Webinar Calendar Template: How to Build a Winning Webinar Planning

Webinar Calendar Template: How to Build a Winning Webinar Planning

According to best practices, how often should I post on Facebook, and at what time? Are Monday mornings a good time to send emails? How many days should my campaign run? These are the questions webinar and event marketers are asking every day. In this post, we use industry resources, as well as our own AI Engine, to provide a webinar calendar template and answer these questions.

In an ideal world, planning a webinar would be as simple as sending one promotional email. But unfortunately, as humans, we don’t respond to just a single message. It takes many. As such, it’s important to take a comprehensive approach to marketing your webinar in order to maximize registrations. 

Webinar Emails Sequence

Email will most likely be your best registration driver. After all, an audience already familiar with your brand will naturally respond better to your webinar email message. Additionally, just a word of caution: always send your webinar emails to an opted-in database. Never purchase email lists as they are full of SPAM traps and will get you into trouble. Every. Single. Time!

According to the ON24 Webinar Benchmark Report 2020, most marketers surveyed agree that email is the strongest channel, reporting that 65% of webinar registrations came from emails sent mid-week. Specifically, ON24’s research reveals the best days to send your email are: (in order)

  • Tuesday
  • Wednesday
  • Thursday 

In general, the best time to send emails is during business hours or between 11:00 AM – 4 PM EST, but you should always experiment with different sending times.

Pro tip: Vary the days you send your emails so you reach your audience on their most convenient days, and maximize your results.

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At this point, you might be wondering if the email is the best way to get registrations, then should your marketing plan include more webinar emails? Our advice: be careful. Avoid over-emailing your database.

Furthermore, watch your email analytics: an increase in unsubscribes means you are promoting too often or sending irrelevant messages. If you see your metrics falling or unsubscribes increasing, make adjustments to your messages and or cadence.

And speaking of your webinar email cadence, plan at least a week between each message. Therefore, an 8-10 day range between messages is ideal. Your promotional period will likely include 4-5 emails, so make them count! Remember, people don’t always open emails immediately; responses may continue to trickle in a day or two after your email goes out.

A Webinar Calendar Template Should Include an Organic Social Media Cadence

Social media provides a great branding opportunity and can be a solid webinar registration driver, too. A study from GoToMeeing finds that up to 15% of registrations come from a combination of LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

So, how do you walk the fine line between underpromoting your webinar and overpromoting it? Here are some industry benchmarks that help find the perfect balance in releasing promotional material.

This is what Hubspot says about posting frequency on social media:

FrequencyFacebookTwitterLinkedIn
Low1/week3/day2/week
High3/week6/day1/day
Recommended1-2/week4-5/day2-3/week
Source: How Often To Post On Social Media: 2020 Success Guide

And Sprout Social says this about the timing of posts:

TimingTwitterFacebookLinkedIn
Best Days & TimesMon-Fri, 9:00-5:00 ETTues-Thurs 9:00-4:00 pm ETTues/Wed/Thurs/Fri, 9:00-3:00 ET
Days to AvoidSundaySundaySunday
Source: Sprout Social

Tips for Social Media Success of Your Webinar Planning

Avoid clustering your posts. For the best results, schedule 3-4 hours between your posts if you post several times per day. In addition, for the weekly posts, try spreading them out over the week vs. back-to-back posts for more consistent coverage in content feeds.

Watch your analytics. If engagement is dropping, you are over-promoting your webinar. Each channel has its algorithms. And if you over-promote and people aren’t engaging, your posts will be shown less. Consequently, flooding a channel won’t help, and it could actually deter people from engaging with your content. In such a case, it’s best to pull back on your webinar promotions and reduce your posting frequency.

Leverage speakers, influencers, and partners. You’ve chosen your speakers based on their expertise and knowledge on a specific topic, leverage that! Additionally, your speakers, influencers, and webinar partners all have networks on their own. Regardless of the size of your speaker’s network, everyone who sees your webinar promotion is a potential lead.

As you’re planning how to market your webinar, factor this in. At the very least, provide speakers and partners with marketing copy, a unique registration link, and ask them to invite their contacts via email and social media. Thus, don’t forget to tag them when you’re promoting your webinar on social media.

Also, remember to tag your webinar’s sponsors, co-presenting companies, or complementary business partners of your organization. Your goal is to leverage your community to share information about your upcoming webinar. Obviously, it’s not merely a marketing request. Think of it as spreading the word about an insightful presentation to help prospects do their job better.

Creating Your Webinar Calendar Template 

Every marketing campaign has its own cadence. However, how often your webinar emails deploy or you post on social media depends on many factors. One of them is the other communications you may have going out on these channels. Best practices always are an excellent benchmark, but they’re not dogma, so every organization has to find the formula that works best for it.

Here at Contentware, our core business is event promotion. Our software uses AI and your landing page to create an entire, branded marketing campaign – in minutes. The software was trained by a team of experienced event and digital marketers so that every campaign element is based on best practices.

Moreover, as an industry benchmark for you, here’s what we see as an optimal webinar promotion schedule for a 4-week promotional period.

Image of an optimal promotional campaign for a webinar. Webinar Calendar Template
Contentware rendition of an optimal webinar promotional campaign

Continuing Your Webinar Program

Webinars are a great way to build thought leadership, showcase brand authority, and drive lead generation. Thus, holding webinars regularly keeps that momentum going. As a result, consider developing a webinar series for specific audience segments. Or, you could even create a multi-part webinar series to discuss a particular topic.

In the end, the objective is to establish a scalable webinar marketing program that you can easily repeat. As a result of establishing an effective webinar marketing campaign, your organization will benefit from every webinar you promote.

Want more tips on how to market your webinar effectively? Download our free guide, The Ultimate Guide to Webinar Promotions.

Contentware uses AI and your landing page to create an entire, branded marketing campaign – in minutes, based on a webinar calendar template. If you want to learn more, sign up for a demo!

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