How to Use Webinars for Lead Generation (Pre-Promotion, During and Post)

Webinars provide easy and convenient access for people to learn something new such as a new skill, exploring new interests, finding inspiration, or solving an immediate problem. More importantly, webinars are a good tool for identifying potential leads for your business. Here is how you can use webinars for lead generation:

Pre-Promotion

When creating a topic for a webinar, keep in mind what the attendees would actually find useful instead of what would immediately benefit your business the most. Instead of doing a webinar on why people should buy your product or service, do a webinar on troubleshooting a common issue or on how you can use the same product or service in a different way.

Occasionally, some companies choose other speakers to host their webinars. This allows for a fresh point of view as well as access to the hosts online network. Just be mindful that the selected host is qualified to speak on a specific topic as well as engaging.

Part of your promotional strategy should certainly include social media. There should be a variation of posts including specific details about topic, time, date and registration link. But there should also be creative posts featuring the hosts, panelists and industry stats built around the topic. The social media campaign should start up to a month before the big day and social media posts should go out twice a week. 

Going Live

There are lots of options to host (and record) your show: GoToWebinar, WebEx, Zoom, and LiveStorm. Some of these platforms also offer an opportunity to make your webinars interactive. Viewers can type in questions, engage in breakout rooms, take polls and more.

During your webinar, someone should be monitoring the chat. This is a great way to identify opportunities to connect with interested attendees in real time and for future reference. The person monitoring the chat can quickly answer questions and share necessary links with all attendees or individual attendees, if necessary. 

Post-Production

Your webinar went off without a hitch- congrats! After your webinar and show notes are finished, now is the time for strategic follow-up. An email campaign thanking attendees for participating should be sent out within 24 hours. 

This includes thanking them for listening, sending them more information to create a potential lead, attaching the recorded webinar itself and the slideshow, and a post-webinar survey. Some webinar shows go as far as recording the video and posting it on YouTube for future reference.

When reviewing your show notes internally, you can refer to webinar reports that display your attendees’ engagement level over the course of the webinar to help determine what you can do better next time.