You’re aware of how effective webinars can be at propelling brand awareness, increasing reach, bolstering conversions, and driving sales. You’ve dove headlong into creating the best webinar you can muster, and you’ve spent ample time and effort doing so.
Regardless of how much proverbial blood, sweat, and tears you’ve put into your webinar, it only matters if people show up. And while your number of registrants is growing alongside your confidence, it is important to note that only 20 to 30% of those folks are going to show up on the big day.
Don’t get discouraged; there is an entire smorgasbord of tips, tricks, and tactics for bolstering the attendance rate of your upcoming live broadcast.
If you are eager to acquire the eyes necessary to produce the next big successful webinar, then check out these 5 strategies for increasing your event’s audience size.
1) Send Regular Email Reminders
This is a must, a staple, a prerequisite to webinar success. Even though about 29% of your attendees won’t sign up until the day of the event, the other 71% needs to be communicated with to ensure they remember to show up; people have busy lives these days and things like a webinar easily slip their minds.
This means that your webinar should have a relatively extended promotional cycle; about 2 weeks to a month. In this time, you should also leverage social media adverts and blog posts; even if you don’t, however, email is still a powerful driver on its own.
The first reminder email should be sent out about a week before the webinar takes place so that people remember to block off that time. Studies have shown that emails sent 7 days prior an event tend to increase webinar attendance by up to 36%. The second outreach attempt should occur a day or two beforehand. Finally, be sure to send out another round of emails a few hours before going live.
Choosing to employ a webinar platform can help you manage this process as the service provides customizable invitation and confirmation email templates that include all the necessary details to encourage participants to attend.
Recommended for you: 10 Best Practices for Conducting Engaging Webinars.
2) Offer Attendees a Free Gift
One effective way to boost your webinar attendance is with the irresistible promise of something free. This offer should be communicated with every change you get: In blogs, emails, PPC adverts, on the registration landing page, etc.
There is, however, one significant qualifier for folks to receive the gift: They need to actually attend the webinar.
How big you go with the gift is up to you; you can do something as extravagant as a month’s free service or an Amazon gift card. Or you can keep it tame but alluring like with complimentary access to valuable content; a free eBook or guide, or ever a free trial for something you offer.
The key here is to select something that your audience will be interested in and to make sure that your marketing efforts clearly articulate how prospects can obtain their gift and what benefits they will gain from it.
3) Limit Your Webinar’s Audience Size
Scarcity is a real motivator for people; use this tactic wisely for a major boost in interest.
Most webinar services place a cap on the number of attendees enabled by each subscription tier. Use this to your advantage; if your membership only allows for 100 attendees, then make this known. Also, let your audience know that just because they have registered, that doesn’t mean they have a guaranteed spot in the chatroom.
Make prospects aware that if they are late to the event, they risk losing their seat during the live broadcast.
By producing an air of scarcity around your webinar from the beginning, people are far more likely to perceive the event as exclusive; this can dramatically assist your attendance rates.
4) Go Live Twice in a Day
Here is the flipside of the scarcity coin. Instead of making it known that only 100 folks can attend, come from the angle of wanting to provide as many people the opportunity to attend as possible.
With live webinars, it is important to be strategic with the time and day you choose for the event. For a sizable number of people, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday at or around mid-morning or after lunch is a suitable time. This, however, is not true for everyone.
There are many individuals who only have their evenings free and often miss out on these types of events because of that. Try to open lines of communication with both groups by offering two different broadcast times that attendees can sign up for.
By catering to daytime and nighttime audiences, you are very likely to increase your webinar’s attendance rate.
You may also like: ClickMeeting Review – A Brandable Smart Webinar Software.
5) Employ SMS Reminders
Alongside your email communications, it is wise to leverage text message reminders. People check their phones an average of 150 times per day. This means that sending a text message reminder about your webinar will not go unnoticed. The same cannot be said for email. While email might be hooked up to a person’s phone, these are often a lower priority, and many get cluttered quickly. This is how your email falls into the void.
To effectively utilize this strategy, you need to ask for a consumer’s mobile number during the sign-up process; be sure to let them know how this will be used from the jump, as they might be reluctant.
With SMS reminders, you will see a significant boost in engagement when compared to email, and you will likely draw more attendees as a result.
Final Words
Promoting a webinar is an art and a science and doing it on the fly normally produces lackluster results. To get the most out of your webinars, you need to understand how to draw the biggest audience possible. More eyeballs equal more conversions, and these are the lifeblood of your business. It’s worth it to treat webinars like integral elements of your marketing strategy. They can literally make or break a virtual business’s success.
