Since the boom in remote events, webinars have been one of the most effective tools for generating warm leads.

For SDRs, knowing how to book meetings from webinars is an essential part of the sales development playbook.

After all, what better place to prospect than an event where leads talk about your industry or solution?

Still, low-hanging fruit is still fruit you have to pick. That’s why timely, personalized outreach following a webinar is critical to moving leads through the pipeline.

Marketing has done its part in generating interest.

Now it’s time for your SDRs to book some meetings.

1. Segment your audience

The first step to personalizing follow-up is to segment your leads.

Marketing helps here by pre-qualifying leads based on their need and interest.

Begin by separating those leads who attended the webinar from those who registered but did not attend.

Both have their value, but you need to prioritize the leads who are the hottest based on their engagement at the event.

Next, give your team the best chance at success by narrowing down the prospect pool into 2 categories: target immediately and nurture.

From here you can create separate cadences and messaging for these prospects at different stages of the sales funnel.

Audience segmentation can also help you reassess your ideal customer profile (ICP) as a part of your greater outreach strategy.

Webinars produce valuable insight by benchmarking your initial ICP against those who showed interest by attending.

2. Follow up ASAP

With your prospect list sorted, it’s time to strike while the iron is hot.

Typically, we’d recommend waiting a couple of days before sending a follow-up email. However, to stay top of mind, it’s vital to respond to leads within 24 hours of the webinar.

Do this for both attendees and no-shows.

Messaging should be simple, brief, and include a recording or slide deck of the webinar.

The key is to offer value in a concise way that thanks them for attending while feeding them more content.

Registrants who didn’t attend may already be expecting a recording of the webinar. For this reason, it’s crucial to follow up ASAP.

Whether you’re targeting hot or cold leads, you’ll need to be swift in delivering your first response.

Even if they’re not ready to buy, you’re still responsible for fostering and building the foundation of a long-term relationship.

3. Share relevant material

To stay relevant, you’ll need a steady feed of material to nurture leads following a webinar.

The importance of segmenting your leads early on defines how you’ll conduct your outreach at this stage.

For example, with warm leads who’ve shown the most interest, send a white paper or case study that shows how your solution addresses their unique pain points and challenges.

This step also highlights how critical it is to align sales and marketing teams.

Since a webinar falls into the consideration stage of the marketing funnel, the material you send should answer a prospect’s question based on prior research, i.e. personalized content.

Use the insights and material marketing provides to target and move these warm leads through the pipeline.

4. Connect across multiple channels

Email nurture campaigns are the go-to strategy following a webinar. But to maximize the effectiveness of your outreach, you’ll need to spread your efforts out across multiple channels.

Continue the standard practice of mixing social and phone touches into your sequence.

Connecting with a prospect and dropping them a thank you for registering for the event can go a long way to maintaining visibility.

The idea is to get yourself in front of their eyes. LinkedIn social selling is one of the best ways to do that.

Cold calling is another.

A simple “Did you see my email? or “Thanks for attending the webinar, we’re sending you some more material” is enough to keep them warm.

The practice of booking meetings from webinars follows similar guidelines to booking meetings from cold prospects. If anything, the warm leads generated from the webinar should be easier to lead into a call.

Regardless, keep your campaigns agile and reach out from multiple sources to increase your chances of success.

5. Nurture cold leads

Finally, don’t forget about cold leads.

It’s important to plug any non-attendees who registered into their own campaigns. In reality, they aren’t that cold if they were registrants and odds are most who registered won’t attend.

That’s a considerable pool of leads with whom you can build a relationship.

At the very least, they should be kept in mind for future events.

Since they’re already familiar with your content, they’ll be more likely to engage or register for the next webinar.

Your job is to continue offering value after the event is over. Leveraging “fear of missing out” (FOMO) is another excellent way to entice them with emotion.

While they may not receive the same level of personalization as a warm lead, cold leads deserve their own share of attention. B2B enterprise sales is a long game.

Your follow-up strategy should strike a balance between actively targeting attendees with bespoke messaging and creating future opportunities by slowly nurturing cold webinar leads.

Final thoughts

Webinars are one of the most effective avenues to generate opportunities for your SDRs to develop. Don’t let these easy chances to book meetings pass you by.

Your team defines its own strategy, but these 5 tips should give you a framework to use for the needs and demands of your organization. Keep the conversation alive with a mix of your own insights and those listed here.