7-minute read
When it comes to lead-generating tactics, there are few that are quite as effective as webinars. In fact, 73 percent of B2B companies rate webinars as their most effective method of generating high-quality leads. This is even more true now that a significant amount of people are still working from home during this pandemic.
And when it comes to hosting webinars, there is no better way to do it than using HubSpot. To help make sure that your HubSpot webinar converts leads into sales, follow these helpful tips.
Allow Viewers to Interact With the Webinar
When someone is watching webinars, they are going to be far more likely to pay attention if they are actually able to interact with the event. That is why you should always try to add an interactive element to your webinar. Even if this is just as simple as allowing viewers to submit comments, then this can go a long way in helping people to feel more connected to the entire experience.
You could even take this a step further and utilize the commenting feature as an opportunity to ask the audience questions during a live webinar and then respond to a few of the best replies. A big part of what makes this so effective is the fact that 92 percent of webinar attendees specifically look for an event to include this feature. So by doing so, you are quite literally giving the people what they want.
But if allowing questions and comments is not something that you are particularly interested in doing, then you can always decide to request that your audience submit questions beforehand on your company's social media accounts. Either way, this is bound to be a very effective method of helping the audience directly or indirectly interact with the webinar.
If you wanted to take a slightly different route to make your webinar more interactive, then you could always decide to include polls during the performance. This makes it even easier for the audience to interact with the webinar because they simply need to hit one button in order to become part of the video. But regardless of how someone decides to make their webinar more interactive, the simple act of doing so is going to have tons of positive features that should hopefully help to increase the conversion rate afterward.
Allow More Registered Spots Than You’ll Need
When it comes to planning a webinar, most businesses are going to have an idea of how many people they are wanting to attend or are going to be able to host at once. For example, some businesses might only have the capacity to host a webinar with 200 or 300 people. There is nothing wrong with this, regardless of whether the number is bigger or smaller. The problem is when you set your number of registered spots to be the exact same as the maximum or the ideal number of viewers for the webinar.
The fact is that not everyone who registers for the demonstration is going to actually watch it live. In fact, it is estimated that the average webinar only has about 44 percent of its registered attendees watching live. Therefore, if you wanted there to be 300 people watching your webinar live and you allowed 300 people to register for the event, then chances are that less than 140 of them will actually be watching when the event goes live. This means that you are essentially wasting 160 spots that could be going to people who might actually be able to convert into paying customers.
That is why it is always a smart idea to oversell the number of registered spots for your webinar. So in the previous case of your business wanting live viewership of 300 people, the smart idea is to offer up about 400 to 500 registered spots. This will help to ensure that the actual number of live viewers comes as close to the ideal number as possible, maximizing the number of opportunities that you have to convert someone into a paying customer.
Pick the Right Day and Time
The idea of “build it and they will come” will only get you so far when it comes to hosting a webinar. While it is true that a high-quality webinar should be able to attract a sizable audience no matter what day or time it takes place, these decisions will still have a major impact on the number of people that actually watch it live. That is why you need to make sure that you are picking a day and time for your webinar that is going to work for the vast majority of people.
As far as the day goes, the best options for hosting a webinar is going to be Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Hosting a webinar on any other day of the week will likely result in only a very small portion of people actually watching it live. However, by choosing one of these three days, it should help you secure at least 24 percent of your total attendees when it goes live.
And if you really want to maximize the number of live viewers, then you should try to make the webinar take place sometime between 10 a.m. and noon. By having a late-morning webinar on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, you will help to set yourself up for success by making the webinar work for as many people as possible.
Send Out Frequent Reminder Emails
With about a quarter of people registering for webinars at least two weeks beforehand, it is understandable that they might forget that it is even happening. That is why it is such a smart idea for you to send out regular reminders through these people in the form of some friendly emails. By sending out one well-crafted email reminder every few days leading up to the date of the webinar it will help to keep your registered attendees aware of when the date is so they do not forget about it.
By following these helpful tips, you should be able to set up a webinar through HubSpot that is sure to blow the socks off of anyone watching it, which should hopefully lead to better sales numbers. If you need even more help to create other great inbound marketing content, then don't be afraid to check out our Inbound Services Marketplace today.
