Successfully conducting and managing a webinar is great, but the journey doesn't end there. The next thing you need to do is to nurture the leads that were cultivated in the webinar. The end goal is to convert these leads into buyers and fans that will hopefully be loyal to you and every product or service you choose to release in the future. But to do that, you need to set up a strategic process that will gently encourage these leads without harassing them. They need to feel like supporting you is an informed choice they made on their own. Otherwise, you may get reluctant compliance out of them but no true loyalty. To help you get started, we've compiled some ways that have proven to be effective in building a meaningful relationship with your webinar leads.

Here are 6 effective ways that you can nurture those valuable and hard-earned webinar leads: 

1. Segment your audience

A good thing to do first is to segment your audience. Using the registration form they filled up, divide them into groups based on several categories. You could consider the different types of industries, companies, company sizes, buyer personas, and more. Segmenting the audience will help you better nurture your leads, make you more attentive, and help you prioritize and organize. Since your audience will likely have diverse needs that don't always correlate to all the attendees of your webinar, dividing them is the best way to determine how to meet those needs. If you can meet those needs, it'll be easier for you to convert those leads.

2. Personalize your post-webinar emails

This is where segmenting your audience will come in handy. Once you’ve got a clear perspective of your audience—their industries, their job positions, their buyer personas, and more—you’ll be able to tailor post-webinar emails that will speak to them and what they need. Include blogs, additional resources, research reports, case studies that will speak to particular groups of audience and mention how your products or services will aid them. 

These personalized emails will help encourage your audience to mull over decisions and turn leads to customers. 

3. Prioritize hot leads

Attendees that are closer to the buying decision should be prioritized. These are your hot leads that need less nurturing and more direct selling instead. These attendees are ready to buy, so sell to them. Contact them and offer the product or service they’re after, or better yet, coordinate with the sales team to close deals like this. 

You can identify your hot leads by:

  • Sending a post-webinar survey to ask questions like “Are you interested in availing…” or “Would you like a sales representative to reach out to you with more information?”
  • Utilizing live polls or Q&As at the session to naturally ask the audience about their interest in your product or service
  • Analyzing your attendees’ engagement levels, previously attended webinars, previous marketing touches, and responses to other survey questions

4. Send your first follow-up email within 24 hours

Don’t wait for several days to pass before you send your first follow-up email. Don’t even let it reach a week after your webinar. Send your first follow-up email within 24 hours.

Express your gratitude to the webinar attendees, and for those who didn’t make it to the session, offer a recording so they can watch on-demand or a copy of your slide presentation. It would also be good if the first follow-up email is already personalized based on the different segments you established beforehand.

5. Run retargeting ad campaigns

When nurturing webinar leads, it’s also beneficial to use ads, specifically to run retargeting ad campaigns. With this kind of strategy, you’ll be able to capture your audience’s attention and imprint their minds with information about your products or services. 

Various social media platforms have ad campaigns you can utilize. And with the data you have from your audience segments, you’ll be able to create personalized retargeting ads that will convert your leads into sales. 

6. Continue sending more of your relevant content

For leads that need more nurturing, you should also continue sending relevant content. Send some of them your blogs, case studies or reports, your FAQs page, anything that can help push them towards converting into customers. Make sure to send the educational content first. What they need is more information and details. If you’ll immediately send them product-related content, but haven’t marketed enough, they might not be totally convinced and will probably not convert. 

Take the time to nurture your webinar leads. With a careful strategy and well thought out methods, you’ll be able to achieve better lead conversion for you and your business.