How to Drastically Increase the Size of Your Webinar Audience

Live video content is the most effective way to reach your audience. This format is an incredible resource for business owners because of these pivotal factors:

1. Live video reaches the entire spectrum of demographics
2. Consumers gobble up live videos – this is the darling of online content in today’s world
3. Video is far less resource intensive than producing online courses, tutorials, and related content

Because of these reasons (and many more), over 60% of marketers employ live video in the form of webinars; an effective and continually growing method of generating leads and sales online. In fact, marketers like Neil Patel have noted that webinar conversion rates have reached upwards of 22%.

To generate conversions, you first need to attract an audience. That’s no easy task considering the sizable competition these days.

The average attendance rate of a webinar is about 25% of its registered signups. If a business owner only gets a handful of attendees, it can impact the quality of the webinar, feel like a disheartening experience for the host, and even discourage potential prospects from signing up for future broadcasts. This is what keeps many entrepreneurs out of the webinar arena.

 
There are, however, a variety of tips, tricks, techniques, and webinar tools that marketers can utilize to enhance webinar attendance rates; something that will bolster moral, quality, leads, and sales.

If you’re interested in integrating webinars into your marketing stack, but are concerned about attendance rates, fear not. Here are 5 proven methods for increasing webinar attendance.

#1: Choose Your Broadcast Time and Day Carefully

As they say, timing is everything.

When mulling over the best time to host your webinar, you’ll want to think a bit about the daily flow of those you wish to reach.

Considering that weekends are normally the most sacred times for folks to be offline enjoying their lives, holding your live webinar on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon will likely have undesired consequences; so will Mondays and Fridays, as people are too task-saturated or disengaged with work matters.

That leaves Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to play with for the vast majority of demographics.

When it comes to time of the day, first thing in the morning is out as people typically have more pressing priorities than attending a webinar. At the end of the day, folks have often exerted their energy and are more interested in what Netflix has to offer. That means that mid-morning (around 10:30) or after lunch (at about 1:00) is ideal for most people.

Keep in mind this is just a guideline. You will need to do a bit of testing and audience surveying to find the optimal time and day, but this gives you a good starting place.

#2: Present a Free Offering

One of the most effective ways to increase webinar attendance is the irresistible promise of something free.

Potential prospects already find the offer of free information (assuming you’re not changing for the webinar) incredibly alluring; pile that onto an exclusive promotion or offer and you have yourself an enticing hook.

The free offering doesn’t need to be anything outrageous, either; you can promote a free eBook or guide, a discounted price on products or services, limited time access to gated content, free trials of courses or memberships, or a slew of other alternatives.

The biggest thing to keep in mind, however, is that the free offering needs to be relevant and appealing to your audience. Unless you’re targeting 8-year-olds, free teddy bears won’t attract many relevant prospects. Please make sure what you offer has legitimate value to the people you are trying to reach.

#3: Feature Multiple Speakers

Presenting multiple speakers for a single webinar can drastically boost signup and attendance rates. This is not only because there is additional value offered through this structure, but because the speakers have a vested interest in promoting the event to their own social circles and email audiences; this exponentially increases the reach and appeal of the webinar.

 
Reach out to some of your network partners to see if any are interested in participating; this is a powerful method for creating a close-knit community that moves back and forth between cooperative camps.

If you don’t have any network partners to pair with, try reaching out to relevant bloggers or leveraging various influencer marketplaces like Famebit; these folks tend to come pre-equipped with social clout and sizable audiences that are eager to attend events that feature their expertise.

#4: Make Use of Your Mailing List

When moving out onto the promotion trail, your email list should be the first folks you inform of the event. Social media is so overly emphasized today that many neglect email marketing as a driver of awareness.

If you have email subscribers, they have shown interest in your offerings and are likely to sign up. Bear in mind, however, that a single email blast isn’t going to cut it; you’ll need to send out a few communications.

The first email should be sent out about a week before the webinar takes place so that people have time to save the date. While many are likely to procrastinate as there is still so much time left, studies have revealed that signup emails sent 7 days prior to broadcast increased webinar attendance by 36%. The second outreach attempt should occur a day or two beforehand. Finally, be sure to send out another round of emails a couple hours before the event goes live.

#5: Remarket and Retarget

If you have run webinars in the past, you likely have a handful of former registrants who never attended. If so, try to recapture their attention with targeted email outreach or retargeting ads.

In a similar vein, it is also wise to retarget any website visitors that have recently visited your website. You could do this simply by placing prominent images on your site, however, you will probably have more luck with retargeting them through social media ads.

To do this, simply set up a tracking pixel on your site. This will provide you with the necessary data to develop remarketing ads that target these individuals.

Always use compelling imagery and messaging that will capture their attention while blending into the social media landscape flawlessly.

 

Gaining a sizable audience is vital for a webinar to not only be a success, but to be perceived as a success; which is arguably equally important. Utilize these methods for generating a crowd you can be proud of and your webinars will become a prominent event within your social communities and industry.