How to Write Webinar Titles that Grab Attention

A friend of mine contacted me last week. She was in a near-frantic state. Her new webinar was about to be promoted — that morning! — and she had yet to decide on a title.

She had a good reason to feel anxious. After all, the title of your webinar plays a huge role in its success. Especially if you’re relying on it to generate leads.

For example, if you were a sales professional, which webinar would get your attention? 

  1. Social Selling: An Alternative to the Diminishing Effectiveness of Executive-Level Cold Calling.
  2. Cold Calling is Dead: Learn the New “Silver Bullet” for Landing Appointments with VPs and CEOs.

You’d likely click and learn about the second one.

In fact, I suspect the second webinar would get two to three times more registrations than the first. Even though both webinars are otherwise the same.

Webinar titles are that important.

So, how do you come up with one that will instantly get the attention and interest of prospects? Here’s a brainstorming technique worth trying…

STEP 1: Determine the big promise.

Why would a prospect drop what they’re doing and sign up for your webinar? What’s in it for them? What are they going to be able to do, solve, or achieve? (Notice I didn’t say learn. Learning is work. Gettingsolvingstrengtheningmasteringovercomingknowingachieving — are all benefits.)

I call this the “big promise” of your webinar, and you need to figure that out.

One way to do that is to finish this sentence: By attending our webinar, prospects will [know…, be able to do…, get a 3-step solution for…, understand how to accomplish…]

By the way, the best big promises are practical and immediatePractical in that the information can be readily put into action. And immediate in that the prospect can benefit from the webinar soon afterwards. (The farther away a benefit seems to a prospect, the fuzzier and more uncertain it becomes.)

In fact, when I write webinar promotions for clients, I’ll often highlight those practical-tactical takeaways prospects can use right away, ideally that same day.

Step 2: Explore ways to communicate the big promise with impact.

Once you have your big promise nailed down, explore title ideas that clearly communicate it.

Clarity is king. That’s why many webinar titles are not particularly creative, yet still effective. For example, I once noticed a webinar called: Increasing Conversion Rates on White Paper Landing Pages. Not that clever, but it got my attention!

You can be creative with your webinar titles. If you do, I recommend a two-tiered title structure. Have a short main title that’s imaginative and curiosity-raising. Then, add a sub-title that clarifies the promise.

For example, if this article was a webinar, I might have called it:

  • Main title: The “Wow!” Technique
  • Sub-title: How to Write Webinar Titles that Grab Attention

That’s a nice setup for the final step in the brainstorming process…

STEP 3: Use the “Wow!” technique to pick a winner.

Once you have a few title ideas, here’s a can’t-lose way to pick the best one.

Imagine you’re the prospect. Then, look at your list of title ideas and gauge which one is most likely to elicit the reaction, “Wow. That’s interesting! I’m going to drop what I’m doing and check this out right now.”

If there’s one title idea that gets that reaction, you have your winner. Go with it! But if you have two or three candidates, pick the one that scores highest on the “Whoa!” scale. (Yes, score them.)

I actually used these three steps while brainstorming with my frantic friend last week. In just a few minutes, we came up with a solid webinar title. Did it work? She reports that, so far, webinar registrations are above expectations.

I suspect the title helped!


This article was originally published in LinkedIn Pulse here.

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