Webinar Lead Generation: How to Generate Leads From Webinars
Jake Lizarraga
Pre-recorded webinars are powerful tools because they're easier to scale than live webinars, reach more people, and take up less of your time since you don’t have to be there to host each session.
Since we've analyzed and compared hundreds of pre-recorded webinars over the years, we decided to build this ultimate guide to help you understand the mechanics of building a top-performing pre-recorded webinar.
Our findings also come from our own direct experience with pre-recorded webinars as well as the collective experience of our customers based on the insights they’ve shared with us. Specifically, we'll go over:
Note: Our webinar platform, eWebinar, focuses exclusively on pre-recorded webinars because platforms that try to support both live and pre-recorded webinars end up with subpar automation features that are more of an afterthought. If you want to see eWebinar in action for yourself then watch our on-demand demo!
Let's dive in!
What is a pre-recorded webinar?
Pre-recorded webinars are webinars that are recorded ahead of time and then made available for viewers to watch at any time. Attendees may or may not be required to register prior to watching a pre-recorded webinar.
Pre-recorded webinar benefits
While there are many benefits to pre-recording your webinars, the five most significant are:
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Time saved
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Scalable reach
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Higher attendance
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Increased interactivity
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Automated sales
Some of these may sound counterintuitive given the common misconception that pre-recorded webinars deliver a passive viewing experience like a normal video would. However, you’ll find that this is no longer true when using modern pre-recorded webinar software.
Let's take a closer look at these key benefits of using pre-recorded content over hosting live webinars!
Time saved
While producing a pre-recorded webinar might take more time at first, you’ll only have to create it once and then hundreds or thousands of people will be able to attend it for months/years to come.
This saves the host time in the long run since they won’t need to host each session live. Pre-recording is especially beneficial for presentations that you run over and over again like customer success webinars, customer onboarding, and product/sales demos.
Scalable reach
Pre-recording your webinar will make it more scalable and help you reach a larger audience. When you’re hosting webinars live, the number of sessions you can run is limited by the amount of time you have.
Hosting a daily one-hour webinar might not sound too daunting until you realize that it takes an hour to set up and another hour to break down and put away your webinar equipment after the presentation ends. In contrast, pre-recorded webinars can run 24/7 even while the host is asleep.
Higher attendance
Automation can increase attendance by making it as convenient as possible for your webinar attendees to join pre-recorded events instead of having to wait for a live session that could be weeks away.
Pre-recorded webinars hosted on eWebinar, for example, get an average attendance rate of 65% across all our customers while the industry average attendance rate for a live webinar is around 40%. It’s not uncommon for some of our customers to report consistent attendance rates of 90% or higher.
Registrants who are able to watch the pre-recorded webinar on demand at their peak moment of interest will be far more likely to attend than someone who signs up for virtual events two weeks in advance (then ends up forgetting or losing interest).
Tip: In addition to making your pre-recorded webinar available on demand, you should also run it on a recurring schedule to help you capture leads who aren't ready to watch the presentation right that moment — we'll delve deeper into how this works in the sections below!
Increased interactivity
It's easier to make a webinar interactive when you're working with pre-recorded videos. This might sound counterintuitive due to the widespread misconception that live events are inherently more interactive.
Modern pre-recorded webinar platforms now come equipped with interactive features that encourage participation among audience members. In fact, these interactive elements are so effective at audience engagement that a live presentation feels passive by comparison.
The last-minute planning nature of live webinars means you’ll only have a week or two to figure out how to make things interactive — not to mention the execution risk of trying to juggle running polls, responding to chat, and giving your presentation in real time.
By contrast, pre-recorded webinars give you the luxury of planning interactions ahead of time and making the entire presentation interactive without disrupting the host’s train of thought. It’s also more sensible to put all this effort into an evergreen asset rather than a one-time event.
If automated interactivity sounds too good to be true then watch our interactive pre-recorded demo (we use eWebinar to demo eWebinar) to experience a pre-recorded webinar for yourself and come to your own conclusion!
Automated sales
If you're hosting webinars to sell a product or service to your target audience then pre-recording presentations can amplify those efforts through the power of automation. Instead of a one-time virtual event, each webinar will become an evergreen sales asset that drives conversions on autopilot.
All you have to do is record your presentation once then run all future webinars on autopilot.
You can even set up an automated webinar funnel so that all you need to focus on is driving more traffic toward the top of the funnel and seeing revenue come out of the bottom. In other words, pre-recorded webinars let you reuse content to generate sales on an ongoing basis.
Types of pre-recorded webinars
While there are several distinct types of pre-recorded webinars, you’ll find that the terms used to describe them overlap or even mean the same thing. However, each type focuses on a different benefit, attribute, or quality of pre-recorded webinars.
The sections below will walk you through five types of pre-recorded webinars and their differences:
Automated webinars
Automated webinars are pre-recorded webinars that are scheduled to run (either on-demand or on a recurring schedule in multiple time zones) without the host needing to join each session — often with preprogrammed interactions that trigger at specific points of the presentation.
To learn how to create an automated webinar, skip to this section!
On-demand webinars
On-demand webinars are pre-recorded webinars that provide instant access to attendees and may not even require registration (in the case of ungated webinars). In the era of Netflix, Spotify, and DoorDash, customer sentiment is shifting towards on-demand webinar content.
There are three subcategories of on-demand webinars:
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On-demand webinars. Normal on-demand webinars are interactive pre-recorded presentations that attendees can access instantly upon registering. You can also create "ungated" on-demand webinars that further reduce friction by removing registration or making it optional.
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Just-in-time webinars. Just-in-time webinars automatically schedule themselves to start within a few minutes of someone landing on your website. The countdown timer creates a sense of urgency — similar to live sessions — for people to register before they miss their chance.
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Webinar replays. A webinar recording might also be available as an on-demand replay. The main difference for webinar replays is the fact that you have playback controls to pause, play, rewind, or fast-forward through the presentation — offering a similar experience to YouTube videos.
To learn how to create an on-demand webinar, skip to this section!
Evergreen webinars
Evergreen webinars are pre-recorded webinars that you can run on autopilot for weeks, months, or even years because the content continues to be relevant. When creating these types of pre-recorded webinars, it's crucial to cover evergreen topics and answer questions that people never stop asking.
To learn how to create an evergreen webinar, skip to this section!
Asynchronous webinars
Asynchronous webinars are pre-recorded webinars that let viewers attend the same webinar at different times. Unlike synchronous webinars, the host isn’t delivering the presentation or responding to chat at the same time that attendees are watching.
To learn how to create an asynchronous webinar, skip to this section!
Simulive webinars
Simulive webinars — short for simulated live — are pre-recorded webinars with live chat. Simulive webinars are typically set on a recurring schedule with the pre-recorded presentation playing a couple of times a week in a fixed time zone with the host/moderator in attendance to respond to chat live.
Because simulive webinars run on a fixed schedule, you lose some of the key benefits of pre-recorded webinars such as scalable reach, higher attendance, and time saved. However, hosts will be able to better focus on the live chat since they don’t have to repeatedly deliver the presentation.
To learn how to create a simulive webinar, skip to this section!
How to create a pre-recorded webinar
To create a pre-recorded webinar, there are seven steps you'll need to complete — using our webinar platform, eWebinar, to illustrate the process:
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Upload a video
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Set up scheduling
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Write email sequences
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Insert interactions
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Configure chat preferences
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Build a landing page
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Publish and promote
The sections below will walk you through each step in greater detail!
Note: The instructions below use our product as an example but the actual steps are similar on other webinar platforms.
Step 1. Upload a video
Once you've recorded your webinar presentation, you can upload it to eWebinar as a file, paste a YouTube/Vimeo link, or use our integrations with Zoom and Vimeo to import the video directly from your account.
Step 2. Set up scheduling
There are three scheduling options for you to choose from on eWebinar:
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On-demand. On-demand sessions let attendees join the pre-recorded webinar instantly. You can also opt for the just-in-time sessions we mentioned earlier that are automatically scheduled to start within a few minutes of a visitor landing on your website.
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Recurring. Running pre-recorded webinars on a recurring schedule will save you from losing leads who can't watch the webinar right that moment. eWebinar automatically adjusts the time of each session based on which time zone the attendee will be joining from.
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Replays. Webinar replays — which contain the same live chat capabilities and interaction popups of on-demand or recurring webinars — let attendees pause, play, and skip around in your presentation with the same ease as a YouTube video.
Tip: Registrants are most likely to attend pre-recorded sessions when you enable on-demand access, set a recurring schedule, and offer the option to sign up for a replay all at the same time.
Step 3: Write email sequences
There are three types of emails you'll need in your webinar sequences:
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Confirmation. Webinar confirmation emails let registrants know that their registration was successful.
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Reminder. Webinar reminder emails help ensure that registrants don't forget about the scheduled event (email reminders are best sent one week, one day, and a couple of hours before the session).
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Follow-up. Webinar follow-up emails are used to nurture leads who didn't convert during the presentation or gather feedback through a survey.
All our webinar templates already come with at least six pre-written emails to give you a head start!
Step 4: Insert interactions
Adding interactions like polls, quizzes, and popups will keep your audience engaged for longer. With eWebinar, inserting interactions is as easy as dragging the playhead and choosing which interaction you'd like to add:
For instance, eWebinar has 20+ unique interactions to choose from:
Most webinar platforms should have at least a couple of interactions available so see what your provider offers and incorporate those into your presentation accordingly. If you're not sure where to put interactions, use our heatmap analytics to see where webinar engagement and watch time start to dip:
Tip: You can send response data from interactions to your CRM platform — more on this in the section below!
Step 5: Configure chat preferences
With your presentation uploaded, scheduled, and made interactive it's time to set up your chat preferences. The options available will vary from platform to platform — and some pre-recorded webinar providers don't even support live chat — but we'll show you how it works on eWebinar.
How eWebinar's chat system works:
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Personalized greetings. All attendees are automatically welcomed by name as soon as they join. This personalized message lets them know that they can send private messages in the chat and someone on the other end of the pre-recorded webinar will respond to them.
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Chat notifications. Whenever an attendee sends a chat message during the presentation, the webinar host (or an assigned moderator) will receive a notification through email, browser notifications, or Slack alerts.
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Live responses. eWebinar lets you respond in real-time through any device with a web browser or send chat messages directly through Slack channels. Our Slack integration even lets you create separate channels for each webinar in case you'll be running more than one at a time.
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Automatic responses. If no one's available to respond to an attendee in a timely manner, an automatic response will let them know that their message was received and set expectations for when they should receive a reply.
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Post-webinar responses. When you respond to an attendee's chat message after the pre-recorded webinar has ended, your response will be automatically forwarded to the email address they used to register.
Our chat system is built to ensure that every chat question receives a timely response.
Note: If you already use a live chat platform then you can enable our integrations with HubSpot, Zendesk, Intercom, or Drift to replace eWebinar's chat with a third-party chat system.
Step 6: Build a landing page
Before you publish, you first need to build a webinar registration page that attendees will use to sign up for and join your event. eWebinar has a native landing page builder as well as multiple templates that you can use to speed things up:
Alternatively, you can embed our registration widgets on pages created with third-party landing page builders like HubSpot, Leadpages, or Unbounce. There are a few best practices to follow in order to build a high-converting webinar landing page.
Webinar landing page best practices:
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Hook visitors with an enticing headline that communicates the webinar topic, highlights the benefits of attending, and creates a sense of urgency to register.
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Answer the core four questions: is this for me, who's hosting the webinar, can I trust them, and when/where can I watch?
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Add a bullet list of the agenda so registrants know what the presentation will cover and which problems or questions will be solved/answered.
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Include speaker bios that establish the credibility of the host or guest presenters by citing their position, which company they're from, and how long they've been in the industry.
Feel free to look at our curated list of 28 Webinar Landing Page Examples for inspiration!
Step 7: Publish and promote
After publishing, the final step towards running a successful pre-recorded webinar is to let people know about it!
A few popular webinar promotion methods include:
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Posting on social media
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Publishing organic content
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Partnering with influencers
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Cross-promotion (if you have guest speakers)
To learn more, read our full guide on 25 Ways to Promote an On-Demand Evergreen Webinar!
Now that you're familiar with the process, it's time to create pre-recorded webinars for yourself or watch our on-demand demo to experience one firsthand!
Pre-recorded webinar use cases
There are many ways to make a pre-recorded webinar work for you but the three most common (amongst those who use eWebinar) are:
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Product demos
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Customer success
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Sales automation
The sections below will go over how pre-recorded webinars alleviate the pain points of different audiences:
Product demos
Demo webinars — or deminars — are a perfect candidate for automation for two reasons:
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You'll be giving the same product demo over and over again
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You need to reach prospects at their peak moment of interest
Unless you cater exclusively to enterprise customers who have long sales cycles and expect high-touch service, getting prospects into demos when their interest is highest will be far more important than whether or not the presentation is live or pre-recorded.
By letting prospects learn about your product on their own through pre-recorded deminars, you'll also be able to filter out unqualified leads. After all, anyone who watches your demo and still reaches out at the end is far more likely to close than a cold lead who doesn't know much about the product yet.
Product demo case studies
Nectar created a pre-recorded demo and got 250 leads, five self-closed deals, and 8% of attendees booking 1-on-1 calls:
Cloudstudios used to spend hours each day demoing to unqualified top-of-the-funnel leads before they found eWebinar:
Read the Cloudstudios case study →
Customer success
There are many benefits of pre-recorded webinars for customer success teams but training and onboarding are the two most notable. Whether it's new or existing users, customer success managers are giving the same entry-level presentations multiple times per month.
Pre-recording those presentations would both save time and streamline communication.
Because customer success managers can reply to webinar attendees through Slack, HubSpot, Zendesk, Intercom, or Drift they won't have to waste time switching between tabs in order to respond to the users who are watching.
With the time saved, your customer success team can focus on creating advanced content instead of repeatedly going over the same features. In addition to saving the time of your customer success managers, you'll also be empowering users to self-educate by learning about the product on their own.
Customer success case studies
Later's customer success team used to host 2-4 live webinars a month but now host 100+ a month using eWebinar and have seen attendance rates increase sixfold:
Gem's customer success team saves over 1,000 hours annually by using eWebinar to scale their personalized onboarding process:
Sales automation
To get a single sale, customers need to fill out a contact form, hop on a discovery call, and book a demo appointment — all with the possibility of realizing that the product or service isn't the right fit for their needs in the end.
Not only is this inconvenient for customers but it also takes up a ton of company time.
By pre-recording the webinars you use for lead generation and closing sales, you'll be able to generate revenue on autopilot while focusing on growing other parts of your business. You can even forward attendee information to your CRM in order to gather customer data and follow up with leads!
eWebinar has third-party integrations with CRM platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Keap:
You can also use our Zapier integration to connect eWebinar to countless other CRM platforms!
Our webinar analytics will show you how each step of your funnel is performing, your registration/attendance/conversion rate, and the total amount of revenue generated by each pre-recorded webinar:
Sales automation case studies
Jon Schumacher has been getting attendance rates of 88% while tripling conversions on his automated sales webinars:
Read the Jon Schumacher case study →
MAGFAST used automated webinars to bring in $14M in sales without using any other acquisition channels:
What customers say about eWebinar
We think eWebinar speaks for itself but you don’t have to take our word for it. To hear more of what users have to say about our webinar platform, check out the eWebinar Customers page for success stories across various use cases!
Or, if you want to experience eWebinar for yourself, you can watch our on-demand demo!
Best pre-recorded webinar software
With various platforms to choose from, it can be hard to find the right software that suits your specific needs. To help with that, we've taken the liberty of compiling a list of the most popular pre-recorded webinar platforms and the must-have features you should look for!
Popular pre-recorded webinar platforms
There are seven popular platforms for pre-recorded webinars:
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eWebinar
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Demio
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EasyWebinar
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WebinarNinja
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GoToWebinar
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WebinarGeek
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Livestorm
For an in-depth overview, read our full guide on the 7 Best Pre-Recorded Webinar Software Platforms!
You can also check out our comparison guides on the best platforms for automated, on-demand, and evergreen webinars respectively:
Must-have features for pre-recorded webinar software
The three must-have features any pre-recorded webinar software should have are:
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Flexible scheduling options. Flexible scheduling lets you enable on-demand access, just-in-time sessions, recurring schedules, and webinar replays — ideally at once to maximize attendance by making it convenient for registrants to show up.
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Robust chat capabilities. Having a chat system that lets you respond to attendees both in real time during the webinar and through email after the presentation ends will help you streamline communication with your audience.
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Interactive features. Interactions like polls, questions, tips, and special offers make your presentation more engaging while helping you collect valuable customer data from those who attend your webinar.
Watch our demo to see if eWebinar is right for you
We included eWebinar in the list above because we genuinely believe that it’s the best platform for those who want to reap the automation benefits of pre-recorded webinars. You don’t have to believe us, just watch our on-demand demo to let the software speak for itself.
Conclusion
Armed with this newfound knowledge, why not make your next webinar session a pre-recorded one? Instead of repeating the same presentation ad infinitum during every live session, you could redirect your attention towards responding to questions and promoting your webinar to more people.
You don't need to pre-record every webinar you do. Some one-time presentations like panel discussions or news updates should be hosted live. However, leveraging automation to pre-record presentations that you do over and over again will increase interactivity, attendance, and sales while saving you time!
If you want to experience a pre-recorded webinar for yourself then watch our on-demand deminar!
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