The topic of your webinar may be the single most important decision you have to make about it. No matter how well-produced your webinar is and how prepared you and the other presenters are, if you choose a topic that doesn’t resonate, you won’t reach a wide audience. With the right topic, however, and you could improve your social reach and attract a large audience. Here are a few things to think about when choosing the right topic.
What keeps your audience up at night. It’s crucial to know who your audience is and what their pain points are. What problems are they faced with on a daily basis that you can help with or have specialized knowledge about?
If you don’t know—or it’s been a while since you created your buyer persona and it could use a refresh—it’s important to check in with your audience. Talk to people who have bought from you before; monitor conversations on Twitter and LinkedIn, industry forums, and other places where your audience gathers online; or send out a survey to your mailing list to find out what topics they most want to see.
Whether it appeals to the right audience. Choosing a topic that resonates with the wrong audience is a surprisingly common mistake. You could choose a topic that’s widely known in your industry, that generates a lot of discussion and clicks—but it might still not be of concern to the decision-makers who buy the products or services you sell, for example. It’s not enough for a topic to be controversial, and it doesn’t have to appeal to a wide audience—just the one you want to speak to.
What people are searching for. Keyword research can be extremely helpful in choosing a topic. Narrow down your list of potential topics and make an initial list of keyphrases surrounding them. Plug those keyphrases into a tool like SEMRush or Google’s Keyword Planner, and see what other phrases come up. You’re looking for keywords with a high number of searches and a low or medium amount of competition for optimal SEO. It’s also helpful to plug in “long-tail” question keyphrases to get information on the questions people are asking search engines.
What’s relevant to your services, expertise, and branding. The optimal situation is to find a hot-button topic that appeals to the people you’d most like to reach, that has good search volume around it, and that also aligns with your branding, services, and specialized expertise. If you choose a topic that isn’t aligned with your branding and services, you risk getting known in your industry for something other than what you actually do.
Where the expert connections are. You can expand the reach of your webinar by getting a more-established person to join you. This should be someone who already attracts the audience you’re seeking. If you have a specific person in mind who you have an existing connection to, it can pay to think of a topic that’s of interest to both of you—and that it would make sense to invite this person to participate in.
Picking the right topic is crucial to your webinar’s success. Keep in mind what your audience’s problems are, the topics people are searching for, and which topics from that list align with your branding and expertise, and you’ll be much more likely to choose a topic that resonates.
