An effective webinar strategy consists of three parts. Attraction, Delivery, and Follow Up. In this article we will discuss the best practices for your webinar registration page so you can maximise the conversion of the visitors you get to land on your page to registered attendees – a vital part of the attraction phase.

Your webinar registration page plays a pivotal role in the success of your online event. When visitors land on the registration page it is the point in which they will decide if they are prepared to hand over their treasured contact details (and money if it is a paid webinar). To maximise your success there are 5 best practices that you should follow to increase the number visitors who become registrants for your event.

Clear Headline

The headline on the registration page needs to capture the readers’ attention whilst also providing a reason for them to stay on the registration page and not click off to another page. To achieve this the headline needs to be attention grabbing and emotive – talking to the specific needs your target markets for the webinar that gives them reason to give you an hour or so of their time to watch your webinar presentation.

There are several successful strategies that you can combine to create great headlines that will attract clients to your webinar.

Webinar Headline Strategy 1: Lists and Numbers

Provide tangible outcomes that attendees will get by using specific numbers. The numbers can represent the number of “things” your attendee will learn on the webinar or the specific benefit they will get by implementing the information you’ll share with them. For example, an insurance broker could use the webinar headline

“10 simple strategies you can implement today to get smaller premiums”

or

“Simple Strategies to save consultants $2197 a year”

Webinar Headline Strategy 2: Address each individual reader

In speaking, one of the changes I often help clients make is to address the language used in a presentation to make it personal. Rather than having language that reinforces we are speaking to a group we need to adapt our phrasing to personalise it for the audience. For example rather than asking an audience “Who here lives in Sydney?” I help clients rephrase the question to “Raise your hand if YOU live in Sydney”

With headlines the same principle applies. The most effective headline will speak to the individual reading it. Rather than generalising a statement as if you are speaking to a group an effective headline utilises language that speaks to the one person looking at the screen.

Which of the webinar headlines below get your attention and interest?

“Better Sales Strategies”

or

“5 Strategies to make you a better Sales Person”

I expect it is the second headline… Do you see the difference? The second addresses an individual and it utilises specific numbers (from webinar headline strategy 1).

Webinar Headline Strategy 3: Speak to the biggest needs/concerns of the audience

To be a success a webinar must address the issues and challenges that the target attendees face. As such the headline needs to clearly state the needs and of the target audience and why they should take the time to attend the webinar. The headline above does this; “5 Strategies to make you a better Sales Person”. It addresses the self-interest of any sales person – being better so they can earn more commission. And it articulates exactly what they will receive when they attend to solve their issue (i.e. 5 strategies that will make them better).

Who is speaking and What time

When there is confusion in the mind of the visitor to a web page they will not act. Instead they simply click off to another page where they can find their needs met more easily. To alleviate confusion and relieve any tension they have you need to clearly articulate when the webinar is and who is presenting the webinar.

With the date and time you will want to clearly state the time zone you are delivering the presentation in. Within Australia we have four separate time zones during the summer months, and if you are targeting audience members in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth you will need to ensure that they know when the webinar will be live relative to where they live.

You will also need to include a hero shot of the presenter or presenters to provide the social proof that the event is genuine. A simple headshot is all that is required – one that displays your professionalism. Unless you are delivering a webinar on surfing a picture of you at the beach is not appropriate. A small bio outlining your expertise can also be beneficial – however you need to ensure it highlights your experience and expertise relative to the content of the webinar.

Benefits

In summary form, and no more than 5 or 6 bullet points must highlight the major benefits the audience will get by attending the webinar. It is important to avoid the temptation to describe the features you will cover in the webinar. What do I mean? When trying to articulate our services to clients we often describe the features of our products and services hoping/expecting that our client can see the fantastic benefits of using our services automatically. This occurs because we are often so passionate that we forget that not everyone lives and breathes our services like we do.

To overcome this we need to constantly be asking ourselves why our clients use our products and services… For example, I don’t engage a personal trainer at the gym because I want someone to craft a personal exercise program for me. The benefit for me when I engage a personal trainer is that I maximise my exercise time and get better results than I can on my own.

For every “feature” that you plan to cover in your webinar you need to translate it to a benefit by answering, “why will a client use this product/service feature? and what will they get as a result?”

Call to Action

The best-written headline, well crafted benefits, and a great hero shot will be rendered impotent if there is not a clear call to action telling the visitor to the page what to do next. You need a button that encourages the reader to act and click it… From the elementary “Register Now” to “Save my Seat” you need a button that creates an urgency that promotes action.

For maximum effectiveness this should be coupled with reassuring “fine print” and a scarcity reminder. The fine print text is there to reassure the reader that they can trust you with their email address because you will never spam them! And the scarcity factor is to alert them to the fact that there are a limited number of “seats” on the webinar to encourage them to act now rather than defer their registration ‘till later.

Minimal Information Required

Webinar tools, such as GoToWebinar, provide you the opportunity to tailor the data you require webinar registrants to provide before they can claim a “seat” at your event. The more data you request a client to enter the less likely they are to complete the registration. For example GoToWebinar provides twenty standard fields for you to include on your registration page (if you want). You need to balance the desire to know as much as you can about potential clients versus getting “bums on seats” and having people register for your event.

I prefer to keep things simple; name and email address is sufficient. If you have a well crafted registration page with the other elements we have discussed above visitors to the page will often “self filter” and not register if they are outside of the market you are trying to reach.

The first step in conducting a successful webinar is to get the audience you want to register. The five best practices we have outlined above will help you maximise the effectiveness of your webinar registration page so you can get the largest audience possible made up of the clients you want to communicate with.

If you want help with your next webinar contact Mark today and request a free online consultation