Webinars are a great way to connect with your audience, generate leads, and boost your business. When you pair your webinar software with HubSpot, you get a powerful combination that makes managing and using your webinar data easy.
Whether you're a pro at HubSpot or just getting started, this guide will walk you through the process of running successful webinars with HubSpot; from picking the right tools to using your webinar data.
This article was written based on a webinar that we recently ran with Stuart Balcombe. If you prefer to watch the webinar, here's the link. Otherwise, continue
Picking the Right Webinar Platform
Choosing the best webinar platform for your webinars is important. Not only should it provide the essential features to help you run engaging sessions, but it should also integrate well with HubSpot to ensure your data flows smoothly.
Here are some key points to keep in mind when choosing your webinar platform:
Plan Your Data Use
You should think ahead about how you will use the data from your webinars.
For example, will you segment your audience based on their engagement during the webinar or follow-up with personalized emails?
By setting clear goals for your webinar data from the beginning, you can ensure that your platform will smoothly integrate with HubSpot, allowing you to segment contacts, score leads, and tailor follow-up communications based on engagement.
Registration and Follow-Up
You should decide how you will handle the sign-up process and follow-up communications.
Will you use HubSpot forms for webinar registrations, or will you use the webinar platform's own registration pages?
Both options are possible, but regardless of what you choose, it's important that you automate your follow-up emails, reminders, and thank-you notes. This ensures that you stay on top of mind with leads without needing to manually track everyone.
Integration Features
You need to make sure that the webinar platform you choose integrates well with HubSpot. The right integration features will allow for real-time syncing of data, help you track registrations, attendance, and interactions without having to manually import or export the data.
You should look for platforms that allow you to trigger actions like updating lead scores, enrolling contacts in follow-up workflows, or sending targeted emails based on engagement. By choosing the right platform, real-time integration between your webinar platform and HubSpot will save you time and improve your ability to nurture leads effectively.
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Start for freeWebinar Frequency and Size
You should consider how often you plan to host webinars and how many attendees you expect to show up at your webinar. If you're planning on running large-scale webinars with hundreds of attendees, you should consider looking for a platform that can handle a high number of webinar attendees and provides smooth streaming. On the other hand, if you're hosting more intimate sessions with a smaller number of attendees, you can opt for a platform that offers simpler features or a basic plan.
Understanding your frequency and audience size of your expected audience will help you pick the right platform that aligns with your needs and budget.
Automate Where You Can
Automation is your friend when it comes to running webinars. Choosing a platform that supports automation tasks like lead scoring, email follow-ups, and task management is essential as it helps decrease the need for manual work. This allows you to focus more on delivering value and less on administrative tasks.
Essentially, picking the right webinar platform is important for running smooth, engaging sessions that align with your webinar goals. Make sure the platforms integrates well with HubSpot, automates tasks where possible, and fits your webinar frequency and audience size. By considering these points, you will be able to streamline your process, save time, and focus on creating valuable content for your audience.
Setting Up and Running Webinars
Once you have selected the right webinar platform and integrated it with HubSpot, it's time to get started on planning and hosting your webinars.
Here are some steps you can take to make sure your webinars are set up for success:
Choose Engaging Topics
The best webinars are the ones that provide real value for their audience. Rather than only focusing on your product, choose topics that help solve problems and answer questions your audience are struggling with.
"Webinars are a really good place to go deep on a particular topic." - Stuart Balcombe
By offering useful insights and practical takeaways, you will keep your audience engaged and more likely to take the next step with your product/business. Make sure the webinar topic or title resonates with your audience's pain points and interests by making them feel like they are attending a webinar that is worth their time.
Create Clear, User-Friendly Landing Pages
Your webinar landing pages should be simple, straight to the point, visually appealing, and most importantly easy to navigate.
The message should be clear – what's in it for the attendee?
Whether you're targeting C-suite executives or individual contributors, make sure your landing page speaks directly to them and highlights the key takeaways of attending the webinar. In addition, make the sign-up process as smooth as possible – just a few fields to fill out, and your audience is ready to go!
Use Post-Webinar Data
Once your webinar is over, the data you have collected is more valuable than ever. Use it to improve your future efforts. HubSpot makes it easy to analyze webinar data and trigger actions like updating lead scores or enrolling contacts in targeted follow-up workflows.
For example, if someone attended your webinar but did not take any action afterward, you can set up an email workflow that nurtures them with additional content.
Use the data to continuously improve the customer experience and your overall webinar strategy.
Ultimately, setting up and running webinars is all about providing value and making the experience smooth for your audience. Choose topics that address their pain points and offer answers for them, create user-friendly landing pages that highlight the benefits of attending the webinar, and optimize the post-webinar data to improve your future webinar sessions. By focusing on these key areas, you will ensure your webinars are engaging, impactful and continually improving.
Measuring Success and Improving
The real magic happens after your webinar when you can analyze the results and make improvements for future webinars. HubSpot's dashboards provide a wealth of insights that can help you track key metrics and understand how your webinars are impacting your business.
Here is how you can measure your webinar success and keep improving your webinar strategy:
Dashboard Insights
HubSpot's dashboard allows you to track key performance indicators (KPIs) like webinar registrations, attendance rates, and lead conversion post-webinar. With these insights, it makes it easier for you to see which aspects of your webinar were successful and where there is room for improvement.
For example, did a lot of people register but many were unable to attend?
This could indicate that you need to adjust your timing or reminder emails.
Essentially, the use of HubSpot's dashboards allows you to visualize the lifecycle stages of contacts influenced by webinars, helping to identify areas for improvement in follow-up processes.
Track Engagement
Engagement is a huge deal in webinar success. You need to pay attention to how many people signed up, how many attended live, and how many watched the replay. This data gives you valuable insights into how well your content resonated with your audience – resulting in helping you to improve the content of your future webinars.
Did you have high attendance but low engagement?
It might indicate that your topic was compelling, but your presentation could use some tweaks or improvements.
Repurpose Content and Listen to Feedback
One of the best things about webinars is that you can repurpose the content after it has ended. You can repurpose webinar recordings into blog posts, social media content, podcasts or follow-up resources for your attendees.
In addition, it's important to keep in mind the feedback that your audience gives you through surveys or comments. Their feedback will crucial in shaping your future webinars and ensures that you are continuously adding value to them.
To conclude it's important to measure your success after your webinar is over as it's key to improving your webinar strategy. By using HubSpot's dashboards to track KPIs, monitoring engagement levels, and repurposing content, you can gain valuable insights into what worked and what didn't. Lastly, listening to your audience's feedback will help you continually add value to your webinars, ensuring that each one gets better and more impactful.
Wrapping Up
Running successful webinars with HubSpot is all about planning, integration, and continuous improvement. From choosing the right platform and setting clear webinar goals to using your data for follow-ups and measuring success, HubSpot gives you the tools you need to optimize your webinar strategy.
"Start at the end and work backward."- Stuart Balcombe
With the right planning, smart use of HubSpot's features, and a commitment to ongoing optimization, you will be able to turn your webinars into a powerful marketing tool that helps you build relationships with potential prospects, generate leads, and drive general business growth.
If you are still figuring out your webinar strategy, don't hesitate to check out our HubSpot Academy which offers a great amount of resources to help you improve your approach and boost your webinar success.
Run Webinars with HubSpot
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