Zoom Whiteboard Tutorial (Step-by-Step Guide)
Jake Lizarraga
You might not realize it, but the webinar registration process can be critical to the success of your webinar. An effective signup form can boost registration numbers and get more people to show up for your online event.
That’s why we created this guide – to help you get the most out of your webinar registrations. We’ll look at why webinar registration forms are important, how to create one, what to include – and what you should leave out!
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- What is a webinar registration form?
- Why webinar registration forms are important
- What to include in a webinar registration form
- How to create a webinar registration form
Even if you create the perfect webinar registration form, the number of people who attend your webinar will always be limited by the date and time it is offered. (It is literally impossible to accommodate everyone’s schedule.)
To get around this problem, we’ll also introduce you to our product, eWebinar, an automated webinar platform that lets you make pre-recorded webinars available around the clock without sacrificing the interactivity and two-way communication that make webinars special.
The result: attendance rates 2X the industry average.
More on that later… Let’s jump in!
What is a webinar registration form?
A webinar registration form is a form potential attendees fill out in order to sign up for a webinar. These forms are surfaced at the critical moment when someone who expresses interest in your webinar gets converted into a lead by sharing their name and email address with you.
Webinar registration form templates are designed to collect contact information like names, email addresses, phone numbers and other key details about your target audience.
While it’s a good idea to limit data collection in your contact forms to reduce friction in the signup process, additional form fields will help you understand your target audience better, enable you to tailor communication to them and contribute to future lead generation.
A well-designed event registration form can boost attendance by creating a seamless user experience for anyone who signs up for your online webinar.
Why webinar registration forms are important
Here’s five reasons why registration forms should form an essential part of your webinar communication strategy:
- Capture leads: The primary reason to use a webinar registration form is to get an attendee’s contact information and capture them as a lead. While collecting initial registration information you can also include an opt-in checkbox asking people who RSVP if they would like to receive future communications. This will allow you to connect with people who have already displayed an interest in your webinar – building a valuable resource for promoting your products, services, and future webinars.
- Enhance marketing efforts: Integrating your webinar signup form with marketing, CRM tools and Google Analytics will allow you to build personalized workflows that enhance your audience’s experience. For example, you could send email notifications to those who stopped filling in your membership form midway to remind them to complete the form or ask why they dropped off. The more comprehensive your data collection efforts the more you can streamline promotional efforts and design customized campaigns for your target audience.
- Understand your target audience: Collecting demographic information by asking questions on your membership forms will help you learn more about your audience's background, interests, and needs. You can then use this information to create successful webinars designed to meet your audience’s specific needs.
- Boost attendance: A user-friendly webinar landing page along with a visually appealing form will create a seamless user experience, making it more likely that people will sign up to attend. Social sharing buttons can also help increase visibility and get people to share your webinar registration form with their colleagues and friends.
- Measure interest and demand: You can judge how relevant your webinar is based on the number of people that sign up. While you may think you have the perfect call to action and webinar topic - you need to make sure that your webinars resonate with your audience. You can gauge interest level and decide on what content to create in the future depending on the number of webinar signups.
What to include in a webinar registration form
Figuring out what to include in your webinar registration form template is a balancing act. You want to collect as much information as possible - but you also don’t want potential audiences to drop off!
If your goal is lead generation you’ll want to minimize the number of form fields so that your webinar signup forms don’t become a barrier. A lengthy or complicated registration process can deter potential attendees from completing the form, leading to lower registration numbers. By keeping the form simple and concise (like in the example below) you make it more accessible and user-friendly, encouraging more people to sign up for your online event.
While a short form reduces friction and makes it easy for people to sign up, if you’re looking for a specific audience or are more interested in quality than volume, a longer webinar registration form might be a better fit. More specific questions will filter out people who aren’t interested enough to answer and get you higher quality leads. Your contact form can act as a barrier to filter out the leads that are not right for you.
Keeping this in mind, here are some registration information details you should consider including in your online form:
- Contact information: Your webinar registration form should ask for attendees’ name and email address. This is the only must-have. You’ll need this information to send webinar details, reminders, and follow-up communications.
- Demographics: You could ask for demographic information such as their gender, age and location to develop a clearer idea of your audience.
- Custom questions: You may want to include one or two custom questions to collect specific information like attendees' job title, company or industry to gauge interests and level of expertise.You can even ask questions about why they decided to attend or ask about their interests.
- Consent and privacy notifications: Make sure attendees are aware of how you will use their information and include a checkbox for them to give their consent to be contacted in the future. This ensures that you comply with data protection regulations, such as GDPR, and build trust.
- Opt-in Checkbox: You could also include an opt-in checkbox for attendees to subscribe to your newsletter or receive information about future webinars. This will help you grow your contact list.
- Social media buttons: Including social media buttons on your online form will encourage registrants to share your webinar with their friends - attracting more attendees.
- Confirmation and thank you message: Make sure your form builder includes a thank you message after attendees submit the form confirming their registration. While you’ll also want to send them a confirmation email with further details - a thank you message on the form page will reassure participants that the signup process was successful.
Below is an example of a longer webinar registration form designed to generate higher quality leads.
Don’t forget - pick what information to collect based on the nature of your webinar! Decide whether your priority is to draw in a few qualified leads or get as many attendees as possible to sign up.
You could also make additional questions optional or collect more detailed audience information after they RSVP. This approach strikes a balance between gathering useful insights and respecting your attendee's time and privacy.
How to create a webinar registration form
Here’s a step-by-step tutorial to help you create a webinar registration form.
- Choose a platform: All webinar platforms have some kind of built-in webinar registration form. This includes platforms like eWebinar, Demio and Zoom.
While this does make it easier to create forms, if your webinar platform doesn’t offer a form builder with the flexibility you need to design the form you want, you can also use a third-party form builder like Google Forms or Jotform. If you go this route, you’ll want to make sure that your webinar platform seamlessly integrates with your form builder.
Alternatively, some webinar platforms, like eWebinar, provide various marketing widgets that let you surface your registration form as a pop-up on your website’s home page, an embedded form on a dedicated landing page, or as a banner in a blog article.
- Design your form: Design your online form in a way that reflects your webinar's theme and branding. You’ll want to make sure you use the same colors and fonts, add your logo, and adhere to the same graphic elements throughout. Visual consistency is key as it makes you seem professional and can therefore encourage more sign-ups.
- Add necessary form fields: Once you decide what details you’d like to collect, create the corresponding fields in the form. If your form includes many questions, make sure you mark the fields that are essential as required, and make other fields optional.
- Set up integrations: Improve your marketing efforts by integrating your signup form with other marketing tools. You could connect it to an email marketing platform like Mailchimp to send automated confirmation emails once someone has signed up, or connect your form to your CRM to segment your audience for targeted post-webinar follow-up.
- Test your webinar signup form: Test your form before sending it out! Make sure all fields are working and that the integrations are set up correctly. Make any necessary adjustments and retest until you are satisfied with the form's functionality.
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Embed or link the form: If you’re not using a webinar registration page that’s native to your webinar platform you’ll need to embed it on your own landing page. You can also provide a direct link to the form in your email campaigns or social media posts.
Increasing attendance with automated webinars
A professional and effective registration form is a key factor in creating a successful webinar, helping you build trust and credibility while increasing the likelihood of attracting more attendees and growing your contact list.
If getting audience numbers up is a priority, you should also consider hosting an automated webinar. Automated webinars allow your audience to choose a time that’s most convenient for them, which means you’ll never lose out on people who can’t attend because of an inconvenient day or time.
Our product, eWebinar, was designed to solve this problem. We turn any pre-recorded video into an engaging, interactive webinar that you can set on a recurring schedule or make available on demand, so your webinars are available when your customers are, in any time zone.
Watch this two-minute explainer video to learn more about us:
The result of making your webinar infinitely more convenient for people to attend will result in higher attendance rates. The average attendance rate across all of eWebinar’s customers, for example, is 65% – the industry average for live webinars is somewhere between 30% and 40%.
To learn more, sign up for our on-demand demo now. We use our product to demo our product, so you’ll not only discover what eWebinar can do, you’ll get to experience an automated webinar firsthand as an attendee. You can then ask yourself, “Is this something I want to implement in my own business?”
It’s so easy to get started.
Begin your 14-day free trial today!
