Webinars provide a great opportunity for advisors to create high-quality content while promoting their brands and services. And because webinars require no additional overhead costs, once produced and hosted, this particular strategy is incredibly cost-effective.
One might ask themselves how to host a webinar. Or what is a webinar? A webinar should not be thought of as a sales process. Rather, it is about providing value to current and prospective clients. In this blog post, we will look at how you can use webinars to generate more leads in 2023. Feel free to check the table of content below to jump to a particular topic.
What is a Webinar?
A webinar is simply an online video workshop, lecture, or presentation. Often business-related, these sessions are used to share knowledge, inform on new ideas and update people worldwide. They can also be used to improve relationships, strengthen bonds, promote/demonstrate a product, or build authority around a brand. In short, it’s an “online classroom” where you learn with other “students.”
Up to 40% of webinar attendees become qualified leads.
How Should You Prepare For Your Webinar?
Preparing for each webinar can be different. However, this is the baseline prep that we like to follow at FMG to get ready for upcoming webinars:
- Choose a time
- Choose a title/topic
- Identify your technology (and test it)
- Appoint a moderator
- Start mapping out your presentation and agenda
- Prepare an expert guest speaker (If applicable)
Webinar Ideas
Webinar ideas/topics can be hard to craft. Here are some to get you started and inspired:
- Timely matters: Discuss pending legislation or quarterly market recaps.
- Focus on your niche: Do you have a specific audience, such as doctors, business owners, retirees, etc.? Choose a topic that discusses their concerns.
- Evergreen topics: Taxes, social security, and Medicare are reliable, evergreen topics for any time.
- General wellness: Topics like nutrition, post-college planning, and even real estate updates can easily transition into financial services. These topics can be a great opportunity to work with a guest speaker, too, allowing both of you to expand your potential audiences.
When Should You Have Your Webinar?
Choosing the optimal time to host your webinar can be a tricky decision. However, it’s no secret that timing is everything, so take into careful consideration when you host your webinar to ensure that it gets the highest amount of attendees possible. LiveWebinar found that 10-11 am was the best time for the highest-attended webinars.
What Tech Should You Use to Host Your Webinars?
Before you can determine which tools you want to use for your webinars, first ask yourself some critical questions. Some things to consider:
- What is the setup and registration page going to look like on your website?
- How many seats can you set within your allocated budget?
- Do they offer any email capabilities to send reminders to registrants?
- What in-app engagement features do they offer (Think polls, chats, Q&As, etc.)?
- Will the software integrate with your CRM or other marketing platforms?
Once you have an answer to those questions, you’ll be able to better decide upon the most optimal technology for you to use.
Pro Tip: Learn the technology BEFORE hosting!
Along with choosing the webinar providers, there are a few other tech tools you’ll want to have available:
- Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint to build your presentation/slide deck
- Microphone
- Computer
- Headphones
- Hardwire Internet connection (ideal but a strong WiFi connection will suffice)
How Should You Promote Your Webinar?
Promoting your webinar is just as important as hosting the webinar itself. Without this step, the effort you put into your webinar will all be for nothing. After all, how are you supposed to get registrants if they don’t get the memo that you’re hosting an upcoming webinar?
Landing/Registration Page
Before you can start promoting your webinar in emails, social media, ads, etc., you need a place to collect registrations.
Now that you have a dedicated registration page to drive people, one of the first avenues you’ll want to promote your webinar on will be via email. Try sending a series of emails to your current contacts about the upcoming webinar to encourage them to register. You can also incorporate information about your upcoming webinar into your other communications, like newsletters. The best approach to generating the most webinar sign-ups is to set up a series of emails:
- Initial invitation – 15 days out from the webinar date
- Confirmation – To be sent when someone successfully registers
- Reminder #2 – 8-14 days out from the webinar date to those who haven’t registered yet
- Reminder #3 – 1-7 days out from the webinar date to those who still haven’t registered
- Final reminder – To be sent the day of your webinar date as a “last chance to register”
- Post webinar – To be sent 24-48 hours after your webinar to attendees and non-attendees with a link to the recording (see further information below about this important email)
Social Media
Social media is a great promotion tool in general, so why not utilize your social media platforms to promote your webinar? Create social media posts that include both imagery and a registration link to the webinar to encourage people to register. Bonus – you’ll not only gain more registrants, but you’ll also gain more followers as people will share your posts.
Invite Key Influencers
Hosting webinars is great, but co-hosting webinars with well-known industry influencers is even better. If you know someone in the industry with a strong background in your topic, then this would be a great time to do a webinar together. This is a great way to show that you are a thought leader in the industry and surround yourselves with influential people that can provide additional insight to your company and your audience. Additionally, if you invite someone to join you on their webinar, then they are more likely to invite you or someone from your team to share your knowledge with their audience in the future.
Leverage Your Homepage
Your homepage is the most visited page on your website, so you should be using that to your advantage. Try strategically placing a call to action or link to register for an upcoming webinar somewhere on your homepage to garner more attention and attendees.
What Post-Webinar Communications Should You Implement?
Congrats, you did it! You’ve successfully hosted your webinar, but now comes the most essential part – communicating with your webinar leads post-webinar. Below are some tried and true post-webinar communication strategies to help close the deal and convert those leads into clients for your advisory business.
Pro Tip: Don’t overdue post-webinar communication, so it’s best practice to choose one strategy to implement.
- Send a follow-up email to ALL who registered and include a link to your calendar to book a meeting to discuss further (Pro tip: segment your registration list by attendee and non-attendee and send two different emails).
- Ask attendees to complete a survey to gauge their interest in future webinar topics
- Encourage them to subscribe to your newsletter or blog
- Share your social media profiles to encourage them to follow your accounts
- Create a blog post with a replay – Embed the video recording, include a call to action (CTA), and upload the slide deck to SlideShare to include
How Should I Follow Up to Convert Webinar Attendees?
Step 1: Identify Hot Leads
A hot lead is someone who is actively seeking a solution to solve their pain point and has shown interest in your services. When it comes to identifying hot leads from your webinar, there are a few key attributes to look for in those that attended your webinar:
- Time spent in the webinar
- Engagement levels
- Responses to survey questions (Pro Tip: Ask attendees DURING the webinar if they are interested in your services)
- Previously attended webinars
- Past marketing touches
Step 2: Follow-Up #1 (Week 1)
After you’ve sent your initial email with the webinar replay (see above), you’ll want to send another email encouraging leads to book a time on your calendar within a week.
Step 3: Follow-up #2 (Weeks 2-4)
If the lead has not yet booked time on your calendar from the previous email, your next follow-up email should be a follow-up with relevant content. Why? Checking in a month after the webinar will help deepen the conversation, and sharing relevant content from your blog, YouTube channel, etc., will help you stay top of mind.
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