Online Webinar Promotion 101

Have you got a lot of useful information to share that you feel should be reaching a lot of people? Do you think you can be helpful, engaging, concise, and relevant with this information? If so, an online webinar is the way to go. Simply a seminar on the internet, a webinar gives you the opportunity to host a lecture that can potentially reach thousands or even millions of people.

Because it is online, you have the chance to get your information out into the world where people can access it live or watch it after it has already taken place. This flexibility is one of the main reasons webinars are so popular, but if you can’t reach the amount of people you want, are they really all that helpful? This article will help you promote your webinar using social media and marketing techniques that are quick, easy, and effective.

How to Promote Your Webinar in a Few Easy Steps

Promoting your webinar is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan. If people don’t know about it, how can they watch it? With this in mind, you’ll want to do everything you can to successfully promote your webinar as this will garner the most attention for your cause, business, product, or whatever else you want people to know about. First, however, there are a few things you need to consider before beginning promotion and marketing campaigns.

• Who is your audience?
• What do you hope to gain from this webinar?
• What registration and ticketing services should you use?
• What’s your best angle?

These questions should guide your decisions as you go along and help you map out a clear plan of each step you need to take within the promotional phase.

Audience

If you’re trying to reach parents with young children, you’ll want to try social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter as well as parenting sites, forums and discussion boards where your target audience is likely to hang out.

If your target audience is teens and young adults, a strong social media presence will facilitate the best exposure for a relevant audience.
You’ll want to promote in places where your ideal age group is going to be, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and YouTube.

For older audiences, look into news media handles where articles, blogs, and easy to access content are present. Email will also be highly helpful with an older audience. While each age group has their certain niche, you will want to employ every bit of marketing and promotion strategy you can with an emphasis in one spot or another. Think of it as going after your undergrad degree: you’ve got your general education requirements, your major, and possibly a minor—all are important, but emphasized differently in key places.

Using Social Media

Social media has certainly helped the world in a number of ways. People find out information almost instantaneously and are able to stay connected with one another with little to no effort at all.

When building a business, a campaign, selling a product, or doing anything that requires public interest and attention, you must build an online presence. Social media is perfect for marketing and promotion, and it is also a great way to meet your audience members quickly and efficiently.

Here’s how to use the different social media handles to your advantage:

Facebook/Twitter: Personalize with these platforms. They both allow you to post videos, pictures and personal status updates that can really help you connect with your audience. Let them know about your webinar in a short but informative video, put out the details in a quick status, or even reach out to friends and followers by positing on their wall or tweeting them with important news. Be sure to engage with your audience by following or friending back and offering a real human presence they can trust.

Instagram: Keep your followers up to date with events and behind the scenes looks at what you’re doing. A picture is worth a thousand words, and Instagram is a great place to get talking.

LinkedIn: The perfect platform for professionals, LinkedIn gives your business, cause, or project a feeling of efficiency and experience, making it more trustworthy to your audience. It is also a great way to connect with groups and individuals in your target market. You can also set up and promote events through this platform.

Tumblr/Wordpress/Blogger: These platforms are great places to journal about the goings-on of your business or marketing plan. Keep your audience up to date about your webinar: where it’s going to be, when registration opens, where they can stream it from, how long it’s going to be, etc. Blogging is all about providing a deeper, more personal connection, so show your audience you care while giving them the important information at the same time.

Other Resources

In addition to these tips, try these resources to promote your online webinar.

Online Webinar Promotion Services: Try sites such as Webinarlistings.com, Peelon.com, and NAWBAW that will promote your webinar for free or a small price—look for a variety of options.

Online Registration/Ticketing Services: Try sites such as Eventbrite, TicketLeap, and EventWax. They should handle how many people sign up, buy tickets, and pay to attend your online webinar.

Online Invitation Services: Try these invitation services that are all about helping your reach your audience via email and other social media links: E-vite and Anyvite.

Keep in mind that all of the above require that you have a well-optimized webinar signup landing page to send prospects to, and this page should clarify what the perspective audience can expect to get from your webinar and how to sign up. An effective landing page can make a big difference in converting interested leads into attendees.