Let’s pretend your webinar or webcast is a party. Okay, these informative and lead-generation gatherings maybe aren’t quite the same without the appetizers and beverages — but on the planning level, there’s that same nagging fear. What if nobody shows up?
For webinars (and, presumably, parties) — we believe that high attendance can be linked directly to the invitation email, and by extension, the registration page.
Email is simply the most effective channel for promoting webinars. The 2013 ON24 Webinar Benchmark Report states that 80% of registrations come from a combination of email and site promotions.
Your invitation emails are key to a successful webinar! Let’s take a look at some proven strategies to increase the effectiveness of your email Invitation.
Webinar invitation emails are all about making it easy for people to say yes to registering and by extension, attending.
- Be concise, and use an active voice. People don’t want to read a novel to figure out what your event is about. They want to be able to easily see in a few seconds or less what the event is about. Use a clear call to action like “Sign up Now” or “Register Here” so they know they have the opportunity to attend a virtual event.
- Optimize your email for HTML, plain text, image-free and mobile viewing. Make sure your email can be opened in all of these formats.
- Use bullet points and numbered lists. Across the board, people like lists – they are easy to read and digest, and our eyes naturally gravitate toward them.
- Your email subject line is maybe one of the most important parts of the invite. This is the first opportunity to grab attention and get your prospect to open the email. It should feel personal and exciting, and should be between roughly 25 to 50 characters at the most. We also suggest testing out different subject lines to different segments of your audience.
- Use a sense of urgency to get the audience to register sooner rather than later. Using phrases such as “space as limited” and “Register Now” are good ones to get people to sign up.
- Include a short summary of the webinar topic as well as bios and photos of the speakers.
- Make sure the graphical elements and branding match the registration page for the event so everything is cohesive and isn’t confusing to the audience.
- Keep things personal by using their first names at the top of the email. People are more inclined to open emails if you use the recipient’s name in the first line of the email.
We guarantee if you follow these tips, your invitation emails will get more views and you will see a rise in attendance.
Jessica Bradford
V2 | Virtual Event Manager