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How to Increase Webinar Attendance
People are busy and easily distracted. Even when they RSVP to something, there is still a good chance that something more important or seemingly more interesting pops up for them or that they simply forget they were supposed to attend an event.
It’s no different when you’re organizing a webinar. Getting people to sign up is just the start. You also want to make sure they’ll actually attend. There are several ways to go about that.
In this article, I’ll discuss the following:
- How to increase webinar attendance
- Why promote webinars on social media
- How to create webinars for your target audience
How to Increase Webinar Attendance: 5 Top Tips
As with all things in marketing, knowing your target audience and what they respond to is key to getting good webinar attendance rates. Test the tips below to see what works for you, and don’t be afraid to combine them for better results.
1. Use Email Reminders
Effective communication is essential for warming your leads up and encouraging your prospective attendees to show up. Most businesses make the mistake of letting their leads get cold before the webinar happens.
Send reminder emails to keep your prospects engaged. If people register for a webinar that is happening in a week, there is a high chance they’ll see the confirmation email and then forget about it. A reminder email might be all they need to put your event on their calendar.
If you don’t want to spam your webinar guests, be tactical about the number of reminders you send them. Three reminder emails is an ideal number, as it’s enough to grab attention but not overwhelming for your attendees. Experiment with sending one reminder 24 hours before the webinar, one an hour before, and one 15 minutes before the webinar is due to start.
Another good practice is to remind your sign-ups of what they will get from attending and to use a copy that shows them your webinar is unmissable if they want to master a specific skill.
To make sure your reminder emails are opened, experiment with your email reminder subject line. Track what captures people’s attention most, and keep it in mind for your next webinar.
Personalization tends to work well across all types of emails. Use your attendees’ names and include a copy that’s relevant to them as a way to keep registrants engaged and excited about your upcoming webinars.
And if you have an SMS marketing list, you can complement your email reminders with SMS reminders. Landing directly in your registrants’ SMS inbox gives you an even better chance of staying on their radar.
2. Use Add to Calendar Buttons & Time Zone Options
Driving webinar registrations and attendance is all about keeping it as user-friendly as possible. Signing up for and attending your webinar should be effortless, even for those who are not as technically inclined.
Make your CTA on the webinar registration page clear and easy to follow. You can also include an “add to calendar” option on the webinar registration form so people can instantly add the webinar to their calendars, making it less likely that they’ll forget about it.
If your target audience is spread over different timezones, consider a time zone converter to your registration page or webinar sign-up email as WordPress does here:
It makes it easier for people to check whether they can attend and add your webinar to their schedule. To maximize attendance, you’ll also want to schedule your webinar at an optimal time and date.
3. Promote Webinar on Social Media
If you’re active on social media, make the most of your channels to promote your webinar. This will encourage sign-ups, remind people what’s in it for them, and generate some excitement.
Make the most of all the features your social media platforms offer, such as calendar countdowns, short links, and stories for your webinar marketing. Perhaps you want to share some short videos to give people a sneak preview of what they will learn in the webinar. A little teaser is a great way to capture attention and provide more insight into the upcoming webinar topic.
Do you have a guest speaker or host taking part in the webinar? Make the most of their audience too. Ask them to promote their webinar to email lists and social media followers. When scheduling social media promotions, tag all the people involved in your webinar. This will ensure you maximize the reach to potential attendees.
4. Create a Webinar for a Large Target Audience
Your webinar attendance rate highly depends on the topic you’ve decided to discuss. If your goal is to get as many people as possible on your live webinar, you need to choose a topic that will appeal to a broader audience.
That being set, just getting a large attendance likely isn’t (and shouldn’t be) your end goal. Your end goal is to get solid leads and, eventually, conversions, so always keep that in mind. There is no point in having many people attend your webinar if the majority of them would never buy what you’re selling.
Know your audience and what they want to learn. You could find out which topic they most want to see covered by a webinar by running some short surveys or conducting some customer interviews. That way, you’ll ensure the webinar is relevant and valuable and can help your audience solve a pain point.
If you still aren’t sure about an exciting topic, do some keyword research and look at what other businesses in your industry are doing. Building your webinar around target keywords will help qualified leads find your webinar landing page.
When your potential audience lands on your webinar registration page, you must manage their expectations. Explain exactly on your webinar’s landing page what they’ll learn and why they should give you their time. Will there be an opportunity for questions and engagement during the webinar? Will your attendees get exclusive access or insights about your business? Thinking about a unique proposition that will entice people to sign up and attend your webinar.
Twitter does this well on its landing page for a webinar about mastering Twitter Ads:
The brand mentions the exact takeaways and exclusive insights audience members will get if they attend the webinar. The language shows potential attendees how actionable the webinar is and how the learnings the audience will get will benefit their businesses.
Words like “unlock” suggest that by attending the webinar, you’ll get exclusive information you can’t find elsewhere. This effective webinar promotion strategy also shows that you’ll get to see a roadmap for the next quarter so you can plan your ad calendar.
5. Have an Exclusive Offer for Attendees
On top of promising access to your guests’ and hosts’ knowledge, you can also offer webinar attendees an exclusive takeaway or gift. This could be a PDF guide, a cheat sheet, or a video that goes deeper into the topic you discussed.
The trick is to only offer your gift to those attendees who stick around until the end of the webinar.
Make it clear on your webinar landing page that attendees get this exclusive freebie. Using a copy that makes the gift unmissable will create a sense of urgency that encourages people to sign up for your webinar.
Another way to approach it could be by offering your attendees an exclusive discount or a “thank you” gift if they attend your webinar. Offer something relevant to your webinar topic that will be useful for your attendees. It will boost motivation to attend and encourage a high sign-up-to-attendance ratio.
Start Getting the Webinar Turn-out You Deserve
The more people attend your webinar, the more chances of getting conversions. Follow the webinar promotion tips in this blog post to increase your webinar attendance but never lose sight of your target audience. It’s better to have 100 ideal customers attending your webinar than 500 people who just aren’t a good fit for your offer.
Not sure how to go about your webinar promotions? Get in touch to discuss how we can help you set up a webinar funnel that gets attendees and converts.
