Q: How is webinar registration like Christmas shopping?
A: A portion of your desired audience responds to early enticements. They sign up at your first email blast, four to six weeks before the webinar. These are the shoppers who go out the day after Thanksgiving in response to the newspaper ads.
A percentage of that group puts your registration confirmation message “in the closet” and completely forgets about it until after the event. You need to remind them to haul out the gift in time to use it!
Another segment of your desired audience puts things off as long as possible. They are the ones out shopping on Christmas Eve. You need to send another email blast along with real-time notices such as Twitter and Facebook postings to rope them in at the last minute.
The third segment falls between the two extremes. They go to the malls or browse Amazon all through the month of December, making more considered decisions and letting items catch their eye. These are the people you need to reach with long-term promotional materials placed where they can be found on the audience’s own schedule. Banner ads on websites, press releases indexed in Google, pay-per-click ads that take your “shoppers” to information pages that give them the rationale and justification to register.
A good webinar promotion strategy acknowledges all the different audience “shopping” behaviors and works to convert them into “purchasers” of your webinar. Don’t think this applies only to fee-based events. People pay with their time commitment just as much as with cash.
