How to Increase Your Webinar Show Up Rates in 2020
These days, webinars are everywhere. Multiple times a week I get targeted with ads asking me to sign up for a free webinar. They’ve become so common that some say it’s an oversaturated market.
The problem is, now that all the super-successful 7-figure online businesses and the newbie businesses who have never done an online launch before are doing webinars, it’s hard for consumers to know which webinars are going to be valuable for them…
...and which are going to be a waste of time.
What’s worse, everyone is following the same webinar "formula.” (You know the one: a short intro about you, validating "you're in the right place if...", giving 3-5 key points that show them the why instead of the how... all within 45 minutes before going into the pitch.)
People are so jaded on webinars that when they see a new upcoming one, they think, “I'm not going to get much out of it, this is all just a warm up to a pitch…” After attending a few flops, they’re not expecting much from yours (even if you know it’s the information you want to share with the world is really valuable and important!).
… But let's assume you ARE giving a highly valuable and transformative webinar (because teaching about giving transformative webinars is another topic for another day)...
You're an online business committed to changing the world and transforming the lives of your clients, customers, and audience. And you know that a successful webinar can deliver value and transformation to your audience (and of course, fuel your business and its financial health).
Unfortunately, because consumers are so inundated with webinars, there has been a growing trend in people signing up for the webinars… and then not showing up.
Across the board, webinar show up rates are falling. Which means you’re never getting to invite your ideal audience to take the next step with you.
Luckily, there are very tangible ways for you to increase the percentage of people who show up live for your webinar. Get ready for a full house!
6 strategies to make your webinar show up rate skyrocket
1. Provide an exclusive offer to those who attend
Have an exclusive offer ready for your audience, and give it to them toward the end of the webinar to make sure they show up and stay til the end.
Of course, your audience needs to know this offer is on the table in order for this approach to work, so make sure you tell people about the exclusive offer in your promotion.
Need some ideas for your offer? You can’t go wrong with a coupon code for a discount off your services. You could also provide a free e-book or guide that compliments what you teach in the webinar. Another option would be offering early access to sign up for your online course.
2. Host a Prize Draw During the Webinar
This one is in a similar vein as the previous suggestion because, put simply, people love free stuff. And depending on your business, you may be able to give your product away for free to some lucky person. It doesn’t have to be a free course (though people will definitely get excited for that). Maybe you have a service with a lower price point that you can give away. Or, if you’ve written a book that goes along with your webinar content, you could give away a free copy.
Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. If you’ve been talking about it with your audience about your recent obsession with a book or product, that’s another idea for something you could give away, as long as the product itself makes sense with your brand and business.
One of the easiest ways to do the prize drawing would be to keep track of the names of everyone who comes to the webinar and either do the drawing at the end, or send out a later email with the chosen winner.
You can do the prize drawing any way you want, just make sure people know they have to attend the webinar in order to secure the prize — if they sign up but don’t actually go to the webinar, they’re not in the running.
And again, make sure you mention the giveaway in your webinar promotion, so your audience knows they have to attend to be in the running!
3. Host a live Q&A at the end of your webinar
No matter what area your services are in, people probably have questions that you can answer. Adding a live Q&A component to your webinar will raise your show up rate, because people will be more likely to attend the webinar — and not just plan to watch the replay or let it slip their mind — if there’s a chance their specific questions can be addressed.
Try to get the person on your team with the most knowledge or authority on the topic to present this Q&A portion. This is especially important if the person giving the webinar is not the face of the brand. Scheduling a Q&A session with the face of the brand, so the audience gets to communicate with her specifically for a few minutes, will convince your audience that they will get real value out of watching the webinar.
4. Host a webinar after-party
Picture it: you just hosted a killer webinar. You’re feeling totally energized, and your audience is amped up on all the new knowledge they learned. Then the webinar ends… and everyone goes back to their normal life, and all that positive, excited energy you worked so hard for disappears.
There’s a better way.
Keep the conversation going after the webinar is over by hopping on Facebook or Instagram Live. There, you can talk about your experience with the webinar, share your favorite parts, host an impromptu Q&A related to what you just talked about… anything you can think of, but make sure you’re talking up the webinar.
People who watched the whole webinar will be eager to see what yourself and others have to say about this. This makes it seem more real, so you stand out from the cookie-cutter webinars that lack soul. Especially if your webinar is pre-recorded, a live after-party is a great way to reassure your audience that you are 100% present for them.
Meanwhile, the audience who missed the webinar will feel serious FOMO when they hear about how awesome the webinar was, not just from you but from the people who attended. They’ll be way less likely to blow it off next time, knowing that if they do they’ll miss out on all that community bonding. And since that community bonding starts right away, they’ll see how much they’ll benefit from watching the webinar in real time.
Note: if you’re exhausted after the webinar and the last thing you want to do is more engagement and marketing… don’t worry. Your part in the after-party only needs to be a few minutes. Pop in with a post, a Twitter thread, or a live video about what a great time you had, and invite your viewers to keep the conversation going. Ask them questions about what they got out of it, and invite them to engage with one another. If they’re as energized as you want them to be after your webinar, they’ll do the rest.
5. Foster a community
If you want people to be super-thrilled about what you’re doing online, you have to first have a community of like-minded people who see what you’re doing, love it, and want to learn from it.
If you’re in the online course and membership game, you most likely already do this in one way or another. Whether it’s a Facebook group, an Instagram community, or using any other type of social media, you know how important it is to engage with your audience so they see you as a friend more than a business.
This is really important after a webinar, because as we hinted above, you want your audience to have somewhere they can go after the webinar to discuss it. It ties closely in with the after-party — you want your community to be basically like an after-party that never ends!
You don’t want to waste all that wonderful energy that came from the webinar. Channel it into an after-party, as we discussed above. Then, over the next few days, post snippets of the webinar. Maybe it’s a slide, or a short clip of you speaking.
Again, invite your audience to engage with these parts of the webinar. What did they learn? How did their perspective shift? How are they planning to go forward using what they know now?
Let anyone who hasn’t signed up know where they can sign up for future webinars. After seeing how much the community immediately starts discussing what they learned when the webinar is over, your audience members who tend to brush it off and not attend will be eager to watch it in real-time next time.
6. Send out videos with value
If someone isn’t part of your warm audience or they haven't seen you on video before, they might not trust that you can provide them with something important on camera.
They'll be more likely to show up live if you give value before the webinar even begins. By showing them an engaging video about who you are and what you do prior to the webinar, when the time for webinar registration rolls around, they’ll already associate your videos with something valuable and interesting.
So, send videos of yourself in onboarding emails, post videos on thank you pages — anything you can do to prove to your audience that watching a video of your brand will be engaging, interesting, and fun.
Need more help? We got you.
If you’re struggling to make your webinars a success, we got you.
We’ve designed & managed webinar launches for clients for the last 8 years, helping online businesses like yours change the world with a big impact.
Let us help you grow your business.