7 Pre-Event Steps to Deliver Perfect Webinars: Insights From the ON24X Masterclass

B2B marketers know that a successful webinar process includes both a pre- and post-event plan for driving registrants and continuing engagement. The first part of the strategy, the pre-event planning, can set up your webinar for long-term success. 

But many B2B marketers are still moving forward with their strategy in the same way they always have — and expecting different results. The truth is, if B2B marketers are going to see their event engagement increase and reach their goals, they need to switch it up.

When it comes to webinar processes, an ON24 poll ran during the ON24 Experience 2024 found that most webinars are produced centrally, meaning a single marketing team is in charge of planning and executing. A strong pre-event process can help that team produce content consistently.

Ready to start seeing different webinar results? Here are the seven pre-event steps to delivering perfect webinars. 

Step 1: Prepare your webinar with brand guidelines in mind

Why is it important to mold your webinar to your brand guidelines? Viewers should be able to recognize your look and feel throughout all communications. This brand familiarity can start with pre-event registration pages, and carry through the actual webinar. If B2B marketers do an excellent job with their brand guidelines, they will already be familiar with that brand by the time viewers see a webinar console. ON24’s global branding lets you make your webinar yours.

Here’s how to make sure your brand stays consistent:

• • Set up your palette: Decide on your primary brand color, secondary accent colors, and additional colors that will be used throughout all communications. This includes registration pages, the digital lobby, and your actual console.
  • Use your words: Upload custom fonts that can make your brand stand out from others.
  • Determine logos: You should always have one logo for light backgrounds, and one for dark backgrounds.

Step 2: Use event templates for quick and easy webinar creation

Think of event templates as the scaffolding, or framework, for your webinar programs. They allow you to standardize emails, registration pages and other elements across multiple webinars. Event templates are different from console templates, which are used to customize the layout and design of the webinar console itself. Here’s how event templates can help:

• • Copying an existing event template and customizing it for the specific event in mind saves you from having to build everything from scratch.
  • Creating templates ensures consistency across your webinar program. 
  • Templates free up your time and energy so you can focus on the content and engagement for each webinar.

Step 3: Tag your events for easy reuse and repurposing

Let’s talk about tagging. Tagging events allows for organization and structure, which is great when you have so many moving parts of your webinar process. Tagging makes it easier to both track performance and analyze results across your webinar program.

Remember to establish a consistent tagging strategy upfront rather than creating new tags for each webinar. This will prevent your tag list from becoming unmanageable.

You can tag by:

• • product
  • business unit
  • audience
  • content type
  • campaign

SEO teams will be happy to know that tagging works in their favor. When the webcasting SEO feature is enabled in your account settings, Google can index webinar titles and promotional summaries. This makes your webinars more discoverable through organic search, helping to drive registration and attendance.

Step 4: Use AI to write your webinar promotional content

Generative AI helps you with everything from writing copy to identifying webinar moments where audiences are most engaged. These key moments can then be used for future content. 

The SmartText feature, powered by the ON24 AI-powered Analytics and Content Engine, allows event organizers to leverage generative AI to automatically generate promotional copy for communication like emails, landing pages and social media. Here’s how it works:

• • When creating a new webinar event, you can fill out a series of prompts about the target audience, key benefits, challenges, and value proposition. Smart Text will then generate a suggested copy based on your inputs.
  • The AI-generated content can serve as a starting point that you can then customize and refine. This helps to keep your content consistent while speeding up your content creation process.

Step 5: Set up email confirmations and reminders to boost attendance

Think of webinar email confirmations and reminders as part of an ongoing dialogue between you and your audience. The cadence should be just enough so that they are reminded of the event without flooding their inbox. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

• • Sync your viewer’s calendar by including a calendar invite in the confirmation email. The invite will automatically add the webinar to attendees’ calendars.
  • Customize the “from” label and reply-to email address in the confirmation and reminder emails to make them more recognizable and actionable for attendees.
  • Use ON24’s email templates rather than the legacy options to take advantage of more customization.
  • Personalize emails by including the attendee’s first name using ON24’s token capabilities.

Don’t forget to update the language in post-event emails to be appropriate for an on-demand webinar, rather than a live event. You can also use this email as an opportunity to drive attendees to the on-demand recording or other relevant content.

Step 6: Create a registration page to drive conversions and collect first-party data

A registration page has two fundamental components that make it stand out: design and form fields. Both serve form and function—form fields help B2B marketers collect data, while design helps maintain a consistent brand look and feel.

When it comes to design:

• • Use a clean, modern layout with clear sections for the event details, promotional summary and registration form.
  • Incorporate videos or images to make the page more visually engaging.
  • Use ON24’s personalization capabilities, such as tokens, to dynamically populate fields like the attendee’s first name. This helps to create a more personalized experience.
  • Craft a compelling promotional summary using ON24’s Smart Text feature to highlight the webinar’s key benefits and takeaways.

When it comes to form fields:

• • Make sure the fields match up with any third-party registration forms you are using, such as through a marketing automation platform. This ensures the data is properly captured and mapped.
  • When customizing the registration form fields, hover over each field to see the “field parameter.” This is the key you’ll need to match up with any external forms.
  • Consider which fields should be required, and which should be optional to strike the right balance between capturing valuable data and minimizing friction for registrants.

Step 7: Design a console to meet your goals and maximize engagement

Before designing your console, first think about your goal. What is it you want your viewers to engage with, or to click on? Determine your primary call-to-action and make sure it is prominently displayed and easy for attendees to find. This could be a demo sign-up, content download, or other key conversion point.

Then, ensure you stay consistent with your brand by using personalization features like logos and greetings to create a more customized experience for your audience. Drive engagement using tools like surveys, Q&A, and chat to maximize attendee participation and data capture. 

But do consider hiding or de-emphasizing certain console elements like the attendee list or chat if they are not as relevant for on-demand viewing. Leverage ON24’s console layout templates to standardize the design and structure across your webinar program, making it easier to manage and optimize.

Remember, you can always test different console configurations to see what resonates best with your audience and drives the desired business outcomes.