Webinar Wire

It's Not How Big-It's How Effective

Posted by Wayne Turmel March 9 2008 3:51 PM EDT

Lest this post show up on the wrong search engines, let me clarify here. I'm talking about an issue more and more of our clients are complaining about- small turnouts at their webinars.

Besides all the "webinar marketing 101" advice you'd expect me to give them, there is another piece of advice I them. Stop worrying about attracting the biggest possible audience.

This might seem strange advice but think about it. How many invitations do you get to attend webinars in a week? The average manager in a poll of Cranky Middle Manager Show listeners shows that they are getting 3-4 invitations a week. More webinars to the same audience means you're fighting for a shrinking part of the pie. But that's not all bad news.

Webinars are no longer a novelty- they are part of every smart company's marketing plan. Most of your audience has attended webinars before and are becoming more selective which ones they spend precious time on. No one sits around with a bucket of popcorn saying, "who's doing a webinar today".So why isn't it so gosh-awful if fewer people show up? Because the ones who show up actually want to be there.

Let's face it, if you're really honest the goal all along should not have been how many people attend your webinars- it's how many of those people turn into qualified leads and eventually paying customers. By properly marketing and focusing your presentation, you might get fewer people than you used to, but a higher percentage of them will be interested in what you have to offer them. I'll take 5 well-qualified and hot leads over a couple of dozen looky-loos any day of the week.

Remember these tips:

• Make sure your marketing (especially the title of the webinar) addresses what you can do for them and reasons they need you, rather than how fabulous you or your technology are
• A better metric than how many people show up is how many people who register consider the topic important enough (especially if your webinar is free) to actually show up. If they come when they say they will, they're more likely to have a real need you can address
• Have a clear call to action and a reason for them to stay in touch with you. Offer premiums  if they contact you after the webinar...
• Make sure you have their contact info- phone AND email
•  Record the webinar and have it available on your website for those who register but can't attend for whatever reason. It's another excuse to reach out to them, and even more people will see your presentation after you give it.

Remember... it's not the size of your audience- it's how many of them turn into paying customers. If you pay attention to your marketing message and craft your presentation well, you can boost the percentage of leads converted to real customers, and THAT should be your goal.

By the way, for those of you who don't do webinars but do your product demos over the web, we are now offering monthly public classes in Conducting Great Web Demos. Check us out.