The global webinar market is estimated to reach 800 million by 2023, up 253 million from 2015.
Primary factors such as accessibility, ease of use, and accelerated adoption from the pandemic are the reasons behind the market's growth. Moreover, the trends of live streaming and video sharing opportunities are also adding to the expansion.
Webinars and virtual events are now one of marketers' top lead-generating tactics. In fact, 53% of marketers say webinars are the top-of-the-funnel content format that generates the most high-quality leads.
So with webinars being such an essential part of the B2B marketing strategy, it's important to know standard metrics and statistics from which to measure your webinar success.
What Are The Most Popular Webinar Topics?
70% of B2B professionals seek tips, tricks, and best practices. Webinars are educational, so most B2B professionals attending them look for professional advice and best practices.
Holding webinars on popular topics allow your audience to keep up with emerging trends and webinar best practices. Some popular webinar topics are marketing and revenue generation, advances in new technology, and career training.
While choosing your webinar, focus on what will help your audience. Don't forget to add educational value to your webinar, as your audience won't like an hour-long sales pitch.
Other webinar content that people desire is industry trends and predictions (62%), how-to's/explanations (61%), expert interviews (60%), case studies (59%), or data insights and original research (55%).
Webinar Registration and Attendance Benchmarks
The following registration and attendance webinar benchmarks will help you evaluate what kind of response you are getting from your audience and make timely improvements.
More People Register On The Same Day of The Webinar
29% of people register for webinars on the same day they are taking place, and only 15% register 15 days or more before the event.
However, the standard practice is to promote your webinar two weeks before show time. Don't procrastinate. Promote your webinar and increase the promotion a week before the event. Post on social media, increase your organic and paid traffic with SEO, and send emails to recipients.
For those who haven't registered, send a last chance email encouraging them to sign up. Also, send one more reminder email on the webinar day.
Registration Conversion Rate is Lower for Cold Traffic
The average webinar registration page conversion rate is 30% for cold traffic. With new visitors, you'll see less conversion on your registration pages as they will take time to trust your business.
Email is the Top Promotional Channel for Webinars
Up to 57% of registrations come from email marketing. While building a promotional strategy for your webinars, email campaigns must be a part of it.
Email marketing is unpaid promotion. Secondly, it also effectively drives more registrations. Improve your email marketing campaign results by dividing your email list into segments and sending personalized messages instead of generic invites.
Your audience will more likely open your emails if you have a personalized subject line rather than a salesy one.
In addition, you can increase your email outreach by teaming up with a B2B marketing influencer or other companies to leverage their email lists.
Registrant To Attendee Show-Up Ratio is Around 40%
On average, Welcome customers have a 66% attendance rate. Although 40% is the industry standard attendance rate, but depending on your email marketing, the webinar topic, and any incentives given to attend the event, this number will fluctuate. 40% also includes "cold traffic" registration numbers, meaning people who have never interacted with your website. This tends to lower the attendance rate, so keep in mind that you can expect even higher numbers if you only target high-quality, warm leads.
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Webinar Production Benchmarks
The Best Day To Host a Webinar Is Thursday
26% of viewers prefer to join webinars on Thursday, followed by Tuesday (23%) and Wednesday (21%).
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to holding a webinar because the best time and day will vary based on your audience. But mid-week sounds more appropriate as, based on research, that's when your audience is more likely to attend your webinar.
Thursday produces the highest attendance, with Tuesday and Wednesday following behind. Most professionals are busy on Mondays and Fridays due to last-minute tasks and catch-up meetings, so these days are not a good option for hosting your event. However, these facts are benchmarks and should only be used as an initial guide. Experiment with different times and days. Invite feedback from the audience to find which day is best for them. This will help create the best schedule for your unique audience.
More People Prefer To Attend Webinars Mid-Morning
28% of people prefer to join webinars mid-morning, 27% mid-afternoon.
Mid-morning and mid-afternoon are the best times when your audience is more likely to attend your webinar. 11 am gets the highest attendance rate, with 2 pm coming at second-highest and 1 pm taking third place.
This suggests that midday seems an excellent option to host a webinar with 12 pm as an exception. Usually, people take lunch at noon, so attendance is low at that time.
Attendees Spend Only 50 Minutes In a Webinar
On average, attendees stick around for 50 minutes in a webinar.
The attendee stick rate is the average time your audience spends in your webinar. Although there are exceptions to the average stick time, like most webinars, you must also keep your event to around 45 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes.
You can also run longer events. But your audience's attention span will be less by the time you deliver your sales speech. So if that is the case, better stick to the 45 minutes rule.
More Attendees Want a live Q&A Session
67% of attendees want a live Q&A with speakers.
A webinar is an excellent tool for engaging your audience. But research shows that attendees are more interested in live Q & A sessions with the speakers than in polls and handouts.
Therefore, provide opportunities for your audience to type in questions and comments on their devices in real-time while your speech is underway. Or you can hold a live Q&A session in your webinar to provide a fun way of interacting with your prospects.
Real-time feedback will help you understand what resonates well with your audience. It will also help you immediately address the pre-sale objections that your audience might have.
Planning a webinar? Check out the Webinar Best Practices Guide to ensure your webinar program is a success!
Post-Webinar Benchmarks
Increased Conversion Rate With Post-Webinar Marketing
Prospects are 60x more likely to convert if a webinar includes marketing materials afterward.
Your job doesn't end after wrapping up a webinar. Within an hour of your live webinar, if you provide your prospects with marketing material, they will more likely convert to your customers.
With your webinar signups, you already have a high number of qualified leads on your email list. So you can use the list to send a follow-up email to your registrants. Besides, other marketing material could be an eBook, exclusive offers, or free strategy sessions.
Higher Percentage of Attendees Request A Demo Post-Webinar
62% of webinar attendees request a demo from sales.
We've already established that webinars are perfect for gathering qualified leads. But when most attendees request free demos, you must be fully equipped to run a successful digital demo program.
Demos will allow you to show your products in real-time, enticing buyers and increasing lead conversion. You can alert your sales team about prospects' activity while running virtual demos after your webinar. Demos will also help you to analyze, qualify and forward prospects to correct nurturing programs.
Conclusion
Webinar benchmarks help set goals and measure success based on webinar metrics such as attendance, registration rate, engagement, and CTA clicks.
Welcome is one of the best webinar platforms, specifically built for B2B marketers to host webinars guaranteed to engage your audience and generate revenue. Leading businesses are shifting to Welcome to deliver an engaging experience to their audience at all levels.
