Even in pre-COVID-19 times, webinars were becoming a growing a trend in associations. They are a great way to reach a national audience and provide a source of education for members. If you are going to spend time and energy putting together a webinar, it is important that you properly market that webinar to your audience.
1. Pick a topic your membership wants to hear about. Do not make assumptions on topic choices, poll your membership and understand what they are looking to gain out of webinars. This will help you to plan out the year’s subjects. Provide a spot in the survey for members to also suggest a speaker if they know someone who would fit the bill. This will make your job on the board easier while making members happier.
2. Put goals in place. What does the board want to achieve from the webinars? Member retention? Membership growth? Revenue? This is important to discuss before jumping into the details. It allows you to put some structure to the webinars and topics. It also makes it clear who the marketing messages should be directed at.
3. Create a timeline. How often do you want to reach out to your target audience? What should each message include? Having this timeline planned out in advance will ensure everything goes out properly and at fitting times. You can schedule social media messages on Hootsuite or future emails on platforms like Constant Contact and MailChimp.
4. Introduce your speaker in advance. In the messages going out to potential attendees, provide them with some information on the speaker. Include things that would explain why they are qualified to speak on the topic. If the webinar is not just for members, let your speaker know that they can invite others as well.
5. Follow up! Provide those that registered for the webinar with all of the materials discussed. This includes slides and a recording of the webinar. Some people might have signed up and had to miss it and others might just want to reference the materials in the future. You can also take the content and make it into a blog post for your website. You have the information and should make the most of it.
Webinars are only going to continue to grow and should be embraced! Keep your members happy and educated.