How to Use Email to Raise Your Webinar Attendance

How many people who sign up actually attend your webinars? If your answer is more than one in three, you’re doing really well. According to the webinar network BigMarker, that’s about the industry average.

If you want to get more people who register for your webinars to actually show up on the big day, you’ll need to lean heavily on email. And you can automate all of this—so it’s a no-brainer. Here’s how to do it:

Remind frequently. Even the most committed forget or have other commitments. Reminding them early and often is the only way to keep them engaged and keep your event top-of-mind.

You can tinker with the timing of your reminder emails to see what works best for you. But here’s an effective initial schedule to try:

1. Send a confirmation email immediately after signup.

2. Send a reminder email two weeks ahead of the webinar date.

3. Send another reminder a week ahead of the date.

4. Send another reminder one or two days ahead.

5. Send a final reminder the morning of.

Each email should provide more details about what will be included in the webinar—and give people more reasons to show up. Remind them of what they’ll be getting out of attending.

Include an “Add to Calendar” link. Especially if you’re marketing to a B2B audience, this is crucial. Calendar reminders are key in many workplaces. Include an “Add to Calendar” link in a prominent place on all of your email reminders.

Let them ask questions. In one of your reminder emails close to the event, ask readers to send you questions which you will answer on the webinar (you can also do this over social media). This makes users feel engaged. If they take the time to send questions, chances are they want to hear your answers.

Give the impression of scarcity. If people think there’s high demand and limited room, they’ll be more likely to want what you’re providing. This is a basic tactic of sales and persuasion that has shown to work again and again, across diverse industries.

Try this. In your last reminder email—the one that goes out the day of the webinar—tell readers that space is limited and they’ll need to log in early (some licenses for webinar platforms have limits on the number of attendees). This could boost your attendance rate significantly.

Savvy email tactics can raise the amount of people who show up to your webinar. Experiment with these and see what works best for you—chances are you’ll be able to increase your webinar attendance rates.