Online learning without the commute and emotional tax of in-person communication and dress codes have become increasingly popular over the last few years. This has grown into an opportunity for financial professionals. There are plenty of reasons why it may be worth it to market your practice through webinars, ranging from cost savings to increased prospect geography, but it can be helpful to learn some webinar best practices before your promotions begin.
Webinar Setup & Technology
- Consider compliance and cybersecurity requirements your Broker Dealer may have. Get the technology approved before you start paying for a system like Zoom, GoToMeeting, or Zoho.
- Use at least two monitors. Especially if you plan to share your screen and need to see speaker’s notes or your shared content, you’ll want multiple screens so you can also keep your eyes on interaction capabilities like poll results or questions submitted.
- Ensure a strong internet connection to decrease any lag for the attendees.
- Test your webcam and microphone quality. To maximize the visual and audio experience you’re providing, external webcams and mics may be worth investing in should you decide to make webinar marketing an ongoing lead generation source.
Marketing Your Webinars
- Market to a niche-specific Finding this audience can be tricky, so your lead list partnerships and their filtering options are important.
- Schedule webinar times with the audience in mind. Try to host in times that work for potential attendees even if it’s outside your normal hours. If you’re unsure what will be best, split testing different days and times for your first campaign(s) can be helpful for future efforts.
- Name your niche in your promotional materials. Our program markets to registrants digitally, beginning about two few weeks prior to the first webinar date.
- Keep registration forms simple and send reminder emails as your event(s) get close.
- Manage your expectations: Remember that no-show rates are higher with online events, but there is benefit to even registrants that don’t end up logging in (more on that later).
Webinar Presentation Best Practices
- Setup your background & equipment. Make sure your background is clean, your face is well lit, and your tech is working correctly. Have a staff member or friend join as an attendee to make sure your slides can be pulled up correctly (if applicable) and the attendee experience is smooth.
- Start & end at scheduled times. Build trust by keeping your presentation timely. People often opt for digital experiences to save time, so this may be vital to these prospects. We’ve found 45-60 minute presentations best, with increased falloff rates after your scheduled time.
- Avoid jargon and tangents. As with all prospecting presentations, remember you’re not in the presence of other licensed professionals. Keep your language simple and clear and be cognizant of their time.
- Encourage engagement! If your technology allows it, mention chat boxes and Q&A features during your introduction so people can react to you live as much as possible. Ask questions and utilize your engagement tools to keep their attention.
- Set expectations & honor your promises. Maintain your credibility by keeping your presentation on track and consistent with whatever you promise up front (in marketing materials or your intro). Give your attendees answers to their questions and share any promised resources during and after your presentation.
- Sign off with a clear Call-To-Action. A typical CTA is to schedule a consultation. Thank them for attending and remind them where your calendar link is before you lose their attention.
After Your Webinar
- Share promised resources immediately. If your system allows for an automated email with your scheduling link, for example, set that up to go out right away inside of a “thank you” email. If you promised any other resources, be sure to honor your promises quickly!
- Take note of feedback. Whether you explicitly ask or not, make sure you notate any feedback you receive. Writing down your own thoughts on presentation and process may also help you improve for future webinars.
- Track your metrics. Knowing how many people you marketed to, how many registered, attended, booked, and converted will help you change things and improve over time. You may also want to track any major issues or wins, how long your presentation was, and how engaged attendees were so you can “clean up” your presentation and process.
- Follow up with registrants and attendees. Best practice for this would be to group the leads into three categories: registered and didn’t attend, attended but didn’t book consult, and (of course) those that booked consults. Each group should get an email within 24 hours that correlates to those engagement statuses. We recommend another email anywhere from 2-7 days after the event. Whenever you decide to stop following up with un-engaged prospects, add them to an automated marketing campaign to continually drip on them.
Our Final Webinar Best Practice
- “Commit to the bit” and dedicate a quarter or two of the year to really test the content, tech, and marketing strategies. By hosting several webinar campaigns, you’ll get more comfortable in front of the camera and with the format, which improves confidence and conversion rates. Our webinar-hosting financial advisors said anyone trying to do this should “practice, practice, practice” until you’re fully comfortable with the technology and presentation you’re giving.
The best part about hosting webinars is that the increased convenience for your attendees is also true for you. You can close the laptop and walk away knowing that even one new client will likely offset the cost of the entire campaign. So if you decide to start marketing through webinars, keep these best practices in mind and you’ll be off to a solid start.
