Do your webinar show-up rates suck?
A recent GoToWebinar study reveals that the average webinar attendance rate is a painfully pitiful 44%.
That means out of every 100 registrants, 56 never even log in. That’s 56 lost touchpoints. 56 missed sales opportunities. 56 chances to grow your business gone.
That’s a lot of wasted leads and potential sales.
The hard truth is that you don’t have to deal with lousy show-up rates.
So I’m doing you a solid and offering 9 proven, hard-hitting ways to increase your webinar attendance rates.
These are the same strategies that I use for my own webinars, which doubled my attendance rate and generated millions in revenue.
Live webinar? Evergreen? Free? Paid? Doesn’t matter. These strategies crush it across the board. They’re not swayed by industry, niche, or target audience. They deliver results.
But before I reveal these methods, let’s get clear on the core problem causing these disastrous attendance rates and how you can power past it.
Why Most Webinars Have Lousy Attendance Rates
There are two main reasons most webinars have poor show rates:
- You are not communicating enough with your registrants
- You’re not using multiple forms of media to remind your audience
Let me explain each of these reasons in more detail.
Reason #1: Not Communicating Enough with Webinar Registrants
Webinar registrants are some of the hottest leads you can get.
Someone who’s seen your message and opted in to attend live training should be one your hottest audiences.
But here’s the problem: Most marketers don’t follow up with their registrants enough. They might think that once someone signs up for a webinar, they’re guaranteed to show up.
But that’s a big, big MISTAKE.
People are busy. With countless distractions and commitments vying for their attention, it’s all too easy LIKELY for your webinar to slip from their radar.
And let’s not forget the doubts and objections that can naturally arise. Questions about your offer, concerns about your credibility—these are all part of the game.
That’s why you need to communicate with your registrants frequently and consistently.
remind them about your webinar, build anticipation and excitement, overcome their objections, and persuade them to attend.
Keep them active and engaged up even after your webinar has started! The more active they are, the more likely they are to attend the webinar and, more importantly, sign up for your offer.
Reason #2: Not Using Multi-Media to Send Reminders
Another reason why so many webinars have terrible show rates is reliance on only one form of media to send their reminders: email.
Don’t get me wrong, email is a POWERFUL tool for webinar marketing.
It’s one of the BEST ways to deliver valuable content, build trust and rapport, and drive traffic to your registration page.
But email alone is not enough!
Let me say that again in case you missed it. EMAIL REMINDERS ARE NOT ENOUGH.
Email has its limitations. For one thing, not everyone opens or reads their emails.
According to HubSpot, the average email open rate is only 38.49%. That means that for every 100 emails you send, only 38 people will open them.
And to make that worse, in the online coaching/course industry, that number is less than 34%.
Even if you can get them to open your email, they may not click!
According to Mailchimp, the average email click-through rate is only 2.6%.
Pretty discouraging, right?
That’s why it’s ESSENTIAL for you to use multiple forms of media to get your reminders out.
Meeting your enrollees where they hang out and communicating in their preferred ways is the key to success.
Use different channels and platforms to send your messages, such as text messages, Facebook messages, voicemails, push notifications, etc.
Cover all possible bases and then move into covering sports that don’t even have bases!
By diversifying your media approach, you’re significantly upping your odds of not only catching their attention but securing their presence at your webinar.
9 Ways to Increase Your Live Webinar Show Rates
Now that you know why most webinars have low show rates and what you can do to avoid that, let’s take a look at 9 ways to increase your live webinar show rates.
These methods are simple, effective, and easy to implement.
You can use them for any type of webinar, whether it’s live or evergreen, free or paid, educational or promotional. They apply to any niche, industry, or audience.
1) Email Notifications
This is the most important strategy. It gets more of our registrants to show up than any other method.
The goal of these emails is to keep people active. The more active they are, the more likely they are to attend the webinar.
We like to send emails according to this timeline:
- 1 per day after they register
- 2 times a day as we get closer to the webinar
- 4-5 times the day of the webinar
- 1 per day during the week after the webinar
We also use these emails to overcome objections, answer frequently asked questions, and create urgency and scarcity.
The email also provide clear instructions for joining the webinar, set expectations, and guide registrants on their next steps.
Through these email notifications, we maintain high levels of engagement and enthusiasm among our registrants right up to the webinar date.
Some of the most common strategies for email that we use are:
Personalization
We’ve got a nifty trick up our sleeves to make our emails feel like they’re tailor-made for each registrant.
We use dynamic content and merge tags to sprinkle in their name, where they’re from, what they’re into – you name it.
It gives our emails a personal touch, making them super relevant, friendly, and, well, just plain human.
Segmentation
We use different criteria such as behavior, interest, or stage in the buyer’s journey to group our registrants into different segments.
Why?
So, we can serve up emails that feel like they were crafted just for them.
A/B Testing
We use A/B testing to compare different versions of our emails and see which one performs better.
This includes testing different elements such as subject lines, headlines, images, copy, calls-to-action, and send times.
This helps us optimize our emails for maximum conversions.
Automation
Automation tools enable us to schedule and send our emails at the right time and frequency.
Plus, by setting up behavior-driven email automations, you can send out messages when someone takes a specific action, like signing up, showing up, or making a purchase.
2) SMS/Text Messaging
When people register for a webinar, we ask them for their cell phone number so that we can text them.
In the week leading up to the webinar, we’ll text them a couple of times. But most of our texts go out the day before and the day of the webinar.
Don’t overuse this one. During a typical webinar promotion, we will send out a MAXIMUM of 5 or 6 messages.
Text messages are great because they are short, direct, and personal. They also have a high open rate and response rate.
But your audience will quickly get alert fatigue if you send too many texts.
Urgency and Scarcity
Every text message we send is carefully crafted to serve a dual purpose – to remind and to persuade.
We remind registrants about the upcoming webinar, making sure it stays top of mind.
But we also sprinkle in a dash of urgency and a pinch of scarcity.
This isn’t about pressure; it’s about sharing the special value and the limited-time opportunity your webinar offers.
Text messages are not passive reminders; they’re catalysts for action.
With these short but persuasive messages, we don’t just catch our registrants’ interest – we push them to act.
The call to attend is irresistible, and the way to take part is easy to understand.
3) Facebook Messenger
When people register for your webinar, get them to opt into receiving messages on Facebook Messenger.
Usually on the thank you page, we offer them a freebie if they hit “allow” for messenger. You won’t get everyone, but you can easily get 40-50%.
Facebook messages are AMAZING. They have high open and click-through rates.
However, we use these messages way less than texting.
The reason for that if you have a large Webinar, Facebook can get very finicky with a large volume of messages going out. They’re quick to ban, so use this sparingly.
Facebook messages are great for reminding enrollees about the webinar.
4) Ringless Voicemail
Recently we discovered ringless voicemails and – wowsers! – what a game changer! You can record an audio that goes straight to your registrant’s voicemail. They get a ping like any other voicemail.
We like to send a voicemail according to this timeline:
- Three days before the webinar
- One day before the webinar
- One message an hour before the webinar
- Then, after the webinar is over, we will usually send a ringless voicemail to those who missed the webinar
This feature adds a lot of “personal touch.” They get to hear your voice in their voicemail which helps humanize your brand.
By sending these ringless voicemails, we get our registrants’ attention and get them to take action and attend the webinar.
5) Forced Calendar Invite
This is a new feature, and it’s sick.
As soon as someone registers for your webinar, you can have a customized Google Calendar invitation hit their inbox with their unique webinar link.
This is a great way to make sure your registrants don’t miss your webinar.
Why?
Because most people use Google Calendar to manage their schedule and plan their day.
They will see your webinar on their calendar and get a reminder from Google Calendar.
This helps your registrants remember the webinar and not schedule anything else during that time.
Surprisingly few marketers are using this right now, but I suspect this is going to be the next big wave.
We use this feature to make sure our registrants don’t forget about the webinar and have easy access to it.
By sending these forced calendar invites, we make sure our registrants don’t forget about the webinar and have easy access to it.
6) Animated Multimedia Messages
This one is cool.
In addition to texts, send a GIF that shows them what they are missing.
For example, after a webinar we’ll send a GIF of 5 or so slides rotating, basically saying “here’s what you missed.”
We don’t send many of these. In a typical campaign we will maybe send 2 of them, and they will replace the text messages I talked about earlier.
Our preferred webinar service, AEvent, uses NiftyImages to create these personalized images.
GIFs can create FOMO and curiosity among our registrants who didn’t attend the webinar.
7) Personalized Whiteboard MMS
There are some COOL platforms that create personalized images like you pointing at a whiteboard with the registrant’s name on it.
Most people don’t send things like this so it REALLY stands out.
We’ve started replacing one of our SMS messages with this personalized whiteboard SMS.
We use these images to create a personal connection and a pattern disrupt among our registrants.
Check out these tools to create your own personalized images:
- NiftyImages
- Hyperise
- Lemlist
8) Desktop Push Notification
When someone registers for your webinar, they can opt to receive push notifications right on their desktop.
This is another EASY way to remind them about the webinar.
By sending these desktop push notifications, we get our registrants’ attention in an unexpected way and encourage them to join the webinar.
9) WhatsApp
WhatsApp is the #1 messaging system around the world. Standard texting (SMS) is only good for the United States and Canada.
WhatsApp lets us reach our international registrants with a text too.
By sending these WhatsApp messages, we keep our registrants engaged and motivated to attend the webinar.
What Lies Ahead?
There you have it. 9 powerful ways to boost your live webinar show rates and get more people to watch your presentation.
If you implement these strategies, you’re likely to see a pretty huge increase in your attendance, engagement, and conversions.
But don’t just take my word for it. Try it for yourself and see the results.
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