This document provides tips for promoting webinars to get more signups and attendance. It recommends writing a short, scannable description that clearly states the topic in the audience's terms and highlights benefits like cost savings. The description should list three things attendees will learn and make signing up easy. Methods for promotion include the website, emails, social media, LinkedIn groups, and ads. Frequent posts are suggested in the weeks leading up to the webinar. Getting signups from other time zones may require additional sessions.

1. Promoting your
Webinars
How to get people to sign up and attend your webinars
sharon@sharonburton.com
951-369-8590
sharonburton.com
© 2012 Sharon Burton

2. Thank you for attending!
 Sharon Burton
 Been in the Communication industry
for 20 years
 Content strategy consultant
 Run hundreds of webinars
 Teach communication at various universities
 My new book 8 Steps to Amazing Webinars
 Available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble

3. Our problem
 We want
 the most response to our webinar
 engaged and excited attendees
 qualified leads
 Really, we’d like everything
 Maybe with some chocolate sprinkles, too
 Sometimes it feels like we threw a party and no
one came

4. So how can we fix this?
 Let’s start way at the beginning
 Our write up may be a problem
 People are busy, and if they can’t understand the
write-up, they won’t sign up.
 Making them think and decode language puts a
burden on your attendees that’s simply not fair
 So let’s start there

5. A good short description
 Clearly state the topic for your audience
 Not in product-specific terms
 Your audiences’ terms
 “Learn about our new localization product”
 Not compelling to your attendees
 No reason why they might benefit from learning about your
product.
 “Reduce your translation costs by as much as 80%”
 Speaks to a pain point for your audience

6. Numbers are interesting
 Numbers are very good
 For example
 An 80% reduction in localization costs is huge
 It’s an exciting thing for a company to think there
may be a better way at half the cost
 It’s inherently interesting to your audience

7. Total words
 Resist the urge to say everything you ever thought
of on the topic
 150 words, tops
 Bullet points
 Scannable
 People can scan the write up and decide

8. For example
 “In this fast and exciting interactive hour, you’ll
see the industry’s newest technology leveraged to
reduce your localizations costs.”
 Rewrite it into something like this:
 “During this hour-long webinar, see how you can
save up to 80% of your localization costs.”

9. The reason to attend
 List three things they will learn by attending
 Even if they already know one of those things
 They see the other two and decide those would be good
to learn as well
 You’re asking for at least an hour out of an already
overscheduled day
 Let people know up front what they can expect to learn

10. For example
 How to improve your localization workflow overall
 How Product XX streamlines the localization
process
 What standardized content is and the cost benefits
it can bring you

11. Make it easy to see why
 Use simple and direct words that communicate
clearly to the attendee.
 People are busy, and if they can’t understand the
write-up, they won’t sign up.
 Making them think and decode the language puts
a burden on your attendees that’s simply not fair
 Your signups will be poor

12. Make it easy to sign up
 If one of your goals for running a webinar series is to get
more leads
 Your instinct is to ask everything you can think of to qualify the lead
when they sign up
 Don’t do this
 Really
 I’m not kidding
 Fully qualifying people at signup makes the signup procedure
hard and time-consuming
 People won’t sign up

13. Getting the word out
 Your website
 Direct emails
 Social media
 LinkedIn
 Other user groups
 Advertisements

14. Your website
 Link from your home page to your Webinars page
 Include links to recordings of past webinars
 Plan ahead for when you have 30+ recordings
 Organized by?
 Date may not be good
 ALWAYS have 4 weeks of upcoming webinars
 Maybe not 1 every week, but at least 4 weeks out

15. Direct emails
 Don’t include the entire write-up in these emails
 Makes the email too long to scan
 Put the name of the webinar and the date and
time
 Include the first sentence from the write-up
 Don’t forget support emails and other groups

16. Social media
 This is what you’ve all  Pinterest
been waiting for!
 Good for B2C
 Facebook
 Google+
 Great for Business to
Consumer (B2C)  No one seems to use it
 Bad for B2B  YouTube
 Twitter  Fab for B2C
 Good for both  Maybe good for B2B
 Many places restrict
YouTube access

17. Twitter
 Think hash tags
 For example:
 Free webinar: Reducing your localization costs – June 30
2012 9am Pac #techcomm [insert link to signup page here]
 Set up different tweets (using HootSuite or Dlvr.it)
 Schedule for different hours and days of the week
 Use the analytics to see what your audience resonds to
 Do more of that

18. Pinterest
 Visual
 You need a really good picture
 People scan for stuff visually
 I wouldn’t bother with B2B
 Not business

19. LinkedIn
 Perfect for B2B
 Lots of professional groups talking about topics
 Post to these groups
 Watch the rules
 Some groups are touchy about what gets posted by
vendors
 Don’t just post and never come back
 People have questions

20. Other user groups
 Depending on your industry
 Other newsgroups
 Yahoo
 Google
 Others
 Follow the rules for posting
 Don’t just post and never come back
 People have questions

21. Advertisements
 Ask for a small mention in advertisements with a
link to the webinars page on your website
 Maybe a Qcode specifically for the webinar page
 Don’t mention any specific webinar by name in the
ad
 You have a new free webinar program available

22. How often should I post?
Timeframe Social Media Groups and lists
3 weeks before 2 times a week 1 time
2 weeks before 4 times a week 1 time
1 week before every day 1 time
The day before 3 times 1 time
The day of 2 hours before NA
After the webinar is an hour later, mentioning NA
complete how exciting/full/etc. the
webinar was
The day after the post with the 1 time
webinar recording link
The next 3 months, or Once a week with the Once a week with the
until you see on-demand link link
viewing drop off
significantly

23. How do I get more
signups to attend live?
 50% of the total signups usually attend
 It’s a global world
 People sign up knowing they can’t attend live but they want
to link to the recording
 You have an engaged audience
 If you are getting a lot of signups from another time
zone
 Consider doing one for them specifically
 Even if that means a webinar at 5am or 10pm for you

24. 8 Steps to Amazing
Webinars
 XML Press
 Amazon and Barnes
and Noble
 Available as a printed
book or as an eBook

25. Questions?
Thoughts?
Sharon@sharonburton.com
951-369-8590
sharonburton.com