Do you have an upcoming webinar that you are struggling to get traffic to the event? The importance of quality webinar promotion strategies is huger than ever as more B2B companies look to drive quality traffic to their upcoming events.
73% of B2B companies reported that webinars were a crucial component of generating leads for their business.
Therefore, we need to go past the idea of whether you need a webinar. We need to focus instead on how to drive quality webinar traffic to your upcoming webinar.
12 Webinar Promotion Strategies
1. Come up with a kick-butt topic
Let’s be honest. If your topic is boring then you will never get any traction. Something short and punchy with a bit of allure generally works best. For example, you probably noticed the title of our upcoming webinar is How to Automate Your Website to Find Your Next Client.
Truthfully, the title is a little long for me but what makes it kick-butt is that it is clear and something my clients want. Every client I ever spoke with wanted to get more leads from their website. Many entrepreneurs just need some guidance, so they can connect with the right prospects through their website.
2. Facebook Groups
There is a Facebook group for pretty much anything you can imagine. However, it is not just that there are groups. People are active in these groups. According to Facebook’s 2nd quarter call last year, there were over 200 million people actively engaging in these groups. Find a group that relates to your target audience, so you can spread your word.
Even better, if you are interested in getting more qualified traffic to your webinar, join our new Share My Webinar Facebook Group.
3. Live Video
The power of live video on social media has exploded over the past few years. Almost every major social network has some type of live video feature.
Whether you use Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram live, use the platform to connect with your prospects, so they understand how you can help their business. The key is that you need to provide them with quality information.
When you do this in a live video format, you have the chance to be yourself. That means people are attracted to who you are as well as the information you present. Therefore, do your best to make that presentation as smooth as possible. Write down an outline ahead of time, so you sound coherent when you present your Facebook live.
Finally, it gives people a glimpse of what they will experience watching your webinar. First impressions matter. Even when you mess up, it is important to show people you can handle when things go wrong. That way, they have more trust in you to persevere. If you don’t believe me, then watch the following video to see what went wrong.
4. Create Attention-Grabbing Incentives
You would think that hosting a webinar jammed packed with valuable content would be enough to drive qualified traffic. The challenge is that people want more today.
Therefore, give them a worthy incentive. As BigMarker stated, you can provide them with a free eBook, product promotions, or even discounts on future services.”
For example, in our upcoming webinar we are providing attendees with a free copy of our ebook 101 Online Tools: Tools You Need to Succeed as a bonus for signing up for the webinar. Also, to those who were already on my list, I offered them a free 1-hour session to the first 5 people who signed up for the webinar. That is a great way to deliver exceptional value and also provide some urgency. Plus, if 100 people accepted that offer I would be swamped.
5. Advertise
I hate to use the adage you have to spend money to make money. It is overused and not always correct. However, if you have a budget (even a small one) for marketing your webinar, use it.
After spending tens of thousands of dollars on webinars, the key is to use a quality image or video. You can even use your live videos on Facebook or YouTube to tie your organic and paid strategy together. Additionally, treat this like a funnel. Especially on Facebook where you can use custom audiences, this is a great strategy. That is because, on Facebook, you can create a custom audience based on how long people watch your videos. You can then use this audience to create retargeted ads to people who actively engaged in previous videos with your brand.
The people who are more likely to engage with your live video, are then more likely to attend your webinar. This strategy itself could be (and might be) a blog post in and of itself. It is so vital to your ad strategy to use it wisely.
6. Visit ShareMyWebinar.Com
Another component of our new Facebook group is the website ShareMyWebinar.Com. On this site, you can submit your upcoming webinar, so we can share it on our list in our regular roundups.
7. Joint Webinars
Most businesses work best when you have a great team helping you grow. Webinar promotion strategies are no different. Think about joint partners you can work with to leverage both of your networks to drive traffic to your upcoming webinar.
Elna Cain wrote in Blogging Wizards how she worked with another blogger to get sign-ups to both of their lists. In her own words, “if I was doing a webinar with Adam Connell, I would promote his sign up page to my audience and he would promote my sign up page to his audience.”
As they say, the whole is greater than its parts.
8. Social Media
Do not forget social media. While organic posts do not get the same traction they did a few years, people still see them. The key is that your webinar is not the only content you post. Use tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule your posts. If you need help with creating a social media content calendar, then check out our post on Social Media Daily Tasks
9. Blog/Podcast
The next step is to promote this through your blog or podcast. If you use content marketing, then start promoting this with your regular posts. Embed the invitations in your post or create a specific post for the upcoming event. Either way, you mustn’t neglect using the top of your funnel content to promote the bottom of the funnel content.
For example, I mentioned above how we wrote a specific blog post about the upcoming webinar we are hosting. It is okay to post about a webinar as long as you still create additional content to help users. Take the eMarketer blog post below which shares information as well as different upcoming webinars.
10. Send Reminders
People are busy. Therefore, you need to remind them of your event. Otherwise, they will probably not attend. While it is important to not go overboard, you still want to take the time to remind attendees ahead of time about your webinar.
11. Personalized Webinar Invites
Also, do not forget to personalize webinar invites. You can use information such as their name, job title, company, and industry information. This is where the information you collect from your subscribers. The more information you gather, the more you can personalize your invites.
12. Send out a press release
Jessica Vionas Singer put out a great idea on a post she wrote on Smart Bug about putting out a press release for your webinar.
As she stated, “If the topic and/or speaker are particularly meaty, put out a press release about the webinar and email it to your favorite online industry journalists.”
For example, the press release below on How to Practice Better Dentistry shares your message for your webinar with the press corp and distributes your webinar across the internet, so you can generate more traffic.
Webinar Promotion Final Thoughts
Now that you have different webinar promotion strategies to choose from, the key is to figure out one or two strategies that work best for your business. Once you have worked out those strategies, you can spend time adding other strategies to your repertoire. If you have additional questions about how to improve your webinar promotion strategy schedule a free 30-minute consultation with me today