How much do you pay for a free webinar?

Every now and then a catchy notice ‘’Please join our free webinar: How to …” pops up while scrolling LinkedIn home page. If the webinar topic is compelling, then it has a chance to attract a list of attendees who are aiming to learn and utilize the content afterwards. The webinar registration demands personal info and its attendance involves time and attention. Yet, the cost estimation of providing personal information and dedicating one working hour is approximately $77 per hour!  Yep, that is exactly the price of a free webinar! Moreover, the inbox becomes flooded with marketing emails in the aftermath of attending a webinar which is in one way or another an extra cost to think of.

A free webinar can cost approximately $77 per hour. 

What is the experience gained after attending a free webinar?  

In the water industry, three kinds of experiences will come to the surface; (i) the webinar content is valuable and actionable, (ii) valuable but not actionable, (iii) neither valuable nor actionable. The 3rd scenario occurs when either the host is shooting in the dark and broadcasting marketing/sales pitches opposed to what was announced or the attendees sign in because it is free of charge. The 2nd experience is when the attendees gain insightful know-how but they can’t use them. However, water tech folks are typically looking for the first experience in an advanced way. While the host is typically looking to disclose a fair part of the expected knowledge and sell the rest of it in a strategic way.   

How to have a valuable and actionable webinar? 

When the expectations of both the host and the attendees are aligned, then the webinar tends to be successful and actionable. While the attendees can carefully pick a webinar that meets their expectations, the host can either share and deliver the webinar agenda or conducts due diligence to categorize the attendees according to their expectations. For example, the host can send a survey upfront and categorize groups based on their needs. The survey can underly questions such as why attending this webinar topic, why does it matter now, what are the expectations afterwards and to which extent the expected teachings will be used afterwards. In this case the host can strip away the irrelevance and get to the core urgent actionable knowledge. In other words, the host needs to focus on delivering the value that the guests came for.

Ideas that can uplift both the value and the experience of a webinar

A free webinar may look like a marketing arm to grab the attention of potential new customers. However, this could be possible when the attendee is treated with a world class customer experience. Here are a couple of ideas and thoughts that can lead to this kind of experience: 

• Trust founding: e.g. a statement for which purpose the attendee’s personal data will be used, sounds fair and transparent. 
• Interactive content: slides accompanied by voice are like a black and white television. Creative ways to hook and engage the audience is the new standard.   
• Q&A: what if during a live webinar the attendees can annotate the webinar content so that at the end the host can rewind and answer/comment the annotations at their exact shared context? 
• Email marketing strategy: new way how to give and get needed insight from the attendee is vital because the old strategy makes the junk mail folder full of unwanted emails.   
• Webinar registration: name and email are more than enough for the registration.