WebAttract ran a poll through LinkedIn asking people to vote on the biggest pain point in producing and managing webinars. The winner, by twice the vote over the runners-up, was “Audience attraction.” You can create a great presentation, rehearse the heck out of it, give a boffo delivery, and still have nothing to show for it if nobody watches.
I used to be director of product marketing for a software company, and there’s nothing special about webinars in this regard. No matter the communications channel we choose, we’re all desperately trying to find ways to make our message get noticed and acted upon. Meanwhile, our audiences are increasingly being paralyzed into inaction by the sheer volume of marketing messages thrust at them in every facet of their lives.
At Webinar Success, I usually don’t concentrate on helping my clients market their webinars. Sure, I’ll offer advice and help craft better copy for invitations and reminders, but the tactical aspects of running marketing campaigns take too much time and detailed oversight. I’ve been there and done that… I’m happy to let other marketing specialists take over that part of the game.
Here are some resources that might help you as you look for ways to make your webinar promotion efforts more effective (or cost effective, which is a separate concern).
I have been covering webinar listing sites on this blog as I discover them. My personal favorite is still EventSpan for the range of features it offers and the ability to get web-embeddable widgets that help you promote your event and drive registration from sites other than the listing directory. Other listing services include Finervista, Webinar Base, Webinar-Directory, Webinar Hero, and WebinarListings. Some of these services offer included or optional social media and SEO tie-ins. You can do a search on my blog for reviews of the services.
Webinar Resources is a services company dedicated to customer acquisition, with full marketing and promotion assistance including tracking, testing, and sales integration. Quantum Leap Marketing is more of a general sales/marketing company, but with a strong emphasis and experience in webinars. Bulldog Solutions is another full service marketing agency that knows their way around webinars and how to run a serious marketing campaign.
There are a million marketing specialists, websites, and blogs that all have valuable tips for making your marketing efforts more effective. Honestly, I could list them all day long. I always read Seth Godin for meta views on thinking about how you choose to run your business and interact with your customers, but don’t go there expecting specific tactical tips. For that, I like what Jep Castelein has been writing on the Connected Marketer blog. MarketingSherpa is the 800-pound gorilla of marketing research and resources. Don’t overlook it. MarketingProfs is another very well known and respected general marketing site. I know, I know… I left out your site or your favorite. Sorry about that. Please feel free to write it in with a hyperlink in the comments section. I’ll allow blatant self-promotion on this post!
I’ll end up with two interesting developments I just saw in conjunction with webinar marketing and promotion. PresenterNet gave me advance notice that they are going to allow their customers to embed the webinar attendee console directly on a web page. That means your attendees never have to leave your site or log in to another domain name when joining a webinar. You can promote and run your webinar all on your own site. Pretty neat. There should be more details and documentation coming out soon.
Business Expert Webinars just announced the Schedule Promo Generator for affiliates who produce and deliver webinars through BEW. It lets businesses or associations group all their upcoming BEW webinars on a single page under a private branded header, along with a discount code to encourage paid registration. Here is a sample collection page, which looks prettier than just about any other listing collator I have seen.
Comments are open… Add your resources and service providers!
