Hosting a webinar is a great way to present your company’s products and services to a virtual room filled with prospective clients and customers. But if you ask us, hosting just one isn’t enough to generate substantial leads for your sales pipeline.
Many marketers find success in hosting webinar series, or multi-part webinars united by a common theme.
Hosting a webinar series is a win-win for your company and your prospective customers — the marketer collects more useful data and leads, and the attendees gain more valuable information.
If you’ve hosted a webinar before and didn’t get the results you hoped for, consider these tips on how to turn a webinar series into a lead generation machine.
Step 1) Develop the Promotion and Distribution Plan For Your Webinar Series First
Before you create any content for your webinar series, you must first understand who your audience is, what their needs are, and where they search online for information so you can target them.
It’s essential that you create a buyer persona so you can understand who your key demographic is, and learn what their pain points are. This will allow you to develop great content that will resonate with them.
Once you understand who your audience is, begin to craft captivating content, such as blog posts, landing pages, Facebook and Google ads, and targeted email campaigns to draw their attention and interest.
Also be sure to begin searching for influential guests to invite to speak in your webinar series that align with your audience. More on that in Step 7.
Step 2) Build Out Any Necessary Automations, Landing and Webpages, and Promotional Content
The landing page is one of the most important parts of the lead generation process. It collects your registrants’ personal info, such as name, email address, and location.
It can also be used to ask questions before your event, which helps tailor your content based on your audience’s wants. For instance, if you’re selling B2B, ask about the company size on the landing page to determine if your marketing strategy is targeting the right people.
Also, make sure your landing page is professionally branded with targeted and informative copy to set yourself apart from your competition. A beautifully crafted landing page is more convincing than a generic one.
Using your CRM or email marketing tool, be sure to set up an email series complete with automations so you can send email reminders before the episodes in your webinar series. It’s a good idea to send these a week before your event, then a couple of days before, then a few hours before, and finally one last reminder at the start of the event. It might sound like overkill, but it’s proven to work. Everyone needs a gentle nudge.
Save some time by repurposing old webinars to promote your upcoming webinar. These videos can be inserted into your email series, or put on a landing page to increase conversion rates and interest in the webinar series as a whole.
Find out more ways to generate leads with online events with your marketing team’s guide to virtual lead generation.
Step 3) Create an Arc for Your Webinar Series By Picking an in-Demand Topic and Breaking It Into Smaller Digestible Topics
Some topics are so in-depth and involved that it’s impossible to cover everything in just one webinar. This is another situation where webinar series come in handy.
For example, if you’re hosting a webinar about SEO for your marketing company, there’s no way you can cover all the bases of SEO in under an hour.
Instead, create your company’s SEO Webinar Series, with each webinar episode dedicated to just one key area, such as, Webinar 1: An Introduction to SEO, Webinar 2: Understanding Keywords, and so on.
Another added benefit of spreading out a topic across multiple webinars is the useful data you can collect to help you produce future content. If you noticed one webinar had more questions and engagement, then you can create more content related to that topic, attract more web traffic, and ultimately gather more registrants for your next webinar.
Ensure your webinar series can withstand the test of time and learn how to create and transform webinars into an always-on demand generation strategy.
Step 4) Plan for Ways to Create Consistency in Your Webinar Series Layout by Creating Lovable, Repeatable Segments
People tend to enjoy TV shows and webinars when they know what to expect.
Think of how top shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation follow a predictable format. Start with a cold open unrelated to the plot, go into the opening titles, start the show, end with a short, funny clip.
While you may not be creating a comedy, your webinars in your webinars series should follow its own predictable pattern. Start with a short introduction, go into your brand’s story, then into the meat of the webinar, and save your offer/pitch toward the end. Finish with a Q&A session and/or fun segment that can recur in every webinar.
Step 5) Choose a Lead Character or Host for Your Series (It’s 2021 – Be Diverse!)
Think of your webinar series as a TV talk show. There are tons of talk shows, so how do you pick which one to watch? Usually, it’s because you have a favorite host.
Your webinar series needs a host, just like an open mic night needs an emcee. It’s important to pick a speaker who is eloquent, charismatic, knowledgeable and can connect to your target audience.
Because you can host virtual events from any location, be deliberate about the talent you bring in as host. You can choose from anywhere in the world, so dig into your options to find the perfect fit.
Your host will do most of the heavy lifting to lead the webinar: starting the show, introducing guests, moderating any Q&A discussions, and ending the show.
A great host can turn your webinar into a webinar series by drawing in your audience repeatedly. As important as it is to have great content in your webinar, it’s equally important to have a host who can keep it engaging and interesting.
Step 6) Be Sure Each Webinar Episode in Your Series Ends by Teasing What’s Next. Give Your Audience a Juicy Cliff Hanger!
How does Netflix get us to binge watch an entire series in just one weekend? Usually, a new and unexpected twist or development occurs right at the very end of each episode, forcing you to continue watching.
Use a similar tactic in your webinar series. Find a way to fascinate your audience’s curiosity. An example of this could be teasing a hint about an upcoming guest speaker, or asking your audience a question and then offering to provide your top-secret answer in the following webinar.
Give your audience a reason to come back to the series.
Step 7) Use the Same Host but Feature an Array of Experts and Guests on Your Webinar Series
Think of your webinar series as a late night TV series. You have the same host that you’ve come to love and trust, and each show they bring in a new star to keep it interesting.
Be strategic when it comes to picking your guest speakers. Find trusted and relevant influencers with large social media followings who will work with you to cross-promote your event. Also, ask to tap into your guests’ email lists, letting them send registration emails to their fanbase to further expand your marketing reach.
Keep in mind that you can invite almost anyone, so offer your viewers an intriguing mix of guests.
Step 8) Allow the Audience to Have Control at Some Point During Each Episode for More Engagement
Your audience can watch helpful YouTube videos at any time, so why are they attending your webinar? Because they’re looking for an expert who can answer their specific questions.
The Q&A portion is usually reserved for the end of the webinar and is pretty much baked into any presentation.
Holding a Q&A allows you a chance to learn how your registrants think about the topic at hand. Audience feedback provides you with highly valuable information that you can use to adapt future webinars, create new promotional content, and even improve your product or service.
If you’re using a robust webinar platform, you can use other engagement tools to record interaction data, allowing you to understand which registrants are most interested, for further targeting campaigns.
It’s also recommended that you poll your audience every 10 minutes or so to keep them engaged. Poll results can help you guide the webinar toward your audience’s interests or concerns.
Step 9) Use Your Webinar Series Content to Continue to Promote Your Episodes and Future Webinars
Edit your finished webinars as soon as they wrap up, so you can begin uploading and distributing them online.
Be sure to remove any time-sensitive offers, dates, or other distractions that can take away from your evergreen webinar.
These episodes in your webinar series should be uploaded to YouTube, placed in landing pages, and inserted into email campaigns.
You can also further repurpose the content by transcribing the webinars and uploading them as blog posts, or cutting snippets of the webinars and uploading them to a landing page where you can request contact info to download the rest of the webinar.
Ready to Take Your Webinar Series to the Next Level With a Webinar Software Platform?
SpotMe offers all the built-in features and integrations possible to turn your next webinar series into a smash hit.
Our platform has you covered for all stages of planning, executing, and following up after your webinar series.
SpotMe offers tons of interactivity options to keep your audience engaged, as well as robust reporting and analytics to help you gauge your webinars’ success.
Use SpotMe to set up fully brandable registration pages that will convert your leads into customers, with built-in reminder emails to drive people to your next webinar.
Learn more about SpotMe Express and super charge your webinars with live engagement and interactivity. Build a trustworthy brand experience and connect with your audience today.
