Over the past year, many of us have had to find a groove that works and adapt to working from home.  As is so often the case, this also includes creating and producing professional-grade webinars from our kitchens, dining rooms and bedrooms.
How have webinerds adapted? A few have shared stories about producing webinars and engaging audiences from their own domiciles and we thought we’d share a few of those experiences — along with some tips — with you today. Check the experiences out below to learn how the remote work era can help you to drive attendance to your digital events.
Verint Sees a 30% Increase in Attendance Rates
For Dennis Leussink, an EMEA Digital Marketing Specialist for Verint, working from home has opened would-be attendees to actually attending events.  As a result, Verint’s webinar attendance rate has surged to an average of 70% for recent webinars. Note that as he discusses his successes, he also provides his audience with an opportunity to register for the next event — never waste an opportunity for a call to action!
Share My Lesson Webinar Gained 40,000 New Registrants
As the Director of Share My Lesson and eLearning, Kelly Booz and the American Federation of Teachers recently hosted a physical-turned-digital conference for teachers and parents. As you can imagine, a remote work era has impacted some industries more than others, which is why it’s critical to know how to quickly pivot from in-person to virtual events. With an added focus on distance learning tips and suggestions, they saw registration numbers jump from 22,000 to more than 68,000.
TOPdesk Gets Daily Watch Requests
Everyone likes tips and tricks for working in a work from home era. Sanne van Opstal-Brakel, a Marketing Communication Coordinator at TOPdesk, recently hosted a webinar to discuss how to work remotely with TOPdesk and saw higher than normal attendance rates. They were able to create and set up the webinar within a week and had more than 300 participants live and an additional 100 Simulive with even more watch-requests daily.
Tying your digital events to topics in the news or industry trends is almost always a good idea, as it grounds your audience in what’s going on now and empowers you to share your vision of the future with your thought leadership messaging.
Hundreds of Participant Questions for Junior Library Guild
Esther Goodell is part of the Marketing Team at the Junior Library Guild who are featuring live readings from Rex Ogle and his Quaran-Teen story through webcasts. Combined, they have over 1,000 registrants and hundreds of questions from participants during their webinars. Including a novelty in your digital experiences — like prizes, readings or a celebrity appearance — can help boost attendance and get registrants excited to attend your event. If you can, take the time to think of a few options to get your audience excited and include them in your next event.
Webinar From Home Tips
With much of the workforce working remotely, many people have seen increased attendance for their webinars. Whether your numbers are up or not, we thought we’d share a few tips on how you can increase your webinar attendance and conversion rates.
Enable Viewing Convenience
Give viewers on-demand and Simulive options for your webinar to increase attendance numbers. Remember: people working from home may have kids or other things that prevent them from attending your webinar live, so give them the option to view your content at a time that works for them.
You could also consider sending an on-demand reminder email specifically to people who registered and didn’t attend. Providing this option can go a long way in increasing your attendance numbers.
Focus on engagement
Make sure you build engagement opportunities into your webinars. Use tools available to you like polls, reactions, group chats, and Q&As to drive engagement and nurture higher quality leads.
Also, think about whether there are webinar opportunities you can take advantage of with your higher attendance rates. Like Esther and the Junior Library Guild, find something unique to do with this time. You could end up with a cool opportunity or find something popular that you can continue after quarantine.
Plan to Follow Up Quickly
As your webinar attendance increases, be sure you have a plan in place to manage the increased interest in your business. Chat with colleagues in sales or customer success and create a plan for following up with attendees and registrants.  Don’t assume one group will take care of it.
Start A Conversation
Use the interaction you get through your webinar as a tool to start conversations with your attendees. Conversations can easily turn into conversions when done right.
For example, you may not be able to answer all of the questions you get during a live webinar, but make sure you follow up and provide answers in the webinar Q&A or chat tools or through email after the webinar to drive engagement and build brand trust with attendees.
Your webinar should be just one tool you use to start conversations with your customers. Look for other ways you can be in contact with them after the webinar ends. This is where your sales or customer success teams can step in and help turn the conversations you started into a mutually beneficial relationship.