Every Thursday, I break down one marketing framework, persuasion technique, or psychology effect so you can apply it in your content.
I work as head of content at Neatprompts. It’s an AI newsletter with 100k+ subscribers.
As a part of my work, we were supposed to pitch webinar ideas to one of our sponsors.
We were sure of what topics would work perfectly for them, so I created a small framework to explain what makes a webinar successful.
Success in this context = Number of signups.
You only need to crack two details to drive webinar sign-ups: Credibility and Outcomes.
Credibility
Credibility comes from two places: Brand or an individual.
Take GrowthX, for example.
Brilliant brand. Brilliant community. When GrowthX hosts a session, I’m happy to sign up because I know for a fact there is QC. If I am interested in the topic and even if I don’t know the speaker, I’d sign up because I trust GrowthX.
That’s brand-led credibility.
Person-led credibility comes from titles, proof of work, or social proof.
Speaking for myself, I’d sign up if Tanmay Bhat hosts a webinar on advertising. Even if content marketing is my core and advertising only has second-order effects, I’d still listen to Tanmay because he drops value bombs and I can draw parallels in newsletters.
When we say a brand/person has a ‘pull’, we mean they have enough credibility from the audience to invest either their time or money.
Outcomes
Outcomes are what you promise for joining your sessions.
People are investing their 60-ish minutes. Now what?
Let us assume you’re an artist management firm for musicians, and you’re hosting a webinar to attract and add musicians to your funnel.
Successful webinars focus on one of three outcomes:
1/ Learning: You bring in a popular, respected musician to teach the art of composing music. If you plan on attracting masses, keep the topics basic. If you want to attract high-quality leads, get a little technical and mention that it is for those who feel strong about their basics.
2/ Growth: This includes topics like “You have composed your album. How to make your album reach millions of listeners?” Because once you’ve built a product for a TG, you will innately look for more customers, users, subscribers, followers, etc. Any session on gaining eyeballs will be a hit.
3/ Revenue: Everyone wants to make money. Host webinars on how your musicians can go from x$ to y$, and you’ll see a massive interest.
Learning, Growth, and Revenue are three factors your TG will always benefit from. So any webinar under these buckets is bound to attract leads.
Next up: How do you implement the webinar signup framework in your business?
How can you implement the Webinar Signup Framework in your marketing efforts?
1/ If you don’t have a large social presence, partner with a brand or creator in your niche.
Use their distribution to drive signups, then either leverage your knowledge or the creator’s.
If you have the capital, it’s better to invest $$$$$ on a brand with distribution than to spend months on multiple webinars, building your distribution. Think ROI.
2/ Give exclusive perks to people joining your webinars. Oldest trick in the book; works fine for another 100 years. Discounts, credits, resources, etc.
3/ So far, we have only discussed driving signups.
The broader topics like learning, growth, and revenue become insanely valuable when you add specificity to them.
If we go back to the musician example, while hosting a webinar on how musicians can make money, speaking about “How [musician name] made $100k with one concert with the support we provided” adds value.
Specific examples reassure that your thesis is possible in reality.
Think
What business are you running, and will webinars actually make sense to include in your marketing? If yes, how would you like to approach it?
I am always amazed by how creative marketers get. Please write to me with your plan; I’d love to share my thoughts.
Love,
Vikra.