Webinars aren’t anything new, but since the pandemic, the reliance on video conferencing tools certainly increased as a way to communicate with clients, colleagues and partners. ‘78% of the large UK businesses agreed that their company ‘could not have survived through the pandemic without video conferencing tools’. (Parliament, 2021)

The use of video conferencing goes beyond communicating with colleagues and customers, it is an accessible form of communication making your ability to reach new audiences across the globe easier than ever. Instead of geographical restrictions with in-person events, these webinars supply content on-demand no matter timezone or location. Webinars are a fantastic means of driving interest for your product or service, though it can be misunderstood how much time and planning still goes into them. Of course in-person events require a lot more logistical organisation, but webinars still require speakers to source, topics and dates to align, the need for innovative abstracts and descriptions of the session, not to mention all of the promotion in the weeks leading up to it to get virtual people onto virtual seats. No one wants to make all of this effort to have nobody turn up…

We have come up with some extra tips you may not have thought of, to not only increase the chance of those digital bums on seats, but to also drive activity after the webinar has taken place. Content management is no easy task, so why not leverage your webinars into further content to keep the topic live for longer?

Here are a few suggestions to make your content stand out in the sea of social media updates.

Pre-webinar

Video teasers

Will your speakers do a 30 second video to introduce the webinar talking points?

This can be especially effective if your webinar includes external speakers to your company, but don’t rule this out if you only have reps from your organisation.

Will each of them do 15-30 seconds (or more if they are happy to) explaining in a few details what people can expect? Don’t let them give too much away so that people are still intrigued to find out more.

These videos can be done on a mobile or using free software, just don’t forget to ask your speakers what orientation to record it in to give you some consistency.

Once you have these videos you can add a screen/image on the front with your company logo and webinar name, share on your channels, and tag the speakers so they can distribute to their networks too. All of this helps get your message reach wider audiences.

Images are good, GIFs are great

Although you will no doubt have some wonderful images to promote your webinar, considering some GIFs to catch readers attention is a worthwhile activity. This could be showing a few stats, figures or teasers – even a testimonial if that is relevant – to help advertise your virtual event. If you have a Graphic Designer, they can whizz this up in no time, if not, then tools such as Canva can aid you to do this yourself. In essence, don’t limit yourself to static images, if other options are available to you.

Polls at the ready

Most webinar platforms allow you to bring up polls during your session, allowing some audience feedback and participation. If it works for your subject, you can either share some of these polls in your images to highlight what viewers can expect, or you can use tools like LinkedIn Polls to gauge some thoughts ahead of the webinar. It also allows you to reference this back during the webinar to see if the results differ or stay the same. It all adds to the feeling that your audiences are well engaged and you have a strong online presence. These can also be repurposed after your webinar, which is covered further down in the ‘Post-Webinar’ section.

During the Webinar

Taking notes

If a team member is listening in, it is prudent to note down at what points there are conversations which go down a particular interesting route, or anything you may refer back to later. This will help you later on if you decide to create a blog from the content. Especially if you know at about 20 minutes in, the speakers had a great discussion, then you can look at this point in the recording to save searching for longer periods of time.

Post-Webinar

Webinar recording

Save the video locally, add your branding to the start/ end and upload it to YouTube. This allows new audiences to find your content via your YouTube channel as well as via your website. It can also support any Playlists you may already have or wish to create as a result of the webinar. It allows sales and customer success teams to use this content to add further value at various touchpoints with prospects or customers too.

Follow up communication

This may be obvious, but not all companies do it! Or it gets automated in places like the Webinar Software itself, which doesn’t offer a huge extent of personalisation or uniqueness. Take your list of registrants, and send them an email not just with the recording link to YouTube, but other resources that could be beneficial. Whether that be the next webinar in a series, some related blogs or guides. Always look to offer more and exceed expectations. Especially as this email could be shared with other colleagues at the same company. Treat every scenario as a chance to add another person or company to your potential client list.

Video snippets

Using free software such as iMovie, you can ‘chop up’ your whole webinar into bite size chunks. This can be useful for the follow purposes:

  • LinkedIn snippets – ability to use short videos for ads and targeting in specific campaigns
  • TikTok/ YouTube shorts – ideal if your video strategy is strong and you need a regular flow of video content
  • YouTube playlists – create a playlist of short videos on certain topics for more digestible content in terms of watch length and again to add value to your network
  • Sales team outreach – if you have a team of Business Development Reps (BDRs) these short snippets can be really useful in their outreach to differentiate their communications from other organisations

Essentially, if you already recorded your webinar, you have nothing to lose from taking sections from it which are particularly insightful, surprising or thought-provoking for your target audiences.

Blogs to keep the content going

After all the effort of coordinating speakers, diaries, abstracts and so on for your webinar. Why not keep the subject continuing with a blog? To make this slightly easier, you can download the transcript from your webinar software. From this you can take sections from it and rewrite where needed. If you listened to the webinar and noted down certain points of interest, as mentioned earlier, this speeds up the process somewhat.

It can also help you with adding in speaker quotes or citations that may have come up during the virtual event. Don’t forget to obtain sign off if necessary if the content included came from outside your organisation.

Other ways blogs can help you of course is it is another place to embed or link back to the YouTube recording, and once you have a blog page, then your site can benefit from SEO and searchability. Someone may stumble across the blog when perusing your site, giving another chance of prospects finding your organisation and its great quality content.

Repurpose your polls

Did you load polls into your webinar? That is great if you did. You now have even more content that can be staggered across your social channels for another few weeks. By asking your Designer (or using your preferred design tool), you can get new images created which share the stats and percentages that were uncovered during your webinar. It may even spur ideas for future subjects and content.

Conclusion

To summarise, there is a lot of effort that goes into setting up a webinar, and it is great if you can maximise and prolong the content beyond the webinar date. Of course naturally you will advertise and promote the session, but after the event date there are other actions to be considered to help reach new audiences while also considering aspects like SEO.

By picturing the activities before and beyond just the webinar date, you may find yourself with several more weeks of content, and brand new ideas for future activities.

This blog post was written by Claire Allen-Addy, a previous student here at Oxford College of Marketing. Whether you are just starting your career or seeking the next step, a CIM qualification will serve as a trusted companion on your journey towards success. To find out more contact us today.