It’s where everything begins. It’s where you make your first impression. It’s where you’re audience decides whether or not they’re going to give you 45 minutes to an hour of their time. The registration page. Seems simple enough, but a boring, vanilla, unoptimized registration page can be the difference between a webinar with huge registration numbers or one with little to no audience at all. Let’s look at the Do’s and Don’ts of webinar registration pages
DO…
- Make it Your Own – every day, we look at registration pages that companies have using various webinar platforms. Overwhelmingly, the majority of them are blah. They don’t look like their own. They don’t have their logo, their color schemes or do a good job of articulating their brand. Customize it and make it your own, which will make your registration page visitors more likely to convert into actual registrants
- Keep it Brief and Value-Centric – you should be brief in a few areas. First, the number of registration fields you require should be in the 5-7 range, no more. First name, last name, company, title, phone and email will almost always do the trick. If you want to ask a custom question and make it mandatory, go on with your bad self, but you shouldn’t need more than those 7. When you start making address, city, state, zip, country, etc., mandatory, folks get annoyed. Right or wrong, that’s the way it is. Additionally, your abstract for the webinar (aka what the webinar is going to be about) should be short but value-centric at the same time. Quickly, folks should be able to understand what the webinar is going to cover, how it’s applicable to them and their role, and how they’re going to be better off taking 45 minutes out of their day to hear what you have to say. If your abstract does that, mission accomplished
- Use Banners, Images and Videos to Engage – the better it looks, the more likely folks are to dig in. Start with a customized banner at the top that helps to tell the story of your webinar. You can use this same banner in all of your email and social promotions, advertisements, etc. Next find images that help to articulate the value of your webinar and speak to your audience. And include pics of your presenters so your audience can put a face to a name. Finally, we’re seeing more and more of our clients starting to leverage video to tell a better story and give their audience a sneak peak of what they can expect. We call them webinar video trailers – 30-45 second videos that engage and increase registration page conversions. Your webinar provider should be able to do this!
Don’t…
- Be Dishonest or Make Promises You Can’t Deliver On – I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on a registration page that tells me one thing, and then the presentation itself tells me another. If on the registration page you say your webinar is going to cover X, Y and Z, you better cover X, Y and Z the day of the presentation. If you don’t, you’re going to lose credibility with your audience and the likelihood of them consuming your content moving forward is going to be less and less. If you promise them that for attending they’re going to get something in return (a free report or piece of relevant literature, free consultation, gift card, etc.), deliver on that promise. Don’t use it as a tactic to drive registrants with no intent of delivering
- Bury Your Registration Fields Towards the Bottom of the Page – while we want the page to look good and be a feast for the eyes, the #1 purpose of your registration page is to generate registrants! Put your registration fields/form toward the top of page, not towards the bottom (yes, we see this from time to time). If somebody has to scroll down the page to register, you’re doing it wrong
- Forget to Test Everything Before its Live – test, test and test some more. Make sure everything is as it should be. Is the date and time of the webinar clearly stated? Check. When they go to save the event in Outlook or Google Calendar, is it saving the date and time correctly? Check. If you have social integration on the page (you should), is it linking correctly to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.? Check. Is everything spelled correctly and is the grammar spot on? Check. Finally, when you click the ‘register’ or ‘submit’ button after you’ve filled in the necessary registration fields, it is properly capturing that data and taking you to the appropriate landing page? Check. I know this sounds like no-brainer stuff, but tripping up on any of these can be the difference between $ and a lost opportunity
If you’re compelled, please share your feedback below. Talk soon Jason Stegent is the Founder & President of ElasticSolutions. Email him @ jstegent@elasticroi.com