3 Keys to a Successful Webinar – Expert Speaker, Good Content and Lots of Promotion

Wondering why your recent webinar only had 10 people “attend?” Would you like 10 times that many to attend your next webinar? Here is a webinar blueprint that really worked – for the association, the sponsor and the attendees. The right speaker, a topic that improves the attendees’ bottom line and timely promotion can make your webinar a hit! The Dairy Calf & Heifer Association (DCHA), one of Drake & Company’s clients, just completed a fantastic webinar that had 111 locations register for the webinar. (Some locations had groups of attendees viewing and taking part in the webinar.) The industry expert presented valuable information that attendees could use right away in their operations. With a good promotional strategy, the webinar hit its target audience and provided valuable information to improve DCHA members’ profits. For nearly a month in advance, the Drake & Company specialists assigned to this project worked together to promote the event through:

• weekly e-blasts and a final reminder e-blast, sent to 1,700 people – open rate averaged 20% - and included social share links.
• regular Facebook posts and tweets.
• promotion in association e-newsletters.
• information on association website as well as online registration.
• promotion in electronic Tip of the Week.
• timely coverage in association’s printed publication (DCHA’s Heifer Notes, a quarterly insert in Hoard’s Dairyman, with a circulation of 63,000).

Promoting across channels certainly helped increase the attendance numbers. As a nonprofit association, DCHA has strong industry support through sponsorship of its webinars. Drake & Company staff provided the logistics and checklist to agency representatives of the webinar’s sponsor. Penny Key, DCHA’s webinar coordinator, worked closely with their agency to meet deadlines that helped drive the success of this event. She also made sure that all logistics were in place for the registrants and that the webinar went off without a hitch. Here is the Drake & Company checklist that was used for promotion and the actual event:

1. Determine date and time that works for presenter and association.
2. Settle on specific title of webinar and have a description of presentation ready (two short paragraphs) that can be used in promotion. This material needs to be ready about five weeks before the webinar so that the first e-blast can be scheduled for exactly one month before the date.
3. Have a photo and short biographical sketch of the speaker on file in time for first e-blast.
4. If webinar is sponsored, obtain logo to be used on e-blast and website along with correct URL for logo to be linked.
5. PowerPoint presentation on a blank background should be submitted 10 days ahead for formatting on association’s custom templates.
6. Determine date and time to conduct webinar test – usually a day or two before webinar. This normally takes only 15 minutes, just to make sure there are no “bugs” the day of the webinar.
7. Be sure you have a direct phone number where presenter can be reached the day of test and of the event.
8. After the webinar, review what worked best and what can be improved upon, and send out a very short evaluation survey to attendees.

This is the first time that a DCHA webinar has had more than 50 registrants. Cindy Hackmann, executive director of DCHA said, “I know (they) are looking forward to their next sponsored webinar in September.” Let us know what promotion strategies work for you.