Let’s say you’ve done the hard part — you’ve conducted a successful webinar that created a lot of buzz and excitement among your viewers.

The why’s of webinar follow-up email

The logical step is to follow-up emails with email marketing automation. However, how do you do it in a way that does not cancel out all your webinar creation efforts? Let’s explore this together in this article.

At the end of a webinar, don’t just shut down your computer and call it a day. We understand that you may be tired, exhausted even. After weeks of preparation, it’s tempting to just curl up in your bed and indefinitely forget about this whole webinar thing.

But this attitude is disastrous to your webinar success.

Here is why you should care about following up with your participants after the event:

1. Existing expectations

Unless your participants have never seen a webinar before (which is highly unlikely), they’ve most likely developed a protocol in their heads. Getting a follow-up email is expected.

When you don’t send one, your participants might feel confused at best and angry at worst. It seems you only wanted them to attend the webinar without caring about their further questions or concerns.

They might also have joined the meeting late and wanted to request the recording if it had yet to be sent automatically. In summary, make sure to satisfy your attendees!

2. Cementing relationships

As a webinar creator, you probably spent hours working on that promotional campaign, trying to reach out to your audience.

Think about it. Now that they’ve given you a chance, the last thing you want is to lose them. Why not cement your relationship by showing gratitude to your precious participants?

Most people appreciate recognition in a relationship. Sending a follow-up email can help you show that appreciation effectively.

3. Nurturing leads

Now let’s speak in marketing terms.

Even webinar experts do not get all their deals after one event. Most people require further nurturing, which can be done pretty effectively via email — follow-up emails included.

A follow-up email is a great way to establish that link while your participants still remember you. Once the foundation is set, all you’ve got to do is keep in touch.

Sooner or later, your leads will mature into paying customers.

4. Ben Franklin effect

Did you know that when performing favors for someone, people often feel compelled to like that person (otherwise, why would they do anything for them in the first place?)

Whenever you thank your participants for their time, you get to leverage this psychological phenomenon. After all, if they don’t like you as a presenter, why would they spend their entire evening listening to you speak?

5. Rewarding opportunity

It would be a shame not to capitalize on the follow-up email that generally has a higher open rate.

This is a perfect time to reveal your best offers: a discounted online course, a free podcast, a product demo — what have you.

However, it’s important to stay focused. 10 different offers look more intimidating than rewarding to an average consumer. The truth is, a lot depends on your follow-up email.

If you overdo it, you stand the chance of destroying whatever positive impression you successfully gave to your attendees during the webinar.

It would be a waste to bombard them with offers only to chase them away or have your email address reported as spam. So, keep it classy. Sell your offers, but make it worth their while.

The how’s of webinar follow-up

Now let’s get to the tips and tricks part. We’ve established that following up is important. But how do you do it correctly?

Tip 1: Segment your audience

The more detailed and specific your segmentation is, the better your targeting results will be.

And I don’t just mean the attendees vs. non-attendees division.

While the non-attendees are pretty straightforward (let them know that you missed them and attach a webinar recording), the attendees require closer consideration.

Customer attendees

These are the brave souls that clicked the “Purchase Now” button and are now the proud owners of your product/service. These may just be your favorite people.

Thank them for their purchase. Express hope that they will enjoy the product and ask them to share their experience on social media.

Customer attendees absolve you from extra nurturing, as they’ve already put their trust in you. However, it’s still important to be grateful and stay in touch. Who knows — maybe, they will become your recurring loyal customers one day. In essence, they are more likely to become return customers than those who didn’t make an immediate purchase. So, treat them well!

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQLs) + Sales Qualified Lead (SQLs)

These are the hot leads, meaning they are more likely than others to fulfill your objective, be it buying another webinar, ordering a book, or subscribing to your blog.

Here you need to be careful since MQLs that are ready to become SQLs (handed to sales) may be hard to identify. You do not want to push ahead of time, but it’s also important not to lose momentum.

Overall, if the participants are actively requesting a demo and browsing your other content, you should be fine with making an offer.

Encourage them to contact you in case they have any additional questions that may or may not have been covered during the webinar.

Simply attendees

Perhaps, you did not really convince them. Or perhaps, they just didn’t have much to do on a Friday morning. Whatever the case, these attendees will take a lot of time to warm up, if at all.

Your best bet would be to embed a quick survey in a follow-up email. The key here is quick. If they are disappointed with the webinar, they would be reluctant to interact with you at all, let alone fill in full surveys.

Do not be discouraged if you get a lot of such simply attendees. Think of it as an opportunity to improve and grow as a presenter. You won’t be a Cicero overnight, and it’s totes fine.

Tip 2: Include slides and recording

A follow-up email would be incomplete without a link to your presentation and webinar recording. This can add so much value, for both those who attended and those who couldn’t make it.

More people can watch your webinar, and depending on how good it is, it could even be shared by your attendees to their co-workers, business partners and the likes. Which means more lead generation for you.

Do not just discount the no-shows as a lost cause. Many would pleasantly surprise you by watching a webinar recording and making a purchase (or proceeding with whatever CTA you provided).

It’s important not to take it personally, since your participants have lives outside your webinars (surprise). And since you can’t accommodate everyone’s schedules, it only makes sense to rely on webinar recordings as an additional lead generation magnet.

Tip 3: Offer extra content and rewards

Many would just dump a link to their blog or the latest webinar and forget about it. Do not be like many.

Did you know that marketers, on average, have 4 seconds to grab the reader’s/viewer’s attention? Think of a follow-up email as yet another milestone in your marketing campaign. The truth is, every avenue to increase your sales and lead generation should be maximized.

While extra content is appealing, it should not look like an afterthought or useless leftovers. You need to convince them that you actually put some thought into it.

For additional books, articles, videos to work, they need to tie nicely with the topic of your webinar.

They need to build upon it and extend your participants’ horizons, rather than catch them off-guard, or confuse them.

If you’ve got any exciting offers (such as rewards, discounts, or competitions) on hand, there is no better timing for presenting them.

You may be asking yourself: why should I give away something for free?

The answer here is simple — inbound (value-based) marketing. HubSpot is big on it, and it works.

People are naturally curious, and offering free extra content is a great way to entice them to try the paid alternatives.

In any case, if you are a true professional, you’ve got a lot up to your sleeve that is worth sharing. It won’t hurt you to build a little goodwill.

Tip 4: Embed compelling CTAs

CTAs can be tough. They can’t be too long, but yet they need to convey value. They shouldn’t include rare words, and yet they must sound fresh.

Since CTA is inherently sales-oriented, the key here is moderation. One or two CTAs will do just fine if you can envision your main goals.

Do you want to gain more exposure on social media? Then ask for feedback on relevant channels.

Are you looking to boost registrations for the upcoming webinar? Then include a link to it in the body.

Whatever your goal is, make sure the CTA button stands out — has a different color, a bigger, bolder font and a central location.

Since follow-up emails have a pretty good open rate, including your desired CTA is an absolute must.

Tip 5: Express gratitude and summarize

Start your webinar follow-up email with a “Thank You”. It’s a no-brainer.

It is also a good idea to remind the participants of the value they acquired by briefly summarizing the webinar’s content. This should remind them of how amazingly produced and relevant (hopefully) your content was, so that they would want to stay in touch with you in the future.

Believe it or not, people forget easily. Before you know it, they’re on to the next thing that has caught their attention. It wouldn’t hurt to remind them why they shouldn’t forget your webinar so quickly!

The summary can fit into one sentence. It’s not a landing page — you’ve already won the viewers’ attention.

It’s just a quick reminder of how awesome you are.

The bottom line

A follow-up email after a well-produced webinar is like a cherry on top. Do not underestimate its value.

If you want to scoop up more leads and continue relationships with your attendees, a follow-up email should be the first thing you do once the event has aired.

Hopefully, the tips and tricks in this article will help you get your targeting right and bring your leads over the purchasing edge.

We are sure you will succeed, and the MyOwnConference service is an excellent webinar software platform for your ideal online webinar.