Are you hosting webinars as a part of your lead generation strategy? If not, you should be! Webinars are a great marketing tool that not only allows you to engage with an audience on a deeper level, but they open the door to new prospects faster by positioning yourself as a thought-leader.
There’s plenty of reports out there on how many touch-points it takes to turn a prospect into a client. The fact remains, in today’s digital world your prospects are dealing with information overload. That’s why, between both marketing and sales efforts, sometimes it can take anywhere from 28-62 touchpoints to convert your leads. In fact, because of the abundance of information, about 57% of those people you’re contacting will choose to end their buyer’s journey on their own before ever engaging with a sales person.
Webinars serve as a powerful tool to fast track prospects from an unaware lead to fully nurtured potential client after just one webinar. In fact, one single webinar can result in 500-1,000 nurtured leads.
However, the content needs to be right. Don’t skimp on planning for your webinar, treat it with the same level of care as you would an in-person event. Below outlines best practices for before and after your webinar for a well-attended, and high quality, online experience that results in the most ROI for your company.
Planning
Before you start developing content for the webinar, be sure you have answers to the following questions:
- What is the ultimate goal for this webinar? Is it to educate an audience about a specific service you provide? Is it to tackle a current issue facing your industry? The possibilities are endless, just be sure you pick something compelling to your audience and relevant to your business.
- Who is your audience? Are these current customer’s you're looking to expand service with or are they brand new prospects? The mindset your audience is at in the buying funnel will determine the type of information you provide.
Pre-webinar Promotion Tips
Effective promotion can make or break your webinar. It’s essential you have a promotion strategy that ensures it’s reaching the intended audience.
- Promotional copy. Select a compelling title that will grab attention and be as descriptive as possible in your invitations, so people have a clear understanding of exactly what they’ll gain by joining your webinar.
- Build a landing page. This is a step not everyone takes, but essential if you want to continue using your webinar beyond the live presentation date. With a landing page, you will not only have all of the event information in one place, but ability to leverage SEO for additional promotion.
- Personalize invitations. Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. Beyond personalizing by first name, try personalizing by audience segment. Have they attended your webinar in the past? Use phrases such as “join us again” or “we’d love to have you back.”
- Leverage email automation. Create a system that sends invitations, reminders, and confirmations based on your audience’s behavior. Track who has or hasn’t signed up and continue to send variations of your invitation to the group that hasn’t taken action.
- Develop the right email cadence. Work backwards from your webinar date to design the right invite schedule. A good place to start is 2-4 weeks beforehand, to everyone in your distribution list. Then a second or third invite 3-5 days beforehand, remembering to exclude those who’ve already signed up. Don’t forget to send out reminders the day before and the day of, changing the subject line each time to catch your registrant’s attention.
- Other ways to promote your webinar:
- Social media posts
- Search engine advertisement campaign
- Including a call-to-action in your email signature
Post-webinar Follow-up Tips
Once you’ve hosted your webinar, the work doesn’t stop there. You’ve now created a connection with your audience; it’s time to continue the conversation.
- Develop a follow-up cadence. Just as you strategized how to invite attendees, come up with a system for nurturing your new leads. The best time to start is directly after the webinar ends. Be sure to include a thank you message, along with a copy of the slide deck and recording of the presentation. After initial follow-ups, include these contacts in your regular sales funnel communication.
- Don’t discount non-attendees. According to most studies, only 35-45% of registrants will actually attend your webinar. The fact remains, they were interested enough to sign-up; you should include them in your follow-ups. Just be sure to slightly vary your communication for those who attended vs. those who didn't.
- Continue to promote your webinar. If you created a landing page, you can continue to promote your webinar after the live date. Change the content from a registrant form to a lead capture form that allows prospects to download the webinar content. You can continue to promote the landing page on social media, blog posts, and your regular sales communication.
- Measure and analyze results. Track key success metrics such as: registrants, attendees, and total leads generated to gauge overall success and help you improve for future webinars. A good target is for 30-40% of registrants to attend the live event. By analyzing your numbers over time, you will start to understand which topics/content is resonating most with your audience and how to improve on your performance for the next time.
Webinars take a lot of time and work, but when done correctly, result in more sales leads and ultimately more business deals. Not sure where to start? The Sales Group helps companies drive revenue through lead generating efforts. Let’s start the conversation, contact me at Donna.Gliha@salesgroup-global.com
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Happy Selling!
