Webinars are one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal – if done right. But getting people to sign up and, more importantly, show up for your webinar can be a challenge, especially if you’re not hitting the right notes with your audience or promoting it at the right time. Let’s break down how to make webinars work for your MSP business, boost attendance, and ensure your content is something that keeps people engaged.
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Timing Is Everything: When To Start Promoting
One of the most common mistakes I see people make is promoting their webinars too far in advance. You might think that getting the word out early will result in more sign-ups, but here’s the reality: people forget. If you promote a webinar too early, you might get registrations, but when it’s time to attend, they’ve moved on, or worse, they never planned on showing up in the first place.
For a typical one-hour to 90-minute webinar, you should start promoting about five days before the event. Focus on digital marketing – email campaigns, social media, and even phone calls. The goal is to hit people when the webinar is close enough for them to still care but with enough time to plan. This way, they’re more likely to register and actually show up.
The Power Of Evergreen Webinars
While live webinars are a great way to engage with your audience in real-time, don’t overlook the value of turning your best webinars into evergreen content. Once you’ve done a solid live webinar, consider putting it on-demand. This allows you to reuse that content over and over, making it available anytime someone shows interest. In fact, many of our most successful clients have made great use of evergreen webinars, which continually generate leads without the need to constantly recreate the wheel.
Make The Topic Count: Relevance And Urgency Matter
Content is king, but it’s not enough to have a great webinar. The topic needs to be something that grabs attention and speaks directly to the pain points of your audience. You’re not just competing with other IT providers; you’re competing with their daily grind and distractions. If your topic doesn’t resonate, they won’t make the time.
One of the biggest challenges is finding a topic that gets people to say, “I need to attend this!” It’s not enough to talk about cybersecurity in general, for example. You need a hook that makes them feel like they can’t afford to miss it.
A great way to find out what your clients want is to ask them directly. Send out an “ask” email, where you simply say, “Can I ask you a favor? I’m creating a series of webinars and want to know what topics you’d find most useful.” This simple strategy allows you to tap into what’s top of mind for your clients, so you can design content that speaks directly to their needs.
The Hook: Titles That Get Attention
Your webinar title needs to be intriguing enough to make even the busiest CEO stop and take notice. For example, one of our members ran a webinar titled, “Things Your Insurance Company Won’t Tell You That Will Deny Your Cybersecurity Claim.” This grabbed attention because it directly addressed a fear business owners didn’t even know they had – that their insurance wouldn’t cover a cyber event when they need it most. This specific, fear-based topic created urgency and spoke directly to something they care about: protecting their business from financial disaster.
Another idea could be a webinar titled, “7 Ways Your Employees Are Sabotaging Your Cybersecurity – Even The Good Ones.” This not only speaks to a specific audience concern but also adds a bit of surprise, which increases curiosity and engagement.
Understand Your Audience And Speak Their Language
Finally, one of the biggest keys to webinar success is speaking directly to the concerns of your target audience. If your audience feels they already have solid cybersecurity in place, they’re not going to attend another generic “How to Protect Your Business from Cyber Threats” webinar. Instead, you need to address the gaps they may not be aware of – things like internal threats from employees, how new legislation impacts their IT security policies, or what specific cyber incidents are happening in their industry that they may not be prepared for.
Your job is to find those angles that will resonate with them, and the best way to do that is by staying in touch with your clients and always being attuned to the challenges they’re facing. When you’re in tune with their pain points, you can create webinar content that feels like a solution they can’t afford to miss.
