How NOT to promote your webinar through banner ads or e-newsletters

When you're trying to generate a lead through a webcast, make sure your initial offer isn't too intimidating.  Many companies buy web ads or e-newsletter ads to directly promote a webcast, which I believe can be a big mistake that causes your campaign performance to take a hit.

Here at IndustryWeek, I get to see the click-through rates of many different types of advertising campaigns.  And over the years, I've consistently seen the click-through rates for webcast-specific ad campaigns getting worse and worse -- to the point where they're now lagging far behind other non-webcast ads.  So for the typical non-webcast campaign from XYZ Company, where they might see a click-through rate of 0.8% (just making up numbers here), the click-through rate falls to 0.2% or 0.3% when they run a campaign promoting a webcast.  This is a pretty consistent occurrence across most campaigns.

I think these results are due to the time commitment involved.  Asking a brand new prospect to give up an hour of their time to attend a webcast is a large commitment to communicate in a small ad, and that's why the ads often generate such a weak click-through rate and response.

For a campaign of this type, I'd recommend trying a different approach.  Develop an intermediate offer to promote in the web ad or e-newsletter ad, then offer the webcast later.  For example, offer a free research report within the ad.  Once the prospect has clicked on your ad and responded to that low-commitment offer, then you can invite them to your webcast.

Your ad click-through-rates will increase dramatically.  And while adding an intermediate step into the process sounds counter-intuitive, with this tactic you should see an increase in overall registrations -- because you're bringing more people into the first stage of the marketing funnel.