Webinars have been around for long, but it’s the pandemic that made it a valuable tool in the marketing arsenal. At least, that’s when my company (at that time) decided to go full guns on the webinar initiative. Owing to the pandemic-induced shutdown of industry events, we could get the leadership buy-in to spend more time, effort and resources on webinars.
In a span of about 1.5 years, I successfully orchestrated 25 webinars end-to-end. Based on my experience of initiating and leading the webinar series, I would like to share my experience-led expertise on the best practices.
1. Start when you can sustain
Start the initiative only when you have the pipeline ready for at least 12 months. This doesn’t mean you’ve every single detail documented. But you must ensure you have the wherewithal to sustain the webinar for the next 12 months.
Like every marketing project, a webinar needs some gestation time before it starts delivering results. If your series halts after a few months, the effort may go wasted. And, this effort could have been better channelized in some other task.
If you’re uncertain about how long you can continue the effort, it’s best to pause until better clarity emerges.
You need:
- The list of webinar topics
- Webinar speakers
- Requisite webinar material (slide deck, handover, etc.)
2. Start with strategy
While many companies aim to use webinars to establish their thought leadership, it may not necessarily be right for them. It’s possible their catchment segment doesn’t trust them with thought leadership-level stuff yet. Or, they would rather go to other big names for this purpose.
Your customers and prospects may be more interested in webinars that highlight your current capabilities. Because that’s where they recognize you as an established brand that can help improve their bottom line.
Nothing wrong in pursuing thought leadership webinars. But the leadership must be apprised of the fact that, at least initially, the efforts-to-results ratio will be discouraging.
It’s best when you start with this clarity in mind.
3. Decided the campaign runway
Longer timelines will be forgotten. Shorter spans don’t get enough runway to take off.
A month is typically just the right amount of time to maximize outreach.
Go for 2-3 social media posts and 1 email each week.
For social media, consider both images and video bytes from webinar speakers. Nothing elicits more trust and credibility than the speakers promoting their webinar in 30sec to 1 min video byte. The normal smartphones are adequate for video bytes. Though access to a video editor can make it better.
I’ve written two newsletters on how to write a marketing email.
4. Have 2 dry runs
Many experts are not digital-natives. Even when they are, the webinar day must not be the first time the speaker is handling the webinar software. We do not want surprises at the last minute.
Have 2 dry runs. The first can be 3-4 days before the webinar date. The second can be just the day before it.
5. Assume people are busy
While one email a week is good enough for the first 3 weeks, we need more reminders for the webinar week.
Ideally, the 4th email is best placed one day before the webinar. This is when people really check their calendar and see if they can attend.
A 5th email, an ultra-brief reminder, can be sent one hour before the webinar. This is for registrants who are keen to attend, but may miss it at the last minute due to some other pressing issue.
6. Engage Audience
I would suggest at least 2 polls, at the beginning and the end, to improve audience engagement. One more in the mid-point could be even better.
It’s better if the 1st and last poll can gauge (before webinar): (after webinar) thoughts of the audience. It’s a litmus test to the webinar’s efficacy.
7. Post webinar follow-up
Follow them hot on heels. If planned well, the edited webinar is typically ready in 2-3 days. A follow-up email helps the attendees revisit things they wanted for further clarity. For absentees, it’s an excellent non-salesy way to touch base.
It’s best to mention the webinar speakers’ email in the follow-up email, so that people can directly reach out to them for more details. Since the webinar speakers are typically subject-matter experts, this won’t appear salesy too.
8. Repurpose webinar content
Many companies sit on a treasure trove of content without realizing it. The webinar recording can be sliced for a wide range of snackable content. For example, video bytes, infographics, poll-result creatives, blogs, atomic essays, etc.
These repurposed snackables can be leveraged to improve social media engagement.
Musings by Madhav 
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