool for generating traffic and increasing conversions. They provide a great platform for you to engage with your audience while at the same time showcasing your expertise.

But you will not enjoy all these benefits if your webinar attendance rate is low. The key, as we have mentioned above, is to:

• Offer value, and
• Use the 10 tactics discussed above to market and showcase that value

That said, if you are ever stuck or need to pick our brains about your webinar strategy, reach out to us. We’ll be glad to help!

Originally published at https://www.unboundb2b.com on November 13, 2020.