Are you planning a webinar or live event? Preparing your message can be easy compared to the challenge of attracting the right audience to hear it.
So, where do you start with marketing the event online?
We asked the Pros and they shared 21 Visual Marketing Secrets for attracting a packed house to their live webinars and events so you can use their pro tips too.
Image by Shutterstock
When it comes to live webinars and events, one of the biggest mistakes we make is to spend so much time on the content, that we forget to market the event effectively.
It can be hard to come up with a marketing plan when your headspace is in content or sales or your product/program that you want to offer.
Which is why we asked the pros – they know what it is like to market a webinar or event effectively. And they know how important it is to have strategies planned out. Marketing your event at the last minute is stressful … ain't nobody got time for that!
So let's jump in and see what the Pros revealed about how to draw a packed house at your next live webinar or event (and be sure to stick around to the very end, as I have a super cool SlideShare for you, that you will LOVE)
21 Pro Tips for a Packed House at Your Webinar or Live Event using Visual Marketing
#1 Kim Garst – Boom Social
Create a variety of great graphics that are sized for the various social media platforms and share them on social in advance of the event. Make sure the graphics include the details of the event because sometimes viewers don't check out the text, they only focus on the visuals. – Kim Garst.
Kim adds details of the event to her shareable images.
It's not just webinars that this works for – Kim's promo images for #socialcents chat also contain the date and time of the event – so that it's not necessary to read the extra description.
#2 Amy Porterfield – Social Media Strategist & Podcast (Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast) 
Go for total content immersion around your webinar theme on your blog/podcast and social media sites, leading up to the event. Visually tease your fans with engaging quotes and tip images – they'll read your blog, register for the webinar, and be primed to hear your message.the event because sometimes viewers don't check out the text, they only focus on the visuals. – Amy Porterfield
Amy slowly builds up layers of content in a way gives so much valuable help before the webinar even arrives (and you can't wait to watch the webinar and buy anything she has to sell, because her paid content is even better than her free content).
So here's what “content immersion” might look like. Amy's Webinars that Convert Program first launched in September 2015, and she created a detailed blog post about Webinar Myths to introduce the content topic of “webinars” to her audience on her blog and podcast:
Amy's blog and podcast is central to the content immersion.
And on social media her tweets and posts included “webinar” themed images with a call to action to register for her masterclass.
Amy shares quotes and more across social platforms
And of course Facebook Ads, Facebook banners, and images across all social media sites also drove webinar registrations. By the time Amy's audience is shown an ad, they are already thinking about the topic she intends to teach in the webinar. It's no surprise that her launches via webinar are hugely successful.
#3 Sue B Zimmerman – The Instagram Expert 
We love to use a photo holding a digital device such a phone a tablet or computer looking down at it … people will want to know what you are looking at and are more likely to read your description and Call to Action which takes them to a webinar or live event. – Sue B Zimmerman
Sue does this extremely well – take the following example. Don't you just want to know what she is looking at?
#4 Amy Schmittauer – Founder, Savvy Sexy Social
When a new email subscriber joins my email list, I offer them a graphic on the “check your email” confirmation page that also lets them know about my next live training. They already trust me to join my list so why not offer the next most important thing at the same time?
Note: Amy knows her stuff when it comes to YouTube, Video blogging, personal branding and content marketing… so you might want to skip on over to her website and subscribe to her YouTube Channel.
#5 Peg Fitzpatrick – Author, The Art of Social Media 
Create SlideShare presentations and embed into a blog post with links to resources.
Here's an example of how Peg will embed a slide deck from SlideShare directly into her blog post:
#6 Rich Brooks – Director, Agents of Change 
We get all of our speakers to create one minute videos talking about their presentations and how excited they are to be part of Agents of Change, then promote those videos through social media.
Here's Marcus Sheridan introducing his keynote at Agents of Change:
Watch more speaker videos here – they are raw, share the excitement of the speakers and create great buzz before the event for Rich and his team.
#7 Azure Collier – Content Manager, Social media and Core Curriculum at Constant Contact
Give your audience a sneak preview of your webinar content by creating a checklist of the tips you share, images with interesting facts that you'll cover in the webinar, or an infographic that includes some of the important stats and takeaways. When your audience sees the value you're providing, they'll be more likely to attend the event.
#8 Ian Cleary – Razor Social 
My best tip is to split test the image sand use a UTM tracking code to see which drives more traffic and conversions. Images need to be tested!
#9 Phil Mershon – Director of Events, Social Media Examiner 
Create custom graphics of our speakers that they will enjoy posting on their website and sharing on their social accounts.
As a speaker for Social Media Examiner, I can vouch for the return on investment in creating custom images for the speakers.
The speakers LOVE to share images on their websites and social media. Creating different sized images, that suit both Twitter and Facebook makes it easy for speakers to share as well: 
#10 Laney Galligan – Problogger Events Manager, Problogger 