Webinars can and should be a key component of any marketer’s toolbox to generate leads, engage your audience, and drive results. Whereas webinars are often categorized as consideration stage content, they can actually be used in all stages of the buyer’s journey depending on your buyer personas! This tactical session will guide a newbie through the process of creating a webinar program from scratch including determining what’s the goal of each webinar, identifying topics, mapping content to each stage of the buyer’s journey, finding a speaker, deciding if your webinars should be live or on-demand, promoting your events to make sure you have a good audience, picking hosting software for integration with HubSpot, defining general timelines and responsibilities for staff, and following up after the event.

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QUICK AND DIRTY
ROADMAP TO
CREATING A WEBINAR
PROGRAM FROM THE
GROUND UP
Jessica Vionas-Singer
Senior Marketing Consultant
SmartBug Media
jessica@smartbugmedia.com | @jvionassinger

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1. Why webinars?
2. Planning
3. Promotion
4. Timeline
5. How to make your content
remarkable
6. The day is here!
7. Follow up
AGENDA

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1 WHY WEBINARS?

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Different people prefer different
ways of consuming content.

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of B2B marketers say that webinars are effective or very
effective at accomplishing their overall objectives.
Marketing Profs, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks 2015
64%
(Whitepapers were 58% and eBooks were 55%.)

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WEBINARS FIT IN ALL STAGES OF THE
INBOUND MARKETING METHODOLOGY

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WEBINARS FIT IN ALL STAGES OF
THE BUYER’S JOURNEY
Educational
webinar
Comparison
webinar
Product demo
webinar

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At the end of the day,
WEBINARS ARE AN INCREDIBLY
POWERFUL TOOL
available in your marketing
toolbox.

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2 PLANNING

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1. Goal
2. Topic
3. Speaker
4. Other people
5. Live or on-demand
6. Date/time
7. Software
PLANNING

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ALWAYS START WITH
YOUR GOAL.
This will determine what type of webinar you’ll create.
1

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WHAT
SHOULD
THE TOPIC
BE? What are
competitors
talking about?
What trends are showing
up social media?
Do you have an ebook
that could be
repurposed?
What is the
industry currently
buzzing about? What’s “hot”?
What keywords is your website trending for?
Ask your customers: What topic would entice
you before you were a customer?
Ask the sales team: What news that
has been popping up in your
conversations?
2

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CHOOSING YOUR SPEAKER
External Speaker
 Pro: less prep work for you
 Pro: brings a built-in audience
(if speaker is well-known)
 Pro: gives you credibility
 Con: may need to give an
honorarium
 Con: less direct connection to
you/your product
Internal Speaker
 Pro: establishes you as a
thought leader
 Pro: easy “yes”
 Pro: know you are committed
 Con: will take time to develop
content
 Con: some people may not
attend because they think it will
be a product pitch
3

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WHAT MAKES A WEBINAR
SUCK?
According to 48% of people, it’s a poor presenter.
RedBack Report, Exposing the 9 Webinar Myths

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1. Marketer (You)
2. Graphic Designer
3. Moderator
4. Recorder
5. Technical Help Chat
6. Audience Member
OTHER PEOPLE
4

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Should your webinar be live or
on-demand?
5

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Best day to host
a webinar
(according to
attendance
statistics):
Wednesday or
Thursday
6
ON24, Webinar Benchmarks Report 2015

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Best time to host a
webinar (according to
attendance statistics):
11 am PST / 2 pm EST
ON24, Webinar Benchmarks Report 2015

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Software
up to 100 attendees
Cost per month
Integrates with
HubSpot?
GoToWebinar $89 Native
ReadyTalk $119
Connect
Integration
Zoom + Zapier $75 With Zapier
AnyMeeting +
Zapier
$98 With Zapier
Webinar Software Comparison 7

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Software Cost/mo Limitations Benefit
YouTube Free None Cost, SEO
Vimeo $10
Up to 5
GB/week
Metrics, aesthetics
Wistia $10
Up to 25
videos
Metrics, aesthetics,
integrates with
HubSpot
Recording Hosting Platforms Comparison

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3 PROMOTION

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Send emails:
Try both HTML and text format

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Be where your
target
audience is

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Consider paid social
media if you have budget

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Use the real
estate you
already have

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Write a post or two

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Invite your customers

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Leverage Other
People’s Audiences
(LOPA) including
partners, employees,
and the speaker’s

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Write a guest post
and/or a LinkedIn Pulse
post

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Put out a
press release

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Have employees
add a PS in their email signature

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ONLY 43% OF
REGISTRANTS WILL
ATTEND. (Plan accordingly.)
ON24, Webinar Benchmarks Report 2015

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4 TIMELINE

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 Start planning
 Determine your goal, type of
webinar, topic, etc.
 Decide if speaker will be
internal/external/panel
 Select speaker and
moderator
 Purchase software
6 WEEKS OUT

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 Finalize date and time
 Create title and abstract
 Get speaker bio and
headshot
 Registration form & page
 Define post-event follow up
 Create slide template
 Make sure everyone at your
company knows the plan
4 WEEKS OUT

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 Send out first email
 Start social media
promotion
 Start any paid social media
 Add webinar to your
website
 Review content with
internal speaker
3 WEEKS OUT

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 Continue promotional
efforts, including email,
social media, etc.
 Send out press release
 Put up blog post and/or
guest blog posts
 Determine poll(s) and/or
post-event survey
2 WEEKS OUT

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 Dry run (or two or three)
 Any final promotion
 Designer polishes slides
 Prepare back-up and seed
questions
 Determine if there are any
questions that the speaker
doesn’t want to cover
1 WEEK OUT

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5 HOW TO MAKE YOUR
CONTENT REMARKABLE

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Practice!
Dry run(s) are
absolutely
essential.

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WHAT
SHOULD
THE
MARKETER
ASK?
Are there places
where a visual
aid would help?
Does this presentation
deliver on what we
promised the attendees?
Are there any holes
or gaps?
Does the webinar fit in the given amount of time?
Are there an agenda at the beginning and a
conclusion at the end?
Is there a “story”—that is, how
everything in the webinar fits
together?

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Plan how and where you’ll
interact with the audience
and between the speaker
and moderator

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Invest in your slides

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 Know your content
 Practice
 Record and listen
 Have confidence
 Smile, get energized
BE A GREAT
PRESENTER

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6 THE DAY IS HERE!

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Make sure team is
ready to go

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 Turn office phones and cell phones off or put them on
silent.
 Put a sign on their door that they are not to be disturbed.
 Shut down all computer programs except the webinar
software and slides (don’t forget email and chat!).
 Have drinking water nearby in case throat gets dry.
 Use the microphone/headset used at the dry run.
CHECKLIST for speaker & moderator:

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Give back-up/seed
questions and off limits
topics to the moderator

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Log in 30 minutes early, start the broadcast 15 minutes
out, and begin the actual webinar right on time

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If you are the speaker or
moderator, get fired up!

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If you aren’t the speaker or
moderator, then sit back, watch,
and monitor

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average time spent viewing live webinar
of 45-60 minutes.
56 minutes
ON24, Webinar Benchmarks Report 2015

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7 FOLLOW UP

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Email individuals who had
questions not answered
during the webinar

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Upload recording and
update landing page,
website, and CTAs

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Send a follow up
email with goodies

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Coordinate with Sales team and implement
lead nurturing

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20-40% OF WEBINAR
ATTENDEES TURN INTO
QUALIFIED LEADS.
ReadyTalk, Benchmarking Webinar Best Practices: Pre-Event

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Promote the
recording too!

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Go over results,
communicate with team,
and do a post-event
wrap-up

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HOW CAN
YOU
REUSE
THE
CONTENT?

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WEBINAR EBOOK
& CHECKLIST
https://www.smartbugmedia.com/
webinar-ebook
BLOG POSTS
https://www.smartbugmedia.com/
blog