How to market my (or your) webinar

Have you ever noticed that it’s often easier to give someone else advice than it is for you to follow that same advice?

For reasons unknown to all but our muses, marketers have the same problem.

I’m preparing to deliver my first-ever webinar next week, and I’ve been more worried about getting the word out than whether I’ll flub the presentation. Note to self: marketing ain’t easy.

The marketing I’ve done so far

I’m going to describe the steps I’ve taken so far to drum up interest in the webinar.

It started with scheduling the time and date – 4 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 19. (Start with the end in mind, right?)

The schedule then became part of the online registration page, which I customized with some content about me, testimonials and photographs. Simple enough, but it took a couple of hours.

I’ve borrowed email sequences that generate automatic invitations along with a series of reminders. Those had to be customized.

A flyer to print with my elevator pitch

With the landing page complete, I created a flyer (thank you, Canva) to hand out at a chamber of commerce networking meeting. That didn’t take too long because I used a template. I started printing them 40 minutes before the start of the meeting, and the printer toner began fading after six copies (sigh).

I mentioned the webinar as part of my 60-second elevator pitch, and one person approached me after the meeting about registering.

Next, I started copying email addresses from my collection of business cards into my email management tool. If I have your business card, you’re getting a webinar invitation.

Social media, with help from ChatGPT

Up next, social media posts. Once again using Canva, I created six or seven images to be used on LinkedIn and Facebook. Then I turned to ChatGPT, my current generative AI tool of choice.

I described my target audience to ChatGPT, gave it the link to the registration page, and fed it the content of my invitation emails. With that information, it generated a series of social media posts. After some polishing, I matched the words with the images and used one of my tools to schedule posts through Aug. 19. The whole process took at least four hours.

Realizing I can’t count only on social media to market the webinar, I’ve set a couple of other things in motion. There are two people I’ve worked with closely who have wide networks. I’ve asked them to spread the word as well, and one of them was kind enough recommend the webinar to some local business people.

Facebook groups, an event, chamber email

In addition to my own social media pages, I posted notices on Facebook groups that promote local businesses. And, of course, I created a Facebook event and invited some of my Facebook friends and followers.

I’m trying to work my chamber of commerce memberships by asking them to promote the webinar in upcoming emails. I barely made the deadline for one chamber, but I expect to get mentions today and next Tuesday.

And the marketing work isn’t done. I have to input more email addresses, attend a couple of networking meetings, post an announcement to my Google Business Profile, add an article to my website home page.

I hope that by the weekend I’ll have a chance to practice delivering the webinar.

The details

What’s the webinar about? The long title is “How to Adapt Your Local Business Marketing to Quickly Attract & Activate Customers Who Want Your Products & Services.”

The short version: How to find customers online.

I’ll explain why now is the best time to use digital marketing to find customers; describe the three ways to find customers on the internet; and present a four-step framework for local marketing success.

If you’re interested in attending, please register here. If you know other business leaders or marketing people in your company who might be interested, please share the registration information. Thanks!