Effectively Increase Webinar Attendance With These Simple Attendance Growth Building Techniques.

You’ve taken the time to develop the most awesome webinar event possible. Your script of topic points is in place, your funnel is solid, and the number of registrants is minimally acceptable, but you still feel like you’re missing something. You know there is more you can do to seal the deal and make sure you have enough participants to not only cover costs, but see a little ROI for your efforts. Turns out, my friends, some amazing tools & tricks can be used to increase your webinar attendees by at least 15%.

Successful Hat Tricks Start with a Plan

Ever heard of a hat trick? Well, the term is most used in soccer and hockey, meaning successfully nailing three kinds of a specific task. In this particular case, we have 3 goals that need to be achieved for as many of your registrants as possible:

1)      Provide interest to potential leads to evoke them to learn more.

2)      Provide valuable and insightful webinars to solidify your authority & credibility.

3)      Have registrants and attendees purchase seats, products or services based on your targeting efforts.

Hmm. When it’s put out in a 3-step process, it doesn’t seem that bad, right? Well, there are a lot of behind-the-scenes activities that these steps do not tell you about. Let’s say you have already generated a good amount of leads or registrants for your webinar and now you need to focus on getting those who have signed up, to attend.

Generating leads for webinars is not that bad, it’s getting people to pull themselves away from their day to stop in and see what you have to say. You’re in luck because the digital world keeps advancing and with those advancements, come tools that help make your job a little easier.

Increase Webinar Attendance By Leveraging The Power of Chatbots

Did you know chatbots produce higher open and click-thru rates than most email campaigns? The average is around 92%. Say WHAT! Still scratching your head trying to figure out why you haven’t been putting them to use for your webinar yet? It turns out; they can help out a lot for your webinar marketing campaign to help increase attendance, and so much more.

Here a just a few benefits chatbots bring to the table:

• They can be used to drive new webinar registrants.
• Automatically extends your reach to thousands of people at one time.
• Can be used in your email signature
• Send an automated follow-up message for people who said they were interested but didn’t register for the webinar
• Conduct polls before and after the webinar event to gather more information on your audience
• Chatbots can use audio, video, images, and text in your messages
• They can automatically send reminder messages, a week before, the day of, and even minutes before your event.

As I said, these are just a few, but let’s discuss one essential feature chatbots can offer to your online seminar. Sure, the idea of chatbots sounds straightforward, right? They inform your customer of your brand and answer their questions, but what about actually making conversions and getting people to register?

Chatbots have post-trigger comments, meaning they can react to certain answers given by the user. For instance, if your chatbot popped up and asked a potential prospect if they would like to attend your special online event, then if the user answers with a yes or clicks the auto yes button, your little worker will present instructions and steps to have them register for your webinar.

From here, using the above tactics to help build a clear understanding of your customers, along with reminders and witty updates about industry news will certainly aid in generating fresh webinar registrants and ensuring that they actually attend!

Using Facebook For Retargeting and Reminding

Did you know that you could be using Facebook Ads to target those who have seen your registration page, but left before they were able to sign up for your incredible webinar? You can do this by using Facebook Pixel, which allows you to remarket to people who saw your registration page and did not make it to the “Thank You” page.

This is a huge opportunity for you to increase webinar registrations. Start by dropping two different pixels, one for the registration page and one for the “Thank You” page. You will need to create an ad for those who made it to the “Thank You” page, reminding them of your upcoming event.

Check out the typical journey Facebook retargeting goes on to find your prospects and bring them back around to you:

As you can see, there are several chances for you to regain those lost clicks as long as you know where to go. Besides, there are over 1.25 billion users active on Facebook daily, so why on Earth would you miss the opportunity to put yourself back in front of them again.

Be sure that you are aware of what tactics and strategies your competitors are using so that if you spot something that works, you can capitalize on what’s working for your competition, and do it better.

SMS: Yes, Reminder Text Messages Still Work!

Now don’t get me wrong, I STRONGLY DISLIKE reminder texts!

Who doesn’t? They are extremely annoying and seem to be timed for delivery at the most inconvenient of times, generally during my morning alarms, ruining my 3-SNOOZE routine.

If the messages contained any actual pertinence, then it would not be as bad. Marketing for your webinar should not come of this mundane or ordinarily typical. So what does a good event-based SMS message usually consist of?

It depends.  You are probably wondering what it depends on, but try to think globally for a moment. When you sent a text message, you are now reaching directly into that person’s life, and for what? To remind them of an upcoming event, or to try to entice them to sign up for that event.

What? Really? You are going to bug someone and interrupt their daily life for a simple reminder? This is what separates those who get basic results, from those who achieve desired results.

The secret sauce of your competitors may not work for you here, as should be simple, meaningful, and drives action. So is there a one-size-fits-all SMS message that we can just use to plug and play? Yes, several actually. Below are two great examples, but you will need to make sure your platform can handle certain features contained in the messages:

Example 1#

Seats are filling up for [EVENT_NAME], and it looks like a great turn out. We are ensuring there are no gaps to fill in last minute, so thanks for signing up! Respond (y) if you still plan on coming so we can save your place.

Do you see the structure of this message? It lets them know that the event is special, and so are the places reserved. It also goes a step further to thank them for at least saying they will come. Then to wrap it off, it asks them to respond in order to keep their place. Pretty clever, but the message is a little long, so let’s look at a shorter version:

Example # 2

[EVENT_NAME] is coming soon. To save your seat, text (y) back to confirm attendance and your spot.

Wow!

Short, concise, and action-driven to the point it is almost mindlessly simple and converts. Provides a brief reminder of the event, and then gives them a decision to make. Plain and simple. This version uses the power of instantaneous thought to provoke the user to respond to the message before resuming on with their life.

Believe it or not, this creates a relationship with the lead prior to the event and gets them in the habit of making quick, succinct decisions that are typically marketed before, during, and after your webinar. SMS is not dead, just the thought of sending mindless reminders. Users will remember what they have had to act for, not what they were told to remember.

Linking Reminders In LinkedIn

In case you are living in the stone ages, LinkedIn is a great platform to connect with valuable leads, potential partners, and future investors. Not to mention you can notify or remind people of your upcoming webinar event two different ways.

The Traditional Way:

The way of the dinosaurs relied heavily on individually searching for each attendee’s name and company via LinkedIn search. Then you can choose to connect with them and provide a quick personal message about how you are happy they signed up and excited to see them at the event.

…

Sorry, I feel asleep trying to track down all of my leads by hand. Waking up and coasting into the digital era, let’s consider the beauty of automation (my personal favorite). This can be done by properly setting up your systems to do this automatically.

Introducing Ease-of-Integration into LinkedIn:

Depending on your selected software, some providers like JetWebinar lets you integrate your webinar software directly with your LinkedIn, giving your reach the even more strength. This level of integration allows people to register for your webinar in one-click.

They can complete webinar registration simply by clicking the “Allow Access” button on LinkedIn when prompted, giving LinkedIn permission to share their name, company, and email address.

Ah, the greatness of advancement. Doesn’t the second method sound much easier than having to become a research analyst to find all of your attendees?

While knowing the platforms to reach your audience on is important, your tailored brand’s message is what will bring in results. Be sure you spend time testing your messages as several will be needed for different phases of your funnel.

There are still more ways to increase your webinar attendance. You’ve spent all of this time and effort getting them to sign up or at the very least getting them to your landing page, so shouldn’t you make sure you’re doing everything you can to increase webinar attendance?

Make Your Way with Calendar Reminders

If you are not into trying any of the above methods to increase webinar attendance, then at the very least, implement this very crucial Reminder Marketing Tool: Calendar Reminders. Providing your registrants with the option to add your event to their calendar is vital.

I’m not just saying this to get street cred, seriously, this is a very important strategy for a couple of reasons:

Being added to a registrant’s calendar is like having an open-door invitation to their notifications on their mobile devices. You are being welcomed into their schedule, and this privilege should not be abused.

If you have properly optimized your messages and notifications, then your leverage on persistent presence will always be at the forefront of their thoughts. Think about it, you are on their calendar, and once they have added you, there is no easy way you can be ignored at this point. Use your calendar privilege to your advantage.

Another great thing about calendar reminders are the actual reminders themselves. Depend on how persistent you are willing to be, you can set reminders at 72 hours, 48 hours, 24 hours, and you can even set 60-minute warning reminders, as well as a 10-minute and 1-minute reminder.

This is an awesome method to use to make sure they are not forgetting about your webinar and creates a level of urgency to attend. Pretty cool, huh?

Pre-Webinar Engagement Blasts

Once they’ve signed up for your webinar, giving you their email details and probably a name at the very least, it is time to integrate them into your email marketing funnel to start engaging them and getting them used to seeing your brand and the great offers you have.

If you are a little unsure on where to start with your email campaign, then you should take a look at our special “Easy Template Email Marketing Campaign” folder found in our Growth Hack University community resource center.

There we provide great email examples, and you can also get a peek at my confirmation email template and several other email templates that fit inside your webinar marketing funnel.

There we show, I show you how to build a rapport with your audience, help set clear expectations, and give them essential steps in what to look out for next.

Once you have gathered your prospect list, it is time to send out your engagement email, just a small quick survey or short form that is sent to the attendees asking them what sparked their interest to sign up and what their top 3 questions they have about your webinar.

This creates a sense of belonging to the webinar, as now that has provided something specific and want to see if it will be covered in during your online seminar. Score!

The Homepage is Where the Magic Starts

When people hit your homepage, and you have an event or webinar in the works, you better believe there should be something on your landing page letting every visitor know of your upcoming webinar. For those who have registered already, this acts as a reminder to those users while also potentially collecting new leads to increase webinar attendance for your event. Need some direction? Don’t worry; we aren’t stingy with our secrets. Check out these useful tools that have helped us in the past:

• Hellobar.com
• Sumo.com – Freemium Service

These little tools can work magic and help increase conversions and do you know what that means? More visitors are attending your webinars!

The Final Hoorah: Email Roundup

Last but not least, it’s time to get back to your email marketing funnel because a successful webinar campaign is going to have a solid email drip to support it. Keep your audience engaged every step of the way. Get back to the Email Template folder and start instilling real thought-provoking values in your audience today. We’ve got your email funnel needs covered with several categorical emails specifically designed for each stage of your webinar email marketing campaign.