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Top 10 Tips for
Webinar Invitation Success
A Connect Direct White Paper
Sponsored By:Top 10 Tips for Webinar Invitation Success
Introduction
It's often said that one of the primary challenges of B2B direct marketing and demandgeneration is "breaking through the clutter." Nowhere is this more painfully true than withWebinar invitations, at a time when the volume of such events has increased exponentially.
The primary culprits in this flood of Web events are online publishers, who are now offeringturnkey Webinar programs as a standard component of their lead generation services. Advertisers are drawn to these programs in part because they purport to be all-inclusive-publishers provide the speaker, write the content, host, manage, and promote the event.
Publishers can guarantee, in most cases, a minimum number of attendees because they have apool of no-cost media at their disposal. Success is due more to a barrage of promotion ratherthan a finely tuned promotional strategy. E-mail invitations, in particular, are generic andtemplated (for reasons of economy), but no matter-e-mail enough people and eventuallyyou'll make your numbers.
What does it take, therefore, for your event to stand out amongst a sea of generic, ordinaryinvitations? What it doesn't take is gimmickry. Wacky creative concepts, outlandish graphicdesigns, and jaw-dropping incentives ("Register today and qualify to win a 52" Plasma TV!")only have marginal impact on your campaign and may even cheapen your brand in theprocess.
No, what it takes is an adherence to basic direct marketing principles. Boring, perhaps-butwhen 9 out of 10 e-mail invitations show a complete ignorance of the even the mostelementary best practices, it won't take much for your Web seminar to rise above the noise.
Here then, in random order, are 10 principles to keep in mind when designing your nextWebinar invitation:
#1: Sell the Event, Not the Product
Your e-mail has one objective only: to get people to register for the event. Don't stuff yourcopy with superlatives about your product and then mention the Webinar as an afterthought. Even if your product sounds like the best thing since the iPod, if the recipient doesn't want tocome to the event, you've failed. Period.
Instead, sell the benefits of your product in the context of the event. Rather than "oursoftware cuts development time by 50 percent," say "Join our free Webinar and you'll learnhow you can cut development time by 50 percent."
#2: Use Your Headline and Sub-Head Wisely.
The very top section of your e-mail, what the recipient sees when he/she first opens youre-mail is the most critical real estate in the entire design. Assuming that you've followed bestpractices and designed your e-mail so that your key message shows up legibly in the recipient'spreview window (and not as a series of white boxes), that space should contain the following:
©2008 Connect Direct Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this document may be reused, reproduced, or republished without express written permission of Connect Direct. 2Top 10 Tips for Webinar Invitation Success
a. What the event is (title or description)b. When it's taking place (date & time)c. Why you should attend (key benefits)d. How to register (click here)
Resist the temptation to use some clever, pithy headline-the kind that wins awards andmakes marketers like you and me chuckle but has nothing to do with the event. Before therecipient sees or reads even one word of body copy, he/she should know: what, when, why,and how.
Fig. 1. The top section of your e-mail invitation should contain key information - what, when, why,and how - about your event.
#3: Don't Waste Your First Paragraph
It's always tempting to use the first paragraph of body copy to (in effect) "set up" your pitchfor the event by describing the business conditions or trends that make the event a worthwhileinvestment. A typical example is the paragraph that begins:
"As an IT manager, you need ..."
Such introductions are wasted space. Moreover, they push down more vital selling copy belowthe fold and therefore decrease the chances that readers will see or read the copy that reallymatters. Instead, just lead with a clear and compelling benefit:
"In one hour, learn how to increase the... [download for more]
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