Promotion Strategies for Niche Webinars

Webinars still work. In Q4 2024, Champify's webinar program drove 71% higher ACVs and touched 28% of our opportunities. Here’s our 4-step webinar playbook (and the full results): My core marketing philosophy is to continuously deliver value to our potential customers. We can’t always control timing, so our goal is to be top of mind when they are in market. We do this by delivering as much educational content as possible to help our audience be better at their job. With the rise of AI generated slop and on-demand content, there are few better ways to deliver value to your customers as cost effectively as live webinars. Here’s our simple 4-step Live Webinar Playbook: 1. The topic is important, but the guest is 10x more important We focused on using our network, customers, and customer’s networks to attract guests we know our audience will want to learn from. We think deeply about what’s in it for them and how to make them the star. 2. Use multiple methods to drive attendance We drove attendance through Linkedin outreach, closed lost nurture campaigns, targeted marketing emails, and customer invites sent via our sales team and leadership. We also used the invite as a hook to build value at accounts we wanted to break into - offering a Q&A with a renowned leader that most people want to learn from. 3. Focusing on quality content during and AFTER the session Do not go broad. Find one hot topic and go deep as possible. What draws a crowd is how respected or “impressive” is your guest. If your audience wants to learn from her, they will show up. If they don’t care about her background, they won’t. Add a Q&A section as people will directly show up just to get burning questions answered. Use the gold from the webinar to creative tactical guides, teardowns, and summaries, to share with all those who signed up (regardless of attending or not) 4. Nail the follow up: We meticulously look at the list post-event and put people into two key buckets: - Marketing Owned: Follow up included tactical guides and a highlight reel - Sales owned: Tailored outbound to key titles with 1-2 specific plays/asks based on the content/audience combination. THE RESULTS: - Of our last 228 new business opportunities - 71 of them had at least 1 registrant (28%) - Win rate of opps with a registrant from opp created is ~25% higher than without (%, not points) - ACV 71% higher Too many teams are taking the easy way out… Blasting AI-generated and overly generic content We see the same thing happening in outbound. But at the end of the day….it’s about delivering value to build trust. And being top of mind for your prospect universe when the problem you solve arises. Webinar are still the way to do that in 2025.

We spent $47,985 on ads for a live webinar and generated $147,437 in revenue. Here’s the full playbook I use to make webinar funnels work: If you're selling anything for $1K-$3K+, webinars are one of the most reliable ways to convert cold traffic into buyers. Why? Because webinars turn cold leads > warm leads > buyers in a single session. But not all webinar funnels work equally well. We recently tested three approaches: •⁠ ⁠Live webinar: 3.07x ROAS •⁠ ⁠7-day educational email course > webinar: 1.44x ROAS •⁠ ⁠Evergreen webinar: 1.37x ROAS So, if you're actively selling a higher-ticket product, run ads directly to a live webinar. Here’s how to do it: 1. Keep the ad funnel extremely simple Run ads 7-14 days before the webinar. The winning structure looks like: UGC-style video ads > registration page > email/SMS reminders A few rules I always follow: a) Founder-led ads outperform static ads 90% of the time b) The angle is always Proof + Promise (You did the thing > you’ll show them how > they get the outcome) 2. Know the numbers (these are real benchmarks) a) Cost per lead: $5-$20 (depending on niche + wealth + platform) b) Show rate: • Cold: 20-30% • Warm/list: 40-50% c) Cost per attendee: $15–$100 d) If you sell directly on the webinar, a strong conversion rate is 5-10%. For a $1,000-$2,000 offer, that means you want a $300–$1000 CAC. e) If your offer is above $2,000, you should push people to book a call rather than buy straight from a page. Book-a-call benchmarks: • 10-30% book a call • 60%+ show rate • 30-40% close rate (should be HIGH - they JUST watched you for 60–90 minutes) If your close rate drops to ~20%, it’s usually a sales problem, not a marketing one. 3. If conversions drop, fix the qualification If the webinar is packed but nobody buys or books calls, the leads were wrong. You need 1 qualifier on the registration page. Examples based on ICP: • “Do you have at least $5,000 to invest?” • “Do you already own real estate?” • “Do you run a newsletter with 10,000+ subscribers?” • “Are you earning $250K+/year?” If you don’t qualify, you will dump unqualified leads onto your sales team, and they can’t close them. 4. Give away something only for live attendees This is the biggest lever for increasing show rates. Once you have a valuable giveaway, start reminders 7-10 days before: • Send multiple reminder emails • Send “we’re going live” emails • Sell the usefulness of the webinar, not the product 5. What to teach inside the webinar Teach for 80%. Sell for 20%. But don’t teach the whole system. I skim the top of every step required to get from A > B: • Show the roadmap • Show the opportunity • Show the proof • Show the desired end state People don’t buy information. They buy certainty, feedback, and “tell me exactly what to do in my case.”

Me: “Turn the webinar into a problem.” LinkedIn: “Interesting. Me💞” HubSpot: “Okay, but does it actually work?” Also HubSpot (yesterday): “Yeah, it does.” Most webinar promos are painfully predictable. “Join us for this exclusive live event!” “Can’t-miss insights!” “Reserve your spot now!” Cool. I’ll definitely forget about that immediately. So we flipped the script. Instead of announcing a webinar, we made the topic the hook: 👉 "8 out of 10 prospects don’t trust your marketing." No dates. No sign-ups. No “limited seats available” nonsense. Just a real problem that made people stop scrolling. And LinkedIn? It noticed. 351 impressions 198 members reached 82 video views 140 minutes total watch time Then HubSpot came knocking: “Alright, show us how you did that.” And yesterday, they covered it on their site. Here’s the formula they featured: 1️⃣ Make the topic bigger than the webinar. → Nobody wants to attend your event. They do want answers to their problems. Start there. 2️⃣ Build curiosity before the pitch. → Instead of dropping a registration link and praying, we shared teaser clips, ran polls, and asked people what they wanted answered. 3️⃣ Don’t let the webinar die. → Most webinars get abandoned once the live session ends. We turned ours into a resource—repurposing the key moments into posts, clips, and templates people actually used. The result? More engagement, more sign-ups, and a feature in HubSpot. So yeah—stop announcing and start starting conversations. What’s your best move for getting people to actually show up? Let’s swap ideas. 🤺 I’m Peter Murphy Lewis—fractional CMO, content strategist, and the guy who helps businesses turn marketing into revenue (not just noise). Some of my experiments flop. Others get featured in HubSpot. Either way, I’ll always share what works. #MarketingStrategy #WebinarGrowth #LinkedInMarketing

Here's how most people promote webinars 👇 1.) Send out an email to your email list 2.) Promote via paid social (LI and FB) 3.) Run the webinar 4.) Send out the webinar to your email list 5.) Put webinar on your website and gate This is where your content goes to 💀⚰️ Then you go back to the team and start brainstorming ideas for the next piece of content. When the reality is: 1.) 90% + of your ICP didn't even see the webinar 2.) It probably is still relevant months after you promoted it 3.) Many people won't ever take the time to watch the whole webinar Here's how you extend reach, increase consumption, and drive more registrants post webinar. 1.) Use Descript AI to identify 3-5 short clips from the webinar 2.) Use Descript or LLM to write some quick post text 3.) Add captions, but keep branding light, don't start with 5 sec brand logo 4.) Go to channel where you ICP hangs out and post there organically 5.) Then promote via paid directly to your ICP We did this with another SaaS brand and were were able to get 11,497 people to watch 100% of one of the clips for around $3k. Pre-webinar launch, they only had 67 registrants and 27 people live. Post-webinar launch, 11.4k people saw a portion of it and almost 100 more registered for on-demand webinar. For this brand, webinar attendance was a big part of the buying journey as many that requested demo had previously attended a webinar. You worked hard on creating content for the webinar, don't forget to continue distributing even after the event has ended. Ensure you have a budget for promotion and REDISTRIBUTION.

LinkedIn Conversation Ads 𝘤𝘢𝘯 drive webinar signups... but only if you get these six things right. I've run these in-house and for clients. Here’s what I’ve learned about what works (and what doesn’t): 𝟭. 𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀. It’s not always the salesperson. Use someone your audience can relate to, whether that’s a marketer, founder, or even a current customer. When I was in MarTech, I sent from my own profile because I was customer zero. It worked. Use sellers only if there’s already been some interaction or they’re seen as experts. 𝟮. 𝗧𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 = 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸. Don’t just upload a list of accounts. Refine by job title, seniority, and function to hit the right buyers. 𝟯. 𝗞𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲. Who’s speaking? Why should they care? What will they learn? Drop the fluff. Get to the value fast. 𝟰. 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗮 𝟭:𝟭 𝘂𝗽𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁. The goal is registrations, not bookings. Push to a clean reg page. That’s it. If they want to talk after, great. 𝟱. 𝗦𝗲𝘁 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗯𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁—𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 Start with $2–$3K. Expect: • 35–50% open rate • 2–5% CTR • $0.30–$0.45 CPC BUT...volume will be limited. You 𝘸𝘰𝘯’𝘵 send 10K messages in a week unless you have multiple senders. 𝟲. 𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗲 You need enough days to reach enough people. Start 2+ weeks before the event if you only have 1 sender. Shorter windows require multiple senders (with the right audience relevance). These ads don’t replace good content or a compelling event, but they can give you that extra push when done right. Have you tried convo ads recently? Curious what worked or didn’t for you.

200+ signups to every event and +60% attendance. 7 strategies you can steal for your next event: 1. No cover images on social ❌ "Traditional" webinar covers get mentally blocked out and ignored on social. Ask team members & speakers to share the event — but using memes, montages, or something unique. 2. Soft outbound Target list of potential attendees (based on the event topic). Don't ask for anything. Easy to automate. 3. Customers Events are also a great retention tactic. Invite customers to join your events and shout them out when they join — make them feel special. 4. Newsletter Product & marketing newsletters are still the #1 way to drive signups to events. Make sure to include past signups in that list. +50% of our webinar signups come from our newsletter. 5. Speaker audiences Optimize speaker choice for knowledge x audience size. 20-30% of signups come from our speakers' audiences. Then you get them to come back to future events. 6. Calendar invitations Make sure your webinar tool sends calendar invites for those juicy attendance rates (hi Contrast 👋). 7. Repurposing & on-demand Turn your webinar into 10+ pieces of content and make it available on-demand. +50% of views are on the replay. Don't let your event end when the live stops. Any tactics I forgot/should try?

In October 2021, we generated 250 sales leads in 2 hours without coding, AI, or sales expertise, and we have never looked back. Here's exactly how we’ve used webinars to generate $3M+ in pipeline since launching our company. A week after launching Chezie's ERG platform in August 2021, we hosted a simple webinar that changed everything. The idea came when we noticed most ERG content online was outdated (think black-and-white websites from 2014; it was dark out there). We saw an opportunity. Here’s our process: 1. Find your topic     Look for LinkedIn conversations in your niche. Use tools like Perplexity to research what people are actively searching for.     2. Get the right host     We reached out to my friend Morgan Matthews (she/her), who was working as a DEI Manager at Peloton at the time. Your host should either have a strong following, work at a notable company, or ideally both.      The more notable your speaker, the easier it is to drive signups.      3. Structure your event     We titled ours "From Intent to Impact: How to Get the Most Out of Your ERGs." Morgan gave a 45-minute presentation and left 15 mins for Q&A.      Keep it simple – a fireside chat format lets your host prepare answers in advance.     4. Capture leads strategically     Have attendees share key info during registration (company size, current solutions, etc.). This helps you qualify leads before the event.     5. Execute and follow up       Some tips for a smooth event:       • Host on Zoom (everyone’s familiar with it by now)   • Pay attention to which participants are most engaged   • Share recordings after via email to warm the inbox   • Focus follow-up on qualified leads      Fast-forward to today: We've hosted 60+ events and turned webinars into our #1 go-to-market channel, even as we've expanded to other strategies. If you have questions about the process, qualifying leads, or anything else around webinars as a GTM motion, comment below; I’m happy to help! 👇🏾

We’re looking to scale out our webinar program this year. It’s been a really good source of high-quality leads for us. The problem is I used to spend way too many hours building out webinar registration pages, promo emails, and social posts. We’re a lean team and I only have so much bandwidth—so I built an AI workflow that cuts production time by about 90%. IMPORTANT NOTE: The key to this whole thing is the quality of your human-written content brief—it determines everything downstream. Most people try to shortcut the brief and end up with generic, junky AI content. Here's what actually works: 1. Start with a killer content brief that includes: - Core webinar value props and specific audience pain points - Speaker credentials that actually matter - Key learning outcomes with concrete examples - Technical depth and complexity level - Brand voice requirements and list of AI “no-no” words 2. Feed that quality brief into strategic prompts for: - High-converting registration page - 4-email promo sequence (2 weeks, 1 week, 3 days, 24hrs) - Post-event follow up emails for attendees, registrants, and non-registrants - LinkedIn posts engineered for engagement - Asset consistency guidelines AI handles content scaling and variations, but only after you've built the strategic foundation. Been testing this for months—the correlation between brief quality and output is nearly 1:1. Rushed brief = generic AI content. Detailed brief = compelling assets that drive registrations. The workflow includes specific prompts for maintaining voice consistency, building credibility through concrete benefits, and avoiding the typical AI content red flags that kill engagement. 🔗 Want the exact process? Grab the complete workflow with brief templates, prompts, and implementation steps in the comments below. [No need to comment “workflow” for the asset. That’s lame.) Running webinar campaigns with AI right now? Drop your questions below. Always testing new approaches to refine this process. P.S: Track your brief quality scores against registration rates. The data will show you exactly where your brief needs more detail. #AI #Marketing

This year we decided to try webinars. Honestly, I was skeptical. But the results surprised us: • 45,000+ registrations • 1,500+ discovery calls • Multiple six figures in revenue (For clarity, these are the combined results across the 15 webinar iterations we’ve run so far.) Now, you might be wondering… “What do webinars have to do with email?” The answer? A lot. Email plays a key role in pretty much every part of a webinar funnel. So today, I want to walk you through the 3 pillar email sequences that help us squeeze every ounce of juice from each webinar we run: Sequence #1: The Launch Sequence This sequence is all about one thing: maximizing registrations. Your email list should be your warmest, most loyal audience - which makes it one of the biggest levers you can pull to fill your webinars. How to structure it: • Target segment: Everyone on your list who hasn’t bought the product you’re promoting • Sequence length: 5-10 emails over 5-7 days (start with 5-7 if you’re new) • Send cadence: 1 email per day, with 2 emails on Day 1 and 2 on the final day Common themes we use: • “You’re invited!” announcement • Sneak peek (what they’ll learn) • Success story (proof it works) • Last chance (urgency) Sequence #2: The Post-Registration Sequence Here’s one of my biggest lessons: Getting people to register is only half the battle. The other half? Getting them to show up live. Because that’s where the money is made. This sequence has 3 main goals: • Ensure people add the event to their calendar • Get them excited about attending live • Build trust and affinity before the event (especially for cold traffic from paid ads) How to structure it: • Target segment: Everyone who registers • Sequence length: 2-7 emails (2 is the bare minimum) • Send cadence: Confirmation email immediately, day-of reminders at specific times Common themes we use: • Confirmation email (with calendar add link) • “Origin story” email (build trust) • Common objection email (address doubts) • Day-of reminders (30 mins before, 10 mins before, 5 mins after start) Sequence #3: The Replay Sequence Most conversions happen during the live webinar. But here’s the thing: You can still get an extra 10-20% revenue lift from implementing a Replay Sequence. Which makes it totally worth it. The goal: Leverage your webinar replay to maximize conversions from people who registered but didn’t convert yet. How to structure it: • Target segment: Everyone who registered and hasn’t converted • Sequence length: 4-7 emails over a few days (not forever) • Send cadence: 1 email per day, with 2 on the final day Pro tip: Only promote the replay for a few days, then make it expire. Once it closes, have a mini “squeeze period” where you pitch one more time with urgency/scarcity. And that’s it! Hope it's helpful. PS - I put together an AI prompt that helps you draft your entire webinar Launch Sequence in a fraction of the time. Comment “webinar” and I’ll send it over.

Too many marketers treat webinars like one-off lead gen plays. Run the event, send the recording, plan the next one. But the teams getting the most out of webinars treat them like content engines, using multiple touchpoints to promote them and creating multiple assets from each one. Here’s how: 🔹 Before: plan & promote. Design the webinar around what you want the final content to generate. Think about how you can pre-plan the moments to clip later. Start outlining that blog recap now. And when it comes to promotion, don't stop at email invitations. Find ways to embed the registration link into existing content channels — a new or popular blog post on an adjacent topic, the bios of all your social channels, etc. (At SparkToro, I can consistently add 100-200 extra registrants by embedding the registration link in a new blog post.) 🔹 During: reward active engagement. Having live attendees is nice; having active chat participants is even better. Invite people to engage directly in the live chat. Ask open-ended but simple questions that are easy for people to respond to. Make sure you're also using that chat in real-time — drop notes, reactions, answer quick questions that don't need to be verbally addressed during the presentation. 🔹 After: remix & reassign. One recap email isn't enough. A single well-run webinar should become multiple LinkedIn posts, a blog post, YouTube clips, and sales talking points — assets that serve social media, content marketing, and sales. Give each content asset a new job. This mindset has mattered a lot for SparkToro Office Hours, which typically gets ~1,200 signups. It’s also very aligned with how Goldcast talks about online events too — not just hosting webinars, but turning video into clips, blogs, social posts, and more. Link below in the comments to learn more. #GoldcastPartner