Onstream Webinars can’t be successful if you don’t use the right techniques for webinar promotion. One key aspect of webinar promotion is telling people about your webinar and what they can expect to gain from it. Learning from webinar best practices, as well as promoting these best practices, will ensure you achieve the successful event you have planned.
What Are Your Measurable Objectives?
A webinar must have proper and measurable objectives to ensure it attracts the right types of attendees. When you have objectives in place, it can also help you measure your success and return on investment (ROI). In too many webinars, businesses don’t give enough thought to the objective; they simply throw it in as an afterthought. However, if you don’t have proper objectives, you can’t see what was right and wrong with your webinar and will not be able to make improvements.
Clear objectives can also help you with webinar promotion, reaching out to those who are most likely to benefit from the event. In addition to helping you identify your target audience, make sure you clearly announce your objective in any promotional materials so your intended audience knows what to expect to learn.
Make the Most of Email Blasts
Email blasts can be an effective method of webinar promotion, but it needs to be done correctly. The truth is not everyone in your email list will be interested in every event you hold. Promoting best practices dictate you should create separate lists of email addresses that are likely to be interested in certain topics for webinars so you can better reach out to the right people each time.
In addition to using email as an effective tool to getting people to sign up, you must also pay close attention to the timing. Alerting individuals of your webinar a couple of weeks before it is held is a good time for a first email. However, many individuals are too busy to easily remember something they found out about a month ago.
For this reason, it is important to send out more than one email, especially to those who sign up. Sending out an email a week before the event, the day before and then several hours before will remind people to attend.
Use Content to Push Your Webinar
One of the most important webinar best practices is to put out content that relates to your webinar to attract attention to it. This content should cover the same topics and offer insight and create intrigue in your readers. The goal is to push your readers to your landing page so they can sign up for your webinar.
Blog posts, infographics and ebooks are all great ways to generate related content to draw attention to your event. You can begin using these tools months before your webinar. As readers ask questions through your blog or other avenues, you can use those questions to build your webinar to better inform your audience. Most importantly, make sure you list a clear call to action about your webinar at the bottom of the page that links to a landing page for sign-ups. Chances are your readers will want to learn more and are likely to click this link after reading.
Keep Your Expectations Realistic
Some businesses set high goals for their webinars. While there’s nothing wrong with wanting a large turnout, you need to have realistic expectations to avoid disappointment. Understanding your expectations will help you measure your success against the goals you set for the webinar. When you have realistic expectations for your webinar, you will have an easier time with the follow-up plan. Remember, webinars are more about building relationships and generating interest than creating a massive explosion in your sales.
Take Advantage of Social Media
Social media has become an important tool in webinar promotion. Different social media sites will require a different strategy and approach.
Facebook allows you to create a Facebook event that includes all the pertinent details to attract individuals to your webinar. This creates an effective hub where individuals can begin sharing your webinar and their excitement about the topic.
Twitter is another effective form of social media you should use. Create a #hashtag that relates to your webinar and start using it to set the trend. Make sure you use the #hashtag in all your postings, even on other channels, so it is sure to gain notice and draw in sharing. Place this #hashtag on your registration page, event website and every Tweet you send out that relates to the webinar, making everything searchable.
LinkedIn is a third essential social media page for promotion. Look for relevant groups on LinkedIn and get involved in them. Create posts about your webinar and reply to related threads with information. Be careful not to spam these groups. You can also share your event with connections that may be interested to better establish yourself.
Following these webinar promotion best practices will ensure you are able to reach out to the right people and bring in attendees who are truly interested in what you have to offer. The goal of every webinar is to bring attention to your business and develop lasting relationships with potential customers. If you want to achieve these goals, you must properly promote your webinar. Onstream Media's industry-leading solutions and tools will help you meet all of your goals.
