BACK STORY | Our early-stage startup needed some qualifying events in our buyer’s journey. But without a senior marketing leader (he’d recently resigned and there was no immediate plan to backfill (see: early-stage startup)), it was slow going winning Design support and landing SME availability for a webinar test. When our team of two won the resources, we launched the program with this effort in BOFU story telling and digital event marketing.
INSIGHTS
What’s the secret to a great webinar? Oh, there are SO MANY.
STRUCTURE IT AS A CONVERSATION Treat it like an in-person party held by at least two hosts/speakers (no more than three), and pepper in questions as they come forward in the chat — or plant questions interstitially so the conversation appears inclusive — and guests feel “seen and heard.”
BE BRIEF, BE BRILLIANT + BE GONE Design your webinar so it’s no more than 30 minutes, with 5-8 minutes of space for organic or planted questions to infill with the main presentation. The time box helps registration and keeps everyone hosting and attending energized.
SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY If you have a 20-30 minute presentation, you need enough slides to keep it dynamic but not so many your visual narrative can’t land. And for the love of Pete, ruthlessly pare back your slide content. Again. And again.
AVOID THE THANK YOU SLIDE By all means, say thank you. But turn your last slide into a call to action that says you’re approachable for low-key connections.
Example slides from the webinar
Some of the social media posts promoting the webinar on LinkedIn
Email invitation that’s fast, focused, and fun
It’s also a little space-y (my colleague sent without a QA, eek)
Project deliverables
12 promotional LinkedIn posts
2 evergreen LinkedIn posts
Registration landing page
Evergreen landing page
12-slide webinar deck
1-page leave behind/follow-up resource
Webinar video and transcript
5-touch pre- and post- webinar email campaign approach and copywriting (including unique segmentation for attendees vs. registrants)
2 email invites for sales reps to personally distribute in cold outreach
no ads (sadly, ad spend was off the table for this test)
Promote the event with a clear, compelling value proposition — what’s in it for the registrants and attendees?
Promote the event with empathy for business problems and jobs to be done
Last call reminders create urgency and drive registration.
Swoop back and promote it post-event.
Contributions
Content strategy (webinar concept, campaign tactics, deck)
Copywriting and editing (social, ads, landing page, deck, speaker’s notes, email campaign)
Creative direction (deck)
Creative partners
Francine Klein (Senior Solutions Architect, webinar co-host and SME)
Caroll Casbeer (Head of Growth and Marketing Ops, webinar co-host)