10 tips to promote your webinar or virtual event
Tzara Spurrier - 30 June 2021
Are you looking for ways to promote your webinar or virtual event? You might have the best online event going but this alone isn’t enough if you can’t attract the right target audience. To help you with your webinar marketing, we’ve come up with ten top tips to promote your webinar or virtual event.
1. Identify your audience
Understanding your target audience is a great place to start. You probably already have an idea of your marketing personas but you’ll need to analyse their main attributes to target them accurately; characteristics such as their age, gender, location and behaviours are the main factors to consider.
Once you have an understanding of who your potential clients are, then you can start to reach out to them. For instance, knowing how they behave gives you an insight into your audience’s habits and how you might reach them. For example, if you know they spend a lot of time on Facebook, it can help you to know which social channels to promote your event on.
2. Timing
Deciding on the best time to promote your webinar or online event really depends on your target audience.
If your audience are people who typically work all day and come home late, you could consider pushing your webinar later on in the evening during the week or at midday on weekends. On the other hand, your target audience might have young children and plan their days around them; it might be a good idea to push your event whilst their children are at school or when they need to take a nap in the afternoon.
3. Promote on event platforms
Using an event platform such as Eventbrite is a great way to help you organise and sell tickets to events online. It’s really easy to navigate for users and is also great for helping you communicate with attendees pre and post-event; this can help you build a rapport with them and inform them about future events.
4. Set up as an event on LinkedIn
Promoting your online webinar on LinkedIn is perfect for targeting people from the business industry. Although the audience may be smaller, it helps you find exactly the right people – those who will be interested in your event. From this, you’ll be able to make new connections and a wider contact base to spread the word about future events.
5. Google My Business posts
Google My Business posts appear in the app for Google Maps on mobile and appear under your business’ info section in the sidebar on desktop. GMB posts allow you to promote your brand, products and events, all completely free of charge.
They’re also great for helping you boost your visibility for your business, promoting your event to a much audience.
6. Facebook
Reminders are really handy and Facebook events automatically send out reminder notifications to those who have been sent an invite to your webinar. This is also a really good place to post regularly and describe what your virtual event will look like.
It’s also a great way to reach a whole new audience with paid promotion. Not only that, users can mark their attendance by hitting the participate button; this activity will then appear in the friends’ feeds, letting you reach an even wider audience.
7. Instagram
Using Instagram for your business is a great way to promote your event.
Creating Instagram stories can help your audience stay tuned for your webinar. Just like Facebook, you can also schedule a reminder for the exact time and date of your event to make sure no one forgets about your event.
If you have over 10,000 followers or have a verified account, use the ‘swipe up’ to link out to your event – this makes it really easy for potential attendees to get a ticket.
8. Remember to #hashtag
Using a hashtag on social media can help to create conversations around your online webinar. This will keep your audience engaged and helps to keep them in the loop with anything to do with the event.
9. Collaborate with influencers
Influencers are great for building buzz around your event which can generate more engagement. Making your virtual event sound unmissable persuades more potential attendees to take action, whether that’s registering or signing up for an upcoming event or buying tickets straight away.
10. Email marketing
Your webinar might come to an end, but that doesn’t mean you have to cut off contact with your attendees. Dropping them a thank you email after an event will show your appreciation. You can also include highlights from your webinar to allow them to re-watch whenever they like; they’ll love you for it!
We hope this guide has given you some event promotion ideas. Virtual event planning can be tricky, but these tips should help to point you in the right direction when it comes to promoting your webinar or virtual event.
