You’ve committed to making webinars a part of your marketing strategy. Fantastic! Now…what are you going to talk about? How are you going to put together a webinar topic that speaks to your audience and makes them want to register and attend?
While the webinar presentation itself must be compelling and have substance, your audience will never even see your webinar unless you pick an engaging topic that they’re interested in learning more about. Think of it like a prospecting email – the message in the body of your email might be awesome, but your prospects will only read it if the subject line compels them to open it in the first place. Here are some tips that will help you pick the right webinar topic every time.
It’s not about you. It’s about your audience
It doesn’t matter what you want to talk about. What matters is what your audience wants. Where are they looking to improve? Where are they challenged? What information are they thirsting for and how can you give them what they want? Going to your sales team to get answers to these questions would be a smart move. They’re on the frontline every day speaking with customers and prospects. They’re hearing the complaints and challenges. They also know where there’s miscommunication and why some deals are being lost. They can essentially be the voice of the customer/prospect and help you build topics and messaging that resonates with your audience. Finally, don’t be afraid to simply ask your audience, “We’re going to be running webinars to educate and connect with our community. What would you like to see and learn in our webinars?”
Pick a topic with your webinar goal in mind
Are you looking to create mass appeal and touch your entire audience? If so, you’ll want to go with a topic that’s broader in nature. These are topics that will drive more webinar traffic, but most likely won’t generate as many qualified leads. If you’re looking to generate more qualified, sales ready leads or accelerate existing opportunities through the pipeline, you’ll want to pick a topic that appeals to a particular niche or segment of your audience. These are webinars that are meant to meet where your prospects are in their buying journey. We touched on this a few months back in A Webinar for Every Stage of the Funnel.
Repurpose content that’s been successful
We always talk about how great webinar content is staring marketers in the face…they just need to know where to look. If you’re struggling to find that perfect webinar topic, dive into past content, determine what’s generated the most buzz and re-purpose it. If you have a blog that’s gotten a lot of attention and shares, an eBook or whitepaper that generated a lot of downloads, or a video that got a lot of views, double down on that success and make it the topic of your next webinar. Too often marketing teams create great content, but don’t look at the big picture and realize the long-tail impact it can have. They’re just looking at short-term results. Webinars are the ideal vehicle to extend the shelf life of successful pieces of content.
Clearly articulate the purpose of your webinar
I know it sounds obvious, but too often the topic doesn’t clearly state what the webinar is going to talk about. Pick a topic that will give your audience a good idea of what the webinar is going to cover (for example, ‘Five Ways to Generate More Webinar Traffic’), and then when they get to the registration page have a description that clearly states the educational benefits of attending your webinar.
If you’re compelled, please share your feedback below. Talk soon
Jason Stegent is the Founder & President of Elastic Solutions. Email him @ jstegent@elasticroi.com