A PRACTICAL GUIDE

TO WEBINAR SUCCESS

SUPERIOR ONLINE EVENTS

So, your team has decided to run webinars
Confidence is high, since you know the webinar success rates for lead generation,
knowledge sharing, and content marketing.

But where do you even start? How is it all going to work?

This ebook is designed for anyone who wants to create webinars. Reading this will
provide practical tips to help you consider the best structure for your content and it
will also help you set achievable goals.

You will find webinar statistics and good practices on how to run successful and
measured marketing campaigns around your webinars.

CHAPTER 1: PLANNING AND SETTING GOALS

CHAPTER 2: CONTENT & SPEAKERS

CHAPTER 3: MARKETING YOUR WEBINAR

CHAPTER 4: LAST PREPARATIONS

CHAPTER 5: MEASURING WEBINAR SUCCESS

2
CHAPTER 1: PLANNING AND SETTING GOALS

3
As marketers we are always looking for an interesting way to display infor-
mation. But sometimes those who are closer to the action may have ideas
that would otherwise be overlooked. The other members of your company
can be your strongest asset.

Their insight into how your product works, or what existing customers ask questions
about could make the difference between a good webinar, and a superior one!

Remember: Webinars shouldn’t just lie within the marketing team.

Consider engaging others within your company, especially product managers or

technical experts. Their insight can be invaluable.

Get your sales team on-board and let them know about the webinar and how the
webinar is going to benefit them as well. They will become your greatest allies when
it comes to promoting the webinar!

4
Planning
Webinars should be treated the same as any key corporate project. Plan with the end
result in mind - and clearly decide what constitutes success to you and your team.

The planning stage is all about coming up with ideas and putting them into practice.
Now is the perfect time to reach out to that Thought Leader on Twitter to see if
they’re interested.

Set out project timelines for both the content and marketing plan of your webinar.
It’s easy for time to run away with you if you don’t block time into your calendar to get
things done.

*BEST PRACTICE TIP*

It’s impossible to please everybody. However, research shows
that Wednesdays and Thursdays between 12.30-2.00 are
the most popular for running webinars. Always take your
audience into consideration though, their 12.30 might be
your 5.00pm!

5
Here are a few things to consider, when planning your
webinar:
Who: is your webinar aimed at? Do you have a specific persona or audience in mind?

What: is your webinar about. Brainstorm topics and webinar titles that might appeal
to your target persona.

Where: will you host your webinar? Ideally you’ll need a quiet space, book a meeting
room or dedicated webinar area in advance. If you have external speakers make
sure to apply this rule to them too.

Why: have you decided to create it? Is your webinar offering answers to your audience’s
questions? Does it solve any of their problems? Is it helpful and educational?

When: is your webinar? Perhaps the most crucial part. Set a date for your webinar
that works for you and your audience. Make sure everyone in the company is aware
of it.

How: will you run your webinar? There are a number of choices: Live, Pre-recorded
(which can involve some live elements like a Q&A or Speaker sections) or Scheduled
Replay (which is entirely recorded in advance).

*BEST PRACTICE TIP*

Research shows that, on average, between 30- 40% of people
who register will attend the live event. If one of your goals is
to attract a certain number of leads, this is something to bear
in mind

6
Setting Goals
When you have finished the planning and brainstorming portion of the webinar
process it’s time to set some goals.

Setting goals at the start of each webinar project is vital in calculating the overall
success. They can be empirical or observational. If you want to attract 1000 attendees,
that could be a goal. Likewise, ‘developing a reputation of thought leadership’ could
also be a goal.

Not only do goals help you manage the expectations of the rest of the team
(especially sales) but they can also act as flags to guide the webinar creation process
and marketing plan along.

Some tips to consider when setting your webinar goals:

1. Remember to always set goals you can actually achieve. This means that you have
to spend a bit of time on evaluating your current position.
2. Always take your budget and resources into consideration, when setting up your
goals.
3. Make your webinar’s milestones clear for everyone, including yourself and your
team.
4. Approach each of your goals with as much data and information as possible. The
more you know, the more you can do.
5. Break your goals into daily targets. That way, things will not seem so overwhelming
and you will know if you are on track, on any given day.
6. Try to make the process of achieving goals enjoyable for everyone.

*BEST PRACTICE TIP*

Make sure that the rest of your company is on-board with
the goals you are setting and that the goals are clear. Success
to your team might mean gaining 100 sign ups to your
newsletter, but Sales might expect 200 leads, ready to make a
sale. Manage expectations.

7
CHAPTER 2: CONTENT & SPEAKERS

8
Now that you’ve set your goals in place you can start to think about writing
your content. It can seem daunting but, with a little change in perspective,
it’s also the perfect opportunity to be creative and have a little fun. Really!

Give Them What They Want

One of the most common problems with webinar content is a lack of direction. It’s
tempting to begin with an introduction to your company and what you offer. But be
careful you’re not offering a solution before you’ve even discussed an issue.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t keep your own goals in mind. They are key to influencing
what content you will deliver. But, by keeping your audience in mind as well you will
provide yourself with a way to frame that content appealingly.

Things to Consider When Creating Your Content:

1. Try to resist opening with a sales pitch. Your company probably is fantastic, but
that’s not the first thing webinar attendees want to hear.
2. Instead, try opening with an interesting statistic or fact that will hook your audience
and reassure them that they’re in the right place.
3. You can’t solve a problem no one knows they have! Make sure your topic is
relevant not just useful to your own company.
4. Ask yourself whether what you’re writing has genuine value to the people on the
other side of the screen. If it does, you’re on the right track.

*BEST PRACTICE TIP*

Try to keep your webinar presentation between 20-30
minutes with 10 minutes for a live Q&A. This gives you
time to explain your point, but isn’t so long viewers lose
interest.

9
Different Content Styles
One way to continually peak interest is to try and mix up the content styles in your
webinar. If you aim to keep an audience engaged for any length of time, you will need
to give them something interesting to look at.

After all, you’re battling the human attention span here, a grand 8.25 seconds (For
reference, the average attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds).

Different Content Styles to Consider:

1. Embedded video. This is a prime example of mixing content styles. Embedded
video allows you to switch between text, image and video footage (i.e. talking
heads)
2. Image heavy slides that relate to your presentation
3. Copy on slides: Make sure the copy on your slides adds something to your
presentation. Avoid long paragraphs and blocks of text
4. Write a script for with speech in mind. Natural speech is a lot more informal than
the written word.
5. Involve your audience. Many people include live polls and interactions in their
webinars. Additionally, a live Q&A gives you a chance to address queries with
more specific relation to your company.

*BEST PRACTICE TIP*

An average A4 word document with paragraphs equates
to 3 minutes of speech. So for a 20-minute webinar you
will need roughly 6 pages of content.

10
Speakers
It can be great to add an external voice to the mix. It helps to balance the message
and ensures that you don’t just promote your own product or service, which could
turn your audience off.

A panel debate, for example, can be a perfect opportunity to generate great

conversation.

However, not every speaker has something worthwhile to add. So, while it might be
nice to break up your presentation with different voices, think about your content and
audience when considering an external speaker. Will they add anything significant to
the webinar that is missing? If not you might not need one.

Types of Speakers to Consider:

1. Thought leaders with a large following in your niche
2. Influential bloggers who can promote your event to their own audience
3. Academic or Industry experts

*BEST PRACTICE TIP*

The benefit of webinars is that speakers do not have to
be in the same location. But, remember to reach out to
your speaker and remind them of all the details.

11
CHAPTER 3: MARKETING YOUR WEBINAR

12
The first rule for efficiently promoting your webinar is to rank marketing
your webinar equally as important as creating your webinar.

The days of ‘build it and they will come’ are long gone, so spend as much time on
promoting your webinar, as you have spent on creating it.

Statistics recommend that you start marketing your event at least four weeks in
advance, but if you set up your registration early, there’s nothing stopping you from
promoting for a longer period of time.

Actionable Marketing Tip: When marketing your webinar, do not focus that much on
promoting your company. Try to offer something that your audience will find useful/
of value and give your audience just a behind the scenes glimpse of your company
(think storytelling, a group photo, mentioning a colleague, etc.)

*BEST PRACTICE TIP*

When marketing your webinar, do not focus that much on
promoting your company. Try to offer something that your
audience will find useful/of value and give your audience
just a behind the scenes glimpse of your company (think
storytelling, a group photo, mentioning a colleague, etc.)

13
50% OF COMPANIES ARE USING DIGITAL MARKETING,
BUT THEY DON’T HAVE A PLAN!

(SOURCE: SMART INSIGHTS AND TFM&A)

Have a marketing plan in place, for greater efficiency

As a marketer and business-oriented person, you know that you need a plan in order
for things to run smoothly and to be able to measure results.

Webinars are no different, when it comes to the necessity of having a marketing plan
in place.

Here are 9 questions to ask yourself when creating a

marketing plan for your webinar:
1. Who are your team members?
2. Who is your target audience?
3. Which channels will you use to reach your target audience?
4. Is your webinar part of a larger marketing campaign or is it a campaign itself?
5. Is your webinar and its registration page aligned with your company’s identity?
6. Are your objectives, goals and metrics in place? Do you know what you want from
your webinar and can you measure the results?
7. Are you making use of all your marketing resources (email lists, connections,
social accounts, etc.)?
8. If the event is sponsored: are you promoting your sponsor, as agreed?
9. How are you going to develop a relationship with the new contacts obtained
through the webinar?

If you have answers to all of the above questions, you are on the right path.

14
Good Practices
To help you minimize costs and efficiently promote your webinar, we have put together
a few best practices and tips, which will help you build your webinar marketing plan
in the most efficient and effective way possible.

6 good practices to keep in mind, when marketing

your webinar:
1. Keep your campaign unified. Choosing a hashtag for your campaign and webinar
will be a good place to start.
2. Make use of email but don’t spam your list. Send one email to announce the event
(include an option for them to add the event to their calendar), a second another
one to remind them of the event and a third notification email, just before the
event.
3. Make use of social media. Twitter has around 302 million of active users (2015).
Use this opportunity to promote your content and increase your social audience.
4. Don’t be shy to reach out to your connections, if you think they can have an impact
on your webinars’ success.
5. Reach out to bloggers in your niche that can promote your event and that are
willing to cover it, once your live webinar is over.
6. Use paid marketing if this will help you better target your audience. If you use
paid methods to reach out to the right people, like LinkedIn target advertising for
example, your efforts will pay off.

*BEST PRACTICE TIP*

If you plan to feature a Q&A Session in your webinar, make
sure you advertise that as well. Make use of social media
platforms like Twitter to receive and answer questions in
order to generate content and raise awareness for your
webinar and company.

15
CHAPTER 4: LAST PREPARATIONS

16
After all your careful planning and promotion, here you are, just two days
away from the main event!

Now is the time to check everything and make sure that things are in order and work
properly. If you give yourself 48 hours to go over the running order of your webinar it
can help eliminate technical issues and also bring any timing issues or content errors
to light.

No pressure, right?

Here are 5 things to consider and check, before your

webinar goes live:
1. Go through your initial plan (and through plan B) to make sure that everything is
in place.
2. Ask your speakers and organisers if there is anything extra that they need.
3. Have a short brief with your team, and with the event managers if the event is
managed). Make sure everyone knows what is expected of them
4. Triple check your telephone connection, internet connection, microphone
and headset. You can test your connection here. Also, verify that there is no
background noise that could interfere with your webinar.
5. Make sure that you have an extra laptop with all the information needed for the
day of the event. Or even a printed copy of your slides with a script attached.

*BEST PRACTICE TIP*

Test, test, test. Make sure that your webinar is available
across multiple devices, including smartphones and tablets.
After all your hard work you don’t want to prevent people
from viewing your event because they’re not using the ‘right’
device at that moment. WorkCast is developed to work across
all devices and browsers, including iOS.

17
CHAPTER 5: MEASURING WEBINAR SUCCESS

18
What Does Webinar Success Look Like?
Success means different things to different people. However, if you have to
present your outcomes to the board that kind of rhetoric isn’t going to wash.
Defining the ROI of content marketing is an ongoing process that many of us
struggle to define.

This could be because success is multifaceted. There’s immediate success (e.g. how
many people showed up to the webinar) there’s short term success (e.g. how many
leads did you hand over to sales?) and there’s extended success (e.g. how did you
continue to gain results from a single piece of content).

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to chart the success of your webinar, far from it.
But it does come back to the goals you set in the outset.

19
Defining Immediate Success
Immediate success relates to stats and analytics you can access immediately after
the event. This evaluation stage is, perhaps, the simplest to define as it relies on stats
and data you can access directly after your webinar has finished.

On a smaller scale these analytics help you evaluate how realistic your goals were,
how engaging your content is and whether people found your offering relevant or
not.

Platform analytics should help in this stage. The WorkCast Platform, for example, has
in depth reporting features which allow you to judge the immediate success of every
element of your event.

Ways to Measure Immediate Success:

1. Number of Leads: Do the number of attendees match or exceed your attendee
target?
2. Quality of Lead: Do the attendees match your target criteria?
3. Drop off Rate: How long did attendees watch content. If they dropped off after a
few seconds you may need to evaluate why.
4. Engagement Rate: If you included polls and questions, how well received were
they.
5. Extra Downloads: e.g. Did anyone download the eBook?

20
84% OF COMPANIES THAT HAVE A CRM HAVE A LEAD
SCORING PROCESS IN PLACE TO DETERMINE THE
QUALITY OF LEADS.

(DIRECT MARKETING NEWS)

Defining Short Term Success

After working out the immediate success of the webinar it’s time to turn attendees
into leads. How you categorise leads it up to you, but most attendees are likely to be
in the consideration stage of your marketing journey. Unless you have specifically
targeted people who you are trying to convert.

It’s important to have a clear procedure for what action to take with these new leads.
Don’t just send a thank you email and then leave them on their own. Perhaps follow
up with more pertinent content, or (it’s is relevant) a sales offer.

If your webinar platform integrates with your CRM or Marketing Automation system,
like WorkCast does, this may be easier than you think.

Ways to Measure Short Term Success:

1. Getting your leads into a marketing workflow can help you define how receptive
each lead is to your sales message and when to pass leads on to sales. The
workflow should aim to keep regular contact with each lead and can be set up to
follow different routes based on certain positive actions
2. Decide what action you will take after each positive action. It may be that a direct
question during the Q&A warrants a sales call, but downloading the eBook
doesn’t. As an example: If you use HubSpot, you could trigger a sales call after
your lead has interacted with 3 pieces of content. Or drop them into an email
newsletter list if they have had no positive action.
3. Some leads take longer to warm up than others. In other words, patience in this
stage can pay off. Having a workflow setup to manage seemingly uninterested
leads can keep them ticking over, and aware of your product, until they are finally
ready to make a decision.

21
Defining Extended Success
One reason webinars stand out from the content crowd are their ability for extended
success.

A good webinar can become an integral part of future marketing activities with a
little planning. If your content isn’t specific to a specific moment you will find that its
message stays relevant far past the moment you press ‘Go Live’.

Extended success depends on how you leverage your webinars. If you promote
them like crazy before the live event, then never mention them again their extended
success is likely to be minimal.

Ways to Ensure Extended Success

1. One feature that is integral to extended success is the ability to provide on-
demand webinars. This is a recorded version of your live webinar, which allows
any registrants who couldn’t make the live event to watch at their leisure.
2. You can also actively market webinars as on-demand content in the same way
you would promote video content.
3. Make On-Demand Content easy to find. Don’t hide it away on your website, create
CTAs which direct any new leads towards relevant webinars.
4. Consider developing a Webinar Channel. You may find that once you begin to
regularly run webinars it makes more sense to have the on-demand content in
one place.
5. A webinar channel can be embedded into your website to encourage even more
registrations and attendees to your events – ultimately extending the lifespan of
your webinars.

*BEST PRACTICE TIP*

A webinar attendee might not want a sales call within hours
of attending an event. But that doesn’t mean you can’t test
the waters with a strategic CTA in the Thank You email.

22
 WORKCAST: GET READY FOR SUPERIOR WEBINARS

Create Interactive, Fully Customized Webinars & Engage Your Audience

WorkCast is a feature-rich online events and presentation platform developed to

enhance the presenter & attendee experience. From webinars and webcasting
to virtual and physical events, the platform has self-service capabilities or you can
receive support from one of our team of global event managers. We also offer an
audio/visual webcasting services online events with physical components.

Key features:
• Transparent costs, with no hidden fees.
• Self-service or monitored & managed events and support services.
• Fully styled webinars and workflows that match your brand’s identity.
• No plugins or downloads, just online events that work across all devices.
• Interactive presenting: videos, animations and transitions compatible.
• A stable, reliable and scalable cloud-based webinar platform

Learn more about WorkCast’s capabilities:

CLICK HERE TO REQUEST A DEMO

Get in touch
If you’re ready to make your Online Events & Webinars Superior then
we’d love to chat. Call us on +44 (0)844 870 4912

www.workcast.com
© Copyright 2016 WorkCast Corporation. All Rights Reserved