How to increase your webinar audience attendance - 6 tips

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The main motivation behind many B2C purchases, as you are probably aware, is that we as people love to better ourselves, and get practical lessons and tips on how we can do this, not just in business, but functioning better in our careers and general lives overall.

This is true also for B2B - you have to educate your customers, give them knowledge and value to gain trust - webinars can be a great driver for all of this. Webinars are also ways to create a customer base and turn it into a community, to build trust with your customers, establish your brand as an authority on a subject, and increase your visibility.

However, due to the pandemic, webinars are more popular than ever, with the rates of people deciding to remain remote workers. So, keep in mind that the surging popularity of webinars alone doesn’t guarantee sign-ups and high attendance rates- only that there are more webinars to compete with for your audience’s attention.

So how do you stand out from the crowd and win over your target audience?

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Choose something that is current and timely, even if it just relates to some recent news in the industry. Find something that will resonate with people and be on their minds. Perhaps there are issues within marketing or a recent development that people are eager to discuss or hear your expert take on as thought leaders in your field.

Or, you can identify a key problem among your target audience. How can you address it in a way that is not only practically useful but also engaging? You don’t want people falling asleep and therefore missing your relevant information.

When deciding on your theme, look for one that is broad enough to attract a wide audience, but narrow enough that you can give them actionable takeaways.

The theme should be easy enough to digest, but complex enough to warrant a 30-minute webinar at the very least- ideally, you won’t have any awkward silences and your audience can participate themselves with their own inspired ideas.

This goes without saying, but your webinar isn’t just about the content: it’s how you package and promote the content! 

The title is the first thing your potential audience and customer base will see, so making it something memorable, desirable and something that gives them enough information as to what the webinar is about and what your brand is about, while still leaving them wanting to know more, is the ideal state for stellar attendance.

Researching your demographic is a small thing that goes a long way.

Survey your target audience. What do they identify as hot topics?

Think about what would benefit these customers. Could a Q&A style webinar be a good fit?

See our article on hosting a digital Q&A here

Make sure the people you invite are the ones you actually think might already be a fan of your brand, or it could end up being a waste of a webinar. 

This may sound simple, but if you want people to invest their time and energy, then they have to think there is some pay-off.

Whether it’s someone they admire as a guest speaker, a new product unveiling, something they can learn and add to their CV, raffling off a small prize, giving them some small gift, us humans are simple creatures with too much to do and not a lot of time, so convincing them why you demand their precious time and energy- and why it’s worth it- can be different for everyone, but it’s something you should deliberate on beforehand.

Just like above, even before you begin to plan your webinar, make an action plan of what you want to get out of it.

Is it more customers? Is it to increase awareness of your brand?

Make some goals for how many people you want to attend, how many you expect to register afterwards or buy the product you’re marketing, and compare notes afterwards. You can always use this as a handy tool to know what you need to do to improve for next time, as well as how you achieved the goals you set out. 

As a marketing genius already, you know that promotion is key. Repetition of message, memorable and savvy ways of making yourself relevant online and in the industry space, and smart ways of utilising social media and online promotion are all fundamental ways to give your webinar the boost it needs to win that target audience. Read our marketing-guide here.

The worst-case scenario would be for you to do all the work to get many people to sign up, only for them to completely forget about it. If you have pin-pointed a relevant enough topic that is very unlikely. But still, it is a risk. Make sure to think through the flow of communication with the registered guests. In you webinar or email tool, set up a clear sequence from registering => attending => receiving a follow-up. Should they receive a reminder an hour before the webinar as well? A good webinar tool often helps you with all of these questions.

With our tips, you’re bound to have an impressive turn out for your online webinar- and nothing is better for securing new customers than word of mouth. If your audience is vast, you have more chances of them spreading the word about your company and then indirectly bringing you even more customers!

So don’t forget: never underestimate the power of being popular!