Webinar marketing provides value to consumers. In addition to answering first-hand queries, you can also educate while cultivating interest in your product. It’s a personalized way to engage and a dynamic component of your content strategy.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through what webinar marketing is, the benefits, how to tie it into the customer journey, and the best practices for doing webinar marketing the right way. Plus, we’ll give you a complete webinar marketing checklist for planning webinar. So, let’s get started!
What is Webinar Marketing?
Webinar marketing allows real-time interaction with interested audiences. It’s a way to share product and brand information, deliver additional content, and answer questions in a live online session. Webinars can also be recorded and added to your content resources, making it a long-lasting, far-reaching marketing tool.
What are the objectives of webinar marketing?
The objective of webinar marketing is to promote a product or service, generate leads, engage with potential customers, and increase sales using webinars as a tool. Webinars offer businesses a way to connect with their target audience, showcase their expertise, and build relationships with attendees.
Why are webinars good for marketing?
Today’s marketing aims to reach a customer and engage them — to make a positive impression that sparks interest in your brand and products. Webinars are an excellent marketing tool because they:
- Have the potential to provide more value than any other content piece: Think of a webinar as content that instantly evolves to match what the target audience wants.
- Engage prospects one-on-one to build long-lasting relationships: Brands are able to interact directly with their audience in a way that builds a strong relationship.
- Offer in-depth product and industry education: Webinar marketing lets brands dig deep into product information and talk about their product’s place in the industry. You can also answer specific questions immediately, making it a richer learning experience.
- Give webinar attendees more brand awareness and mindshare: Customers connect more with brands that have a clear mission. Webinars let you convey your messaging and increase your mindshare — in other words, it puts your brand at the forefront of attendees’ minds.
- Work for every stage of the customer journey: Webinars are a marketing strategy that can meet customer needs no matter what stage of the customer journey they’re in. It increases awareness, can spur conversions for those in the consideration phase, or reinforce purchasers to advocate for your brand.
The 3 pillars of an effective webinar marketing strategy
Your webinar marketing strategy should revolve around creating high-value content. It needs to offer insights and solutions and inspire mindshare. The goal is to move your ideal prospects further along in their journey.
The key is to match the webinar topics with the stages of the customer journey. Put simply, tailor the content to where your targeted attendees are in the funnel so you can give them the value they’re looking for. Promote the webinar through suitable mediums and set up the right lead-nurturing strategy.
In summary, build your strategy around the three pillars of webinar marketing:
- Align the content with the stage of the customer journey
- Promote the webinar in the right channels
- Nurture leads effectively
How to adapt your webinar marketing strategy to different stages of your customer’s journey
People are looking for different things at each stage of the customer journey. For example, during awareness, they’re looking to learn more about a brand. In the consideration stage, they want to know if and how a product fits into their lives and which one is best.
Webinars are adaptable to the different stages, making them a highly-effective marketing tool. Here’s what it looks like in each phase:
Awareness
During the awareness stage, a customer has a problem or pain point or is looking to meet a need. For example, their running shoes hit their ankles uncomfortably during workouts. They are beginning to look for content that can provide a solution or point them in the direction of one.
Webinars during the awareness stage should generate conversations that build relationships, encourage mindshare, and bring your product to the front of your mind. The awareness stage is ideal for an educational approach. Great content ideas include:
- Showcase your brand’s stance in the industry.
- Share your mission statement and the “why” of your existence.
- Deliver industry insights.
- Use experts and expert advice to help them pinpoint their exact problem and how your solution works.
Imagine that your webinar is for a group of marketers that have great blog content — but they’re not ranking. You might offer them webinar content that helps them recognize their problem on a deeper level. For example, why they’re getting a low ranking. You share common reasons, like optimal backlinking, slow speeds, or mismatch between search intent and their content.
If your company has an SEO tool, not only are you offering an SEO solution but also providing other avenues they can explore to fix their pain point. That kind of value engages them, places your product in their mind, and creates excitement and joy around your brand. They are more likely to move into consideration and then purchase.
Webinars that work well in the awareness stage:
- Industry trends webinars
- Thought leadership webinars
- Round tables and AMA (ask me anything)
These webinars offer value and form a relationship.
Consideration and decision stages
In the consideration stage, your target audience is evaluating the solution that works best for them. They are looking for proof that your product can offer them what they need to solve their specific problem. At this stage, they want clear information about how and why to buy.
During the consideration and decision stages (depending on if you’re nurturing the customer or buyer’s journey), run webinars that closely relate to their problems and offer them solutions while showcasing a few case studies, product training, or workshop webinars. This includes things like:
- Interactive Q&A product demos
- Use cases presented with a storytelling approach
- Product tours
Make your webinars experiential. For example, connect 1:1 or in small groups before or after your session. Run demos and gather feedback, or connect customers with prospects.
Retention and advocacy stages
The retention stage is where you continue to help your existing customers draw the most value out of your product while continuously solving their challenges or meeting their needs. It’s keeping them delighted with your brand. When done well, you’ll create brand advocates who are willing to share their positive experiences with your brand.
During these stages, offer exciting updates, ways to use products, and opportunities to learn about advocating for your brand. Webinars that work for these stages are:
- Feature update webinars
- Product roadmap/products in action webinars
- Customer appreciation and customer case study webinars
- On-demand webinars
- Influencer 101 webinars
- Loyalty program Q&As
Five ways to promote your webinars and to attract Audiences
Promote your webinar using strategies that generate excitement. While it’s helpful to utilize your channels, look to your buyer personas to find out what will be most effective. There are Five main channels in promoting a webinar: Partners, emails/newsletters, social media, blog posts, and landing pages.
So let’s dive deep and explore these ways to promote the webinars:
1) Utilize partners
Leverage your partnerships with other brands to promote your webinars. Have them post about upcoming events and drum up interest in your product.
2) Announce via email and SMS
Email marketing is a great way to promote your webinars. Use your email and SMS channels to announce upcoming webinars. You can even segment and send announcements to customers who are likely to be more interested based on the stage of their journey. Make it more enticing with giveaways or an incentive for being in the first 100 signups.
3) Create a landing page
Not only do landing pages help your SEO efforts, but they also are a great way to promote your webinar event. Make it easy to sign up directly from the page, and ensure you provide clear details, content that shares the value, and a way to spread the word. For example, “share” buttons.
4) Feature on your social channels
Design social campaigns that spark interest, create excitement, and draw attention. Try tactics like contests, getting brand advocates to chime in, or offering snippets of featured speakers or content.
5) Write a blog post
Use the art of storytelling to tell a compelling story about your webinar. Share how you relate to customer pain points and the access you’ll offer to help solve them. If you have a speaker or panel, highlight their expertise.
Right lead nurturing tactics for your webinars
A major goal of webinar marketing is to generate more leads for the business. The science behind getting more engaged leads is to create content offers that offer value. The best lead generation happens when you put your customers at the center of your strategy and do things that bring the most value to them.
Nurture leads for your webinar with proven webinar marketing strategies. Some of the most effective tactics to nurture leads throughout your event are to
- Provide resources: Distribute guides, checklists, and other content that gives value to webinar attendees.
- Highlight promotions: Talk about current promotions or create a special webinar promotion to further nurture your leads.
- Offer smaller sessions after the webinar: Give people a chance to interact on a more personal level by offering smaller or 1:1 sessions after the webinar.
- Feature feedback from attendees on your social media: Gather feedback throughout the webinar and repost attendee reactions or post positive comments.
- Update your webinar landing page post-event: Your landing page can still keep getting traffic after your event, so update it to offer recordings, content, presentation, or an ebook to anyone who sign ups for a replay after the webinar is over.
Update your webinar landing page with some highlight moments of the webinar, and showcase some high-energy engaging moments to motivate people to attend your future webinars. - Continue your email marketing efforts: You can still keep the momentum going by engaging your attendees over an email. You can send out thank you/missed you emails and offer exclusive opportunities like one-on-one with your experts or an e-book over an email.
Also, your webinar landing page can still keep getting high-quality leads for you if you gate the exclusive content.
Tips to ace webinar marketing in 2023
Wondering how to get better ROI from your webinar marketing strategy in 2023? Well, you need to start thinking about ways to keep your attendees engaged, offer them most value, and drive incredible experiences that strike lasting relationships.
Most traditional webinars fail to work because they all feel the same — shoddily built lead generation pitchfests that feel “salesy.” When you focus more on selling rather than offering great experiences, it repels your prospects. Instead, adopt an attendee-first mindset. Make it about them.
Old way vs. new way of webinar marketing
Old way | New way |
Business goals first, attendee second | Attendees come first, good things follow |
Webinar focused on lead generation | Spans across the entire funnel |
Shoddily built content around a sales pitch | High-value content that builds relationships and earns trust. |
One-way Snooze Fest | Engaging, dynamic, and interactive |
One-size fits-all | Hyper-targeted webinars that resonate with people on a deeper level |
So, here’s how you can fix your dull, boring webinars to growth machines for your business.
1) Include a high-energy host
A high-energy host is important for a webinar because it can keep the audience engaged, create a positive atmosphere, and overcome any challenges that may arise.
2) Include fun Icebreaker games
Icebreakers in webinars help participants feel more comfortable and engaged by creating a welcoming environment, encouraging networking and participation, and boosting energy and focus.
When attendees feel connected and pulled in from the beginning, you increase your chances of keeping them engaged for the rest of the webinar, boosting your webinar marketing ROI.
3) Don’t make it a one-way sales pitch
When it comes to webinar marketing, building a webinar script around a sales pitch can sound tempting. However, In today’s digital age, people are bombarded with sales pitches and advertisements every day. They are tired of being sold to and want to engage with content that adds value to their lives.
So focus on generating value for your attendees and giving them a good time. When attendees are kept at the center, good things follow.
4) Add can’t-miss opportunities for your webinar attendees
The average webinar attendance rate is 40%. This means that given a chance, attendees register for the webinars but wait for the recording to watch it at a comfortable time.
Adding some can’t-miss moments can offer more incentive to your attendees to attend your webinar live and take your webinar marketing to a new level of ROI.
Give your target audience a chance to ask any questions (AMA). Make it exciting with a giveaway, challenge, or free offer. Incentives also encourage attendance rather than watching the webinar recording later.
5) Allow your audience to participate
The days of death-by-PowerPoint webinars are over. Today, your webinar needs to include your audience, engage them, and allow them to participate.
While hosting webinars, interaction inspires people, along with feeling heard. Call webinar participants on stage and host Q&As. Use polls for feedback and to direct the webinar topic, and be there in the chats showing that you’re listening to your target audience.
6) Enrich with engaging elements
Audience engagement is a decisive factor when it comes to webinar success. Plus, engaging webinars retain viewer attention longer. Thus, you should keep them dynamic and enriching, which you can make happen with games, trivia, photo booths, a social wall, and challenges. Bring people together to network, and plan moments of joy with entertainment. Use:
- Comedians
- A band or DJ
- Mind reading or magic tricks
7) Think about the entire funnel for a successful webinar strategy
Don’t make a webinar marketing plan to address just one stage of the funnel. Plan your webinar content to influence every stage of your buyers’ journey for better engagement, conversions, and retention.
8) Hyper-target audience segments
You need different content, themes, and scripts to engage different segments of your audience and people who are in different stages of the buyer journey. So, double down on hyper-targeting your webinar content, and pick a webinar topic to match your audience segment for better results.
9) Choose the right webinar hosting platform
Choosing the right webinar hosting platform is crucial for the success of your webinar. Consider factors such as the platform’s reliability, ease of use, customization options, and pricing.
Look for features such as screen sharing, recording, chat, and audience engagement tools to ensure a seamless and interactive experience for your attendees. Do your research and compare different options before making a decision.
Airmeet is one of the best platforms for hosting a webinar. Take it for a spin.
Complete the webinar marketing plan checklist (200-300 words)
✓ | To do items | When |
Researching or creating buyer/customer personas. | 8 weeks before | |
Determine the objective and expected outcomes for your webinar. | 8 weeks before, | |
Research, test, and choose your webinar platform. | 7 weeks before | |
Conduct a team meeting and distribute creative, planning, and promotion bandwidth | seven weeks before | |
Create a webinar content plan: Find speakers, entertainment, hosts, etc. | seven weeks before | |
Find partners to reach a broader audience. | 6 weeks before | |
Go live with your webinar landing page. | 6 weeks before, | |
Plan your social media posts and liaise with host committees to promote your event. | 5 weeks before | |
Chalk out an email marketing plan, and Schedule initial email announcements and reminders. | 5 weeks before, | |
Think about swag options, prizes, promotions, etc., and order/plan it. | 5 weeks before, | |
Refine your content, presentations, and narrative for the webinar. | 2-4 weeks before | |
Execute and repurpose content for further distribution (replays, blogs, snippets, videos) | Day off and post-webinar |
Webinar marketing statistics
1) Webinars have an average registration-to-attendance rate of 43%. (Source)
2) The average webinar viewing time is 61 minutes. (Source)
3) 95% of the respondents agree that webinars play a key role in their marketing efforts. 38% out of them consider them a critical function of digital communication (Source)
4) 58% of B2B marketers use webinars as a content marketing tool
5) Around 57% of marketers host 50 or more webinars across the year (Zippia)
6) On average, webinars have a 36% conversion rate, with the top 25% of webinars converting at 60% or higher.
7) 91% of B2B buyers prefer engaging and visual content, like webinars, over traditional content like e-books, blogs, or articles. (Source: Demand Gen Report)
8) 20-40% of the webinar attendees turn into leads (Source)
9) Between 2-5% of attendees would turn into customers (Source)
11) 58% of the webinars depend on active promotion and marketing for success (Source)
12) 60-minute webinars are more successful at attracting attendees than 30-minute webinars (Source)
13) Email marketing contributes to 73% of the webinar signups (Source)
14) 15% of the registration happens 15 days before the webinar (Source)
Overall, it’s clear that webinars generate leads effectively and are a great marketing tool. . However, you need to keep in mind some parameters like webinar duration, activities, host’s skillset, content, and the ways you promote a webinar to determine its success.
Use Airmeet for your next webinar marketing campaign
Take your upcoming webinar and webinar marketing to the next level. It’s a powerful tool that connects you with customers more quickly and helps drive them down the funnel. Plus, you build long-lasting relationships through engaging content while showing them that your brand is customer-centric. Use our webinar marketing best practices, tips, and checklist today to host an unmissable webinar with Airmeet for Free.
