With readily available and user-friendly technology, webinars are easy to produce. The hard part is getting people to register. Your topic may be interesting and your speaker may be engaging, but with most webinars being free to attend and requiring no commitment in terms of travel, it is hard to get people to commit to attending. [Tweet "Webinars are easy to produce. The hard part is getting people to register and attend. #GovEventsBlog"]They may see your email advertising the event pop up in their email box but there is no sense of urgency to register nor is there a driving force to attend since they (usually) do not need to commit money or a huge block of time. So how do you get people to register and then (more importantly) attend your webinars? We've looked around the web for advice and added some of our own in this quick tip list. [Tweet "Tips to drive registrations AND get people to attend your webinars. #GovEventsBlog"]
- Science is on your side - a great deal of research has been done on the best days and times to send out emails to get people to act. Tuesdays consistently come up as the day people are most likely to act on marketing emails. This does not mean you should only send out emails on Tuesdays, but you may want to schedule important messages on that day. In terms of the length of your communication plan, the majority of people will sign up the week of the event but a good number are also signing up in the month prior as well. Don't cut your communication plan short because of the belief, "Everyone waits until the last minute."
- Get creative with your emails - vary up the tone and look of your emails. Send a mix of HTML and plain text. Make some emails straight forward "just the facts" and make others more conversational and personal. If there are a variety of audiences you are looking to attract, craft separate messages that speak to what they are looking to get out of the event and send them accordingly. Finally, don't be afraid to send some emails with provocative titles - be it funny or contrarian to common beliefs (something like 'We Don't Need to Mobile-Enable Everything' or 'Are We Worrying Too Much About Security?'). [Tweet "Don't be afraid to send some emails with provocative titles to drive registrations. #GovEventsBlog"]Make sure you are tracking the results from these different methods and think about changing up your plan to include the types of emails that are driving more registrations.
- Use all your channels - from an organized social media plan to including "ads" on your website to putting a link to registration in the email signature of everyone at the company, make sure you are using every communication channel you have and do so throughout the promotional period. Messaging should be appropriate to the channel, but consistent with the email campaign.
- Incentives - to get early sign-ups offer registrants who sign up early (and then attend) access to a whitepaper, access to the speaker, or a discount off products purchased.
We'd love to hear from you. What tactics have you used to drive higher webinar registrations? What tactics have you seen that have gotten you to sign up for a webinar?
