1. Your webinar should last from 30 to 45 minutes
Webinar statistics show that audiences prefer webinars that last between 30 and 45 minutes, and that only 10% want to attend sessions that last over an hour. If you think your topic requires more than one hour, then hopefully these webinar statistics will convince you that it would be best to break down the presentation into two or more parts. This may bring with it a couple extra challenges, especially if you’re offering remote simultaneous translation, but they’ll be worth it if it means that your webinar ends up somewhere in the range for the ideal duration.
2. People will only commit to one webinar per week
Research shows that people will only commit to attending one webinar per week. Your target audience is likely interested in a number of different topics, not just those related to your industry. Keep this in mind as you put your webinar together. You have all kinds of competition vying for your market’s attention.
3. Morning is best
Going against conventional wisdom that states that the best time to host webinars is in the afternoon, the latest webinar statistics show that 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning is actually the preferred time of day. Only about 16% of people like to attend webinars from noon on.
4. Q&A sessions
If you haven’t yet included live Q&A sessions at the end of your webinars, it’s time to do so. Research shows that 92% of attendees want a live Q&A session at the end. More often than not, speakers simply run through their slides, talking at the audience, and miss out on the chance to make a meaningful connection with them. Most Q&As last ten minutes, but you can adjust that to your own particular audience. It can be tough to anticipate the questions you’ll get, and in fact, you might not get any. Don’t worry about that and continue to offer Q&A sessions.
5. Be interesting
Webinar statistics show that 32% of attendees felt most engaged during debates when the speakers were truly passionate about their topic. Adding a bit of colorful language and excitement to your voice wouldn’t hurt, but according to 38% of respondents, what really wins audiences over is interesting and relevant content. This carries over to the importance of the webinar title as well. Make sure that the name of your webinar sounds appealing and useful.
6. Go heavy on promotion
About 29% of your attendees won’t register until the day of the event itself. On the other hand, statistics also show that 17% will probably sign up more than 15 days in advance. Those two groups make up nearly half the people who will attend. Therefore, you need to have a nice, long promotional cycle to attract every potential lead. Use everything from social media posts to blogs to emails to reach as many people as possible, and make sure you include information about simultaneous interpretation.
7. Send Your emails midweek
Statistics show that midweek is the best possible time to send out invitations to your potential audience. Tuesday is best, but Wednesday and Thursday aren’t bad. Monday actually gets fourth place as, come Friday, most people are just thinking about the weekend. Obviously, Saturday and Sunday are terrible days for promotional emails.
8. Only about 1/3 of registrants will actually attend
This is one of the most important success metrics for a webinar — arguably, the only one that matters — how many people actually attended. While you can always work to improve these numbers, having about 35% to 45% of registrants actually attending is the average. That’s a relatively high number though, so if that’s where you’re landing, consider your efforts successful. If you’re below 35%, something is definitely wrong. Review your strategy.
9. There are an average 148 webinar attendees
Another important metric to aim for is the number 148. That is the average audience size you should be looking for when you host webinars. If you apply this rule to number 8 above, you’ll see that you need about 500 registrants to get roughly 150 people to actually attend. Time to get to work.
