5 things to consider before starting a webinar: hook, time, promotion, equipment, channels

Giving a webinar is a very powerful tool to generate leads for your business. Although it’s easy to organize, good webinar preparation is very important for success. In this blog, our webinar expert Alex van Ginneken shares some of his best tips and tricks on how you prepare for a successful webinar:

Select a subject and “hook”

Whatever subject you choose: give it a catchy title. In order to attract the attention of your audience, the title should be catchy, make people curious and give them the feeling that they shouldn’t miss this. There are different ways of building an attractive  title:

  • Lists – Example: 10 Ways to Use Webinars to Increase Conversions
  • How to – Example: How to Build Your Own Home Like a Professional Builder
  • Workshop – Example: Advanced LinkedIn Workshop: Staying Ahead of Algorithm Updates
  • Training – Example: SEO Training: Internal Link Building and Content Strategy
  • New – Example: New Tech All Online Marketers Should Know About
  • Trends – Example: Natural Living Trends That Will Have You Seeing Green

What is the best day and time?

The best time for a webinar totally depends on your audience. When you give a webinar to consumers, it’s best to plan it on a Tuesday or Wednesday. A good time can be, for example, at 8 p.m. At that time the children are in bed and the house is back in peace. Another option is to plan your webinar on a weekend: good moments are Saturday morning or Sunday afternoons.

When you give a B2B webinar it is a good idea to do that during the day. We see that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are great days to organize a webinar. This can be done in the morning at 10:00 or in the afternoon at 14:00 or 15:00. If you focus more on business owners, then Saturday morning at 10:00 is a good time.

It is smart to promote your webinar on time and on a regular basis. You start 4 to 2 weeks in advance and keep promoting up to 3 days before your broadcast starts. If you start the promotion in time you also have more time to build up momentum. The sooner you promote a webinar, the more time people have on their agenda to plan it. We see the biggest show-up for people who have registered in advance.

How to promote your webinar?

You can promote your webinar through various channels. First of all, it is good to use your email newsletter list because you often have a good relationship with these people. In addition, promoting via social media is very important. Streaminar can do this automatically for you! The channel which works best depends on your audience. For B2B, LinkedIn and Twitter are important channels. For B2C, it’s better to use Facebook. Which channel is best also depends on the subject of your webinar. Next to that, it’s important to reserve a budget for advertising in order to promote your posts. An organic post will be seen by your community, but a commercial boost in targeted groups can really expand your reach. So do both.

Some other simple ways to promote your webinar:

  • Promote your webinar on your thank you pages (for example when a visitor filled in a contact form or just placed an order in your webshop)
  • Write a blog article about the subject
  • Work together with an influencer
  • Promote it on a hello bar on the website (a prominent bar in a different color directly on your navigation menu)
  • Implement an exit-intent pop-up on your website to promote the webinar
  • Promote it in your email signatures
  • Use paid social ads to promote your webinar
  • Promote a webinar in your network

One of the goals is to attract as many signups for your webinar as possible in your target market. We all know that people subscribe very easily, but on average the show-up rate on a webinar is around 20 to 40%. Besides that, some people sign up because they know they will stay up to date for replays and future webinars. So keep promoting your webinar also to the people who already signed up. You can add extra reasons or surprises (i.e. special guest or a bonus) to promote a webinar so your show up rates go up.

Equipment

The most important thing about a webinar is, of course, the quality of the audio. Although it’s the most important part, unfortunately, most of the time it goes wrong. So make sure you use a high-quality microphone, like, for example, the Yeti Blue. If you want to be on camera yourself, it is useful to purchase an external camera. Built-in cameras in laptops are inadequate, of low quality and the angle from which is filmed is often not good, because you ‘look down’ on your audience. A good and affordable external camera is, for example, Logi HD1080p. There are also very good semi-professional cameras on the market. Don’t be cheap in hardware.

Regarding the connection, it is important to ensure a fast, stable internet connection with a fast upload. And when you give a webinar it is smart to use a cable connection. It’s far more stable than WiFi.

Last but not least,  a fast computer/laptop is a must. Make sure the software is up-to-date. Believe it or not: I’ve seen webinars where the computer of the presenter started a software update that he couldn’t stop.

Channels

When you’re building a strong brand, you want to reach as many people as possible. With Streaminar you’re able to broadcast your webinar simultaneously on for example YouTube, Facebook Live*, LinkedIn Live **, and Twitch. Through which channels you want to broadcast, of course, depend on your target group. It is important to have the channels on which you want to broadcast, arrange and link them to the webinar software in advance.

Before you give the webinar

Make sure you put signs, marks and other alarming messages on the door of the webinar room, which warns your colleagues, partner or mother not to disturb you. Are you doing a webinar in the office? Tell your colleagues to be quiet at that time in terms of talking, music, and phone calls. Because you need bandwidth, it might be a good idea to tell them to not do heavy uploads and downloads. Or, for example, watch your webinar 🙂

Check in advance if there is no construction work taking place at the day and time you planned your webinar. It happened to me once, a few years ago.  In the room above me, they started to drill only 5 minutes after I started in the webinar. Make sure you close all the applications, pop-ups and notifications on your computer, except for webinar, of course 🙂 . This not only prevents that (personal) messages pop-up, but also ensures that you keep your focus on giving your webinar.

Ready to start a webinar?

Do you want to give a webinar and connect with your audience? Generate leads and do more sales? Sign up for a free account on our Streaminar.com platform, have a look, do a test webinar and plan your first webinar.

* – Facebook Live is available soon

** – At present, LinkedIn Live is still in Beta and is expected to become available for all LinkedIn users.