So, you’re finally on your way to hosting a webinar. You’re super confident that the content you’ve worked on for months will get your audience totally hooked. “It will be a hit,” you keep convincing yourself. But, there’s one problem you’ve yet to solve: how will you be getting the word out there?

5 ways to promote a webinar

Obviously, you can’t just sit back and hope people will find out about it organically. You have to do something to promote your virtual event. No matter how impressive your presentation is, there’s no point if nobody there’s to witness it. All the time you’ve spent preparing it will only go to waste.

Since we don’t want that happening to you, we’re sharing with you five simple ways guaranteed to drive people to sign up and show up at your first-ever webinar. By the time you finish reading this post, we’re more than certain you’ll be executing them. Let’s get rolling!

1. Choose the perfect time

Timing is key to promote your webinar successfully. In case you’re not aware, there are specific days and times when registration rates and attendance rates are consistently higher than others. So, in fact, advertising on the weekend is a big no-no.

Tuesdays garner the most registrations, although Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are also ideal. Then again, you should experiment on your own. Just be sure that you don’t advertise nor host your webinar on the weekend.

As for the time of day, between 10 and 11 am should be your best bet to schedule your event.

However, if you’re fresh to the webinar scene, don’t hesitate to ask your audience which time is the most suitable for them. Simply include a field on your registration form asking attendees to confirm their preferred time slots, after which you schedule your webinar based on those results.

2. Create a dedicated landing page

People who click on your ads or CTAs should be redirected somewhere to sign up for your webinar. This is where a landing page comes in extremely handy.

Make a landing page specifically about your webinar, and keep it as informative as possible. Highlight the significance of the online event to encourage web visitors to participate. Be straightforward and transparent.

Here’s a little something to guide you:

• What? Outline the goals and intention of your webinar. List down the topics you’ll be tackling, preferably using bullets. Feel free to come up with a hashtag for your event, too!
• Why? State the reasons why people wouldn’t want to miss your event. How will they benefit from attending it?
• Who? Introduce the significant people who will discuss in your webinar. Provide a brief bio for each and perhaps even some of their accolades for credibility.
• Where? Explain clearly how interested attendees will be able to access the webinar. Webinars are usually accessible via links.
• When? This one’s a no-brainer. Provide the date and time of your webinar to give your attendees a heads up. Let them know that they can hop in 30 minutes before the start time.

Bear in mind that people don’t like pages that load slowly, specifically if they take more than three seconds. That said, you should optimize your landing page for speed. Otherwise, you’ll miss out on a lot of opportunities.

Besides the loading speed, you should also optimize your registration form (found on your landing page). For example, make sure that it only has a few fields and completes registration as soon as your visitors press the CTA button.

3. Partner with an influencer

Many businesses are teaming up with influencers for exposure and added value to their audience these days. So you might as well follow suit, or at least, just in this instance.

Once you’ve found someone who’s willing to work with you, see to it that you’ll make it easy for them to spread the message about your webinar. By incredibly easy, we mean including the link on their bios or posting about it should be the only task they’ll be doing.

To maintain consistency across channels, share these marketing pieces with them as early as you can:

• Registration link
• Social posts
• Branded imagery
• Sample emails

4. Leverage the power of social media

Being active on social media is always a good idea for brands who wish to reach out to their audience and form a deeper connection with them. And, it’s basically where you can provide updates about your business, including your upcoming webinar.

Tweet about it and use relevant hashtags. Post it on your Instagram Story. Promote it on Slideshare, which LinkedIn owns, to make it easier for you as it already has an audience who’d readily register or webinars.

Then there’s Facebook. What’s great about posting in this social giant is that you can set target audiences for your ads with extreme specificity. So those people you’re hoping who’d attend your webinar will no doubt discover it as they’re scrolling down their news feeds.

Not only that, but you can also get users to sign up through Facebook Messenger. If you decide to take that route, you’d definitely want to use a chatbot to automate your messages for a seamless process. Periodic updates about your webinar should be part of these messages.

5. Offer attendees something special

Take time to brainstorm things that excite people or make them feel valued. These will be the same things you’ll provide your registrants as tokens of appreciation.

Whether it’s free marketing assessments, ad spends coupons to LinkedIn, or a free e-book of yours, ensure that your reward will compel them to fill out your registration form and attend your webinar. Then, include them on your landing page.

Another idea is to ask your target audience to tweet anything related to the webinar a week ahead of it. The announcement of winners will take place at the start of the program.

You could even go the extra mile by incentivizing folks who refer your webinar to their friends and family. Finally, if you’re feeling extra generous, start an affiliate program where people who join get incentives depending on the number of successful referrals they make.

Over to you

Ready to generate buzz around your webinar with these tried-and-true tactics? We bet you are! Who knows, you might attract hundreds (or even thousands!) of attendees in no time!

Start from today, firstly by signing up on MyOwnConference.