7 Ways to Market Your Webcast

Whether you’re hosting a virtual press conference, a shareholders’ meeting, an informative webcast for lead generation, a virtual conference, or another event, you’ll want to market it properly. Sharing your message through the right channels to reach the right people before the event—and following up properly afterward—can help ensure the best results.

As venues reopen and people spend more time in public gatherings, there are more ways to market your webcast than ever before. Leverage online marketing tactics combined with real-world promotions to reach the broadest audience.

Here are some effective ways to market your webcast. Remember, not every technique works for every business or engages every audience. So test your results, modify, and as your event gets closer, put your time and marketing budget toward the techniques that have proved themselves to be most effective.

1. Email Marketing

Email marketing remains one of the most effective tools for online marketing. Consider these statistics compiled by the HubSpot marketing platform:

• Four billion people use email daily.
• 77% of email marketers saw engagement increase over the past year.
• 64% of B2B marketers say their strategy helped them reach business goals in 2021.

For the best results, track performance, segment your email list, and generate engaging content starting two weeks before the event and increasing in frequency as the event date approaches. Don’t forget a reminder email on the day of the event.

2. Social Media Marketing (Paid and Organic)

Create compelling short videos and scroll-stopping graphics and use the right hashtags on social media posts related to your event. Once you’ve tested to find the type of posts and messaging that works, you may want to put some money into paid ads. Social media marketing is widely recognized to be the most affordable form of advertising. Compared to other forms of media, you can reach a large number of people for a relatively small spend.

3. Display Advertising

If you are having success with paid social, you may consider delving into paid search and programmatic display advertising. You can place ads on third-party websites, in apps on mobile, or through Google to gain more visibility for your webcast. Make sure to test different ad copy, graphics, and calls to action to see which ads perform best on which networks, then replicate those types of ads as your event draws closer.

4. Blog Posts

One way to be sure you have engaging insights to share in your email marketing and social media campaigns is to create short-and long-form blog content related to your event. Drive traffic to your website and your registration form by sharing blog posts on email and social media. If you use the right keywords and have a solid SEO strategy, you can also attract organic traffic, which can introduce your event to a new audience.

5. Partnerships and Presenter Marketing

If you have big-name speakers presenting at your webcast, or even people who are well known in their industry, you can also leverage their social networks and websites to market your webcast. To make it easy, create visual assets and written content featuring your speaker, or enlist their help to create a short video for email or social media distribution.

It might even be worth printing collateral they can distribute at real-world networking events to their clients and in their place of business.

6. Public Relations Outreach

Public relations can be costly and time-consuming, as the best PR campaigns involve building relationships with journalists and editors at media outlets. If you are already working with a PR agency, promote your event like any other campaign. Highlight the speakers and the value your webcast will deliver.

If you haven’t delved into PR, you can distribute a press release through a newswire and have it reach many people. Distributing press releases through a service can also give your website an SEO boost, attracting new people to your site.

7. Make Sure to Obtain Consent

Once you’ve collected the names of registrants, you’ll need to gain their permission to communicate with them in the future for event follow-ups and future webcasts. Use marketing consent tracking tools, like those included in GlobalMeet Webcast, to share privacy policies and terms of service and to allow attendees to opt-in to hear from you in the future.