Webinar Marketing Strategy: How to Get 1,000 Registrations & 60% Attendance

A webinar marketing strategy that converts picks one problem for one audience, promotes the session for two to three weeks (mostly by email), teaches during the session and ends with one clear next step, then follows up within a day with the recording and an offer. Only about half of registrants attend live, so the reminders before the webinar and the follow-up after it decide much of the result.

Key takeaways

• In Livestorm’s 2026 Webinar Benchmark Report (2025 data from 33,786 webinar sessions), the typical webinar drew 175 registrants and 83 live attendees, and the average show-up rate was 47.7%.
• ON24’s 2025 Webinar Benchmarks Report (2024 platform data) found that 57% of registrants became attendees, counting on-demand viewers, and 45% of attendees chose to watch on demand.
• In the same Livestorm data, 49.7% of sign-ups came in the final seven days before a webinar and 15.3% on the day itself.
• Zoom’s Webinar Audience Behavior Report (2026) found that 68% of no-shows missed a webinar because of a schedule conflict, not a lack of interest.
• TeamSupport CEO Grant Stanis told Founderpath that a webinar co-hosted with an onboarding specialist drew about 400 registrants and about 300 live attendees.

What is a webinar marketing strategy?

Webinar marketing is the use of live or recorded online sessions to educate an audience, generate leads, build authority and nurture customers, as Kaltura’s guide defines it. The strategy is everything around the session: who it is for, how people hear about it, what makes them attend, and what happens after it ends. Promotion is only one part of it, and the day after the webinar is often where the pipeline is made.

For a software company, webinars do two jobs. Before the sale, they teach prospects how to solve a problem your product solves, so the people who attend arrive at a demo already convinced. After the sale, onboarding sessions and office hours help customers get value faster. In the survey of go-to-market leaders behind Livestorm’s 2026 report, pipeline generation was the most common webinar goal (47.1%), followed closely by customer expansion (46.4%) and brand awareness (40.7%).

Webinar benchmarks: what good looks like

Benchmarks differ by platform because each one serves different customers and counts attendance differently. ON24 counts on-demand viewers as attendees, while Livestorm reports live show-up separately. Use the ranges to spot a weak stage in your own funnel, not as targets.

Stage	Metric	Benchmark	Source
Promotion	When people register	49.7% of sign-ups in the final 7 days, 15.3% on the day	Livestorm, 2026 report (7,062,572 registrations, 2025)
Promotion	Length of the campaign	Median 13 days for the top 1,000 webinars by attendance, 9 days for lower-attended ones	Zoom, Webinar Audience Behavior Report (2026, platform data)
Registration	Registrants per webinar	175 for the typical webinar	Livestorm, 2026 report
Attendance	Registrants who attend live	47.7% average show-up rate	Livestorm, 2026 report
Attendance	Registrants who become attendees (ON24 counts on-demand viewers)	57%, with 216 average attendees per webinar	ON24, 2025 report (2024 data)
Attendance	Attendance by the name of the format	Fireside chat 64%, panel 60%, webinar 50%, class 40%	Zoom (platform data)
Engagement	Average viewing time	51 minutes (ON24, 2024); 26 minutes (Livestorm, 2025)	ON24 and Livestorm reports
Follow-up	Replay viewing	Under a week to capture replay viewers (median 3.7 days)	Zoom, Webinar Audience Behavior Report
Follow-up	On demand by default	Up to 80% more total views	ON24, 2025 report

The biggest single drop is between registering and showing up. In Livestorm’s typical webinar, 92 of the 175 registrants did not attend live. More than half of the practitioners in its survey (54.2%) named converting registrants into live attendees as their top challenge. That is why steps 4 and 6 below matter as much as promotion.

How to run a webinar that converts in 7 steps

1. Pick one problem for one audience

Choose a topic your buyers already search for or ask your sales team about, and teach them how to solve it. A product demo is a poor webinar topic: the people who want one will book one. Write the title as the outcome (“How to cut onboarding time in half”), not the subject (“Q3 product update”).

Grant Stanis, CEO of TeamSupport, a customer support software company, said its webinars are about the audience’s job, not its product (watch at 13:24):

Webinars aren’t about, hey, how can you really understand TeamSupport, right? It’s really about how can you be a better customer support professional and how can you drive more from it?

Grant Stanis, CEO, TeamSupport. Watch at 13:24

Name the format honestly, too. Across Zoom’s platform data, sessions called a fireside chat averaged 64% attendance, against 50% for those called a webinar and 40% for a class. If the session has live questions and a guest, say so in the name.

2. Build a registration page that says what attendees will learn

Keep the page short: an outcome-focused title, the format, three to five things the attendee will be able to do afterwards, who is speaking, and a form that asks only for what you will use. In Zoom’s survey of webinar attendees, 82% said knowing the format influenced their decision to register, ahead of the topic or title (40%). Send a calendar invite with the confirmation email, because that is the cheapest no-show fix you have.

Pick a slot your audience can attend. ON24 recommends Tuesday to Thursday, and around 11 a.m. Pacific (2 p.m. Eastern) for a United States audience, so the session falls mid-day and outside commute hours.

3. Promote for two to three weeks, mostly by email

Start about three weeks out. ON24 advises starting three weeks to a month before the date because most registrations arrive one to two weeks before the event. Zoom found that the top 1,000 webinars by attendance had a median promotion window of 13 days, against 9 days for lower-attended webinars. A longer campaign does not help much if the final week is quiet: in Livestorm’s data, almost half of sign-ups (49.7%) arrive in the last seven days.

Email does most of the work. In Livestorm’s survey, 86.3% of teams promoted webinars by email, against 43.3% on organic social and 20.4% on paid social. Zoom’s attendee survey points the same way: 26% first heard about their last webinar from an email invitation, 20% from a colleague and 9% from social media. If your own list is small, grow it before you rely on webinars, or borrow someone else’s.

A co-host is the fastest way to borrow an audience. TeamSupport ran a webinar with Donna Weber, an onboarding specialist with a large following, as a cross-promotional deal: she spoke to TeamSupport’s audience and brought her own. Stanis said about 400 people registered and about 300 showed up. The mechanics of a webinar swap (who sends which emails, how you share the registrants) are in the partner co-marketing guide.

4. Send reminders that beat the calendar

Most no-shows didn’t lose interest. In Zoom’s survey, 68% of people who missed a webinar blamed a schedule conflict. Send reminders the day before, the hour before and at the start time, as Livestorm recommends, and tell people what they get only by attending live: questions, polls, a guest. Zoom’s respondents said a preview video (38%), live-only content (31%) and a last-minute reminder (30%) make them more likely to attend.

Because 15.3% of Livestorm’s sign-ups come on the day itself, keep registration open until the session starts and send the join link straight away.

5. Teach live, keep people engaged, end with one next step

Start with substance. Zoom found that 77% of attendees arrive before or within the first five minutes, so a long introduction spends the moment when the most people are watching. Then change the format every few minutes: a poll, a question from the chat, a guest, a screen share.

Nathan Latka, who runs Founderpath’s monthly webinars, calls this listen, watch, interact: break up your voice, tell people when the slide changes, and get them to do something. He said that using one of these techniques at least every five minutes keeps the majority of attendees live for over 90% of the session.

If I just talk for 50 minutes straight you will tune me out because my voice becomes the norm. […] You’ve got to break up your voice on webinars, otherwise people mute you.

Nathan Latka, founder and CEO, Founderpath. Watch at 26:37

End with one call to action, not three: book a demo, start a trial or claim the offer. Put it on screen, say it out loud, and repeat it in the chat.

6. Follow up within a day with the recording

Send the recording to everyone who registered, attendees and no-shows alike, within 24 hours. Replay viewers move fast: Zoom’s report says you have less than a week to capture replay viewers (median 3.7 days). Making the recording available on demand by default can increase total views by up to 80%, according to ON24.

Segment the follow-up. People who attended and asked a question get a personal note; people who left early get the part they missed; people who never joined get the recording and the one thing they should watch. Lemlist’s team showed on a Founderpath webinar how it followed up one of its own: an email to the registrants, sent from the presenter’s own address, reached 131 people and got 37 of them interested (28.24%). The team said it tested sending the same email from a colleague’s address, and that version didn’t work.

7. Make one offer with a deadline

A webinar creates intent that fades in days, so give attendees a reason to act this week: a webinar-only package, a bonus, or a call slot that closes on a set date. PPC Ad Lab, a Google Ads research tool, sold a webinar-only package at $197 a month, against the $397 published price of its agency plan, with deadlines, founder Robert Warner said in a 2022 Founderpath talk. He said the launch signed up 76 paying customers in seven days.

Then measure what happened: registrants, live attendance, replay views, meetings booked and opportunities created. Compare the cost per opportunity with your other channels, not the cost per registrant.

Live, on-demand or automated webinars?

Live sessions get the questions, the energy and the urgency; recordings get the people who couldn’t make it. Most programs need both. In ON24’s 2024 data, 56% of attendees joined live and 45% watched on demand. Run the live session first, then publish the recording as an on-demand page with its own registration form, so it keeps collecting leads after the live date.

Automated, pre-recorded webinars that run on a schedule suit a product with a steady flow of sign-ups and a demo that rarely changes. They save presenter time, but tell people the session is recorded, and staff the chat if you promise live answers.

Are webinars still worth it for a SaaS company?

Yes, when they create meetings you can count. They are cheap to run, and the same session produces leads, a recording, clips and an email to your list. In Pendo co-founder Eric Boduch’s 2024 Founderpath talk, Nathan Latka walked through Pendo’s Q4 2017 marketing results. Webinars were the cheapest lead source on the slide: 1,272 leads against 300 expected, from $6,500 of spend, or $5 a lead, and 13 opportunities. A note on the slide credits a webinar with UserVoice for beating expectations. Boduch said the webinars brought smaller deals than other channels, but were still good value per opportunity.

My answer with them is look at my numbers. […] When they stop working, we’ll stop doing them. They’re really cheap to do.

Eric Boduch, co-founder of Pendo and Revcast, on board members who doubted webinars. Watch at 06:13

If your buyers would rather meet in person, a webinar is the cheaper test before you commit to a venue; the guide to hosting live events covers that next step.

How Founderpath runs its own webinars

Founderpath runs a monthly live webinar for software founders, hosted by Nathan Latka, where founders teach growth tactics with screen sharing and live questions. Two of the recordings open with their numbers: over a thousand founders registered and over 250 showed up live for one session, and over a thousand registered and over 300 showed up live for another. Many registrants never join live, so every session is recorded and published afterwards, like the ones linked here.

Three habits carry over to any company. Each session teaches case studies from real founders rather than our product. Polls during the session tell the audience who else is in the room and tell us what to cover next month. And the last call to action is the next webinar: Latka asks attendees to register for the next session, and registering gets them the slide deck and the recording from the current one.

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Frequently asked questions

What is a webinar marketing strategy?

A webinar marketing strategy is the plan around a webinar: who it is for, how you promote it, how you get registrants to attend, how you run the session and how you follow up. The goal is usually sales pipeline, customer expansion or brand awareness, so the plan ends with one clear next step and a fast follow-up.

How far in advance should you promote a webinar?

Start about two to three weeks before the date. ON24 recommends three weeks to a month, and Zoom found that the most-attended webinars had a median promotion window of 13 days. Keep pushing in the final week: in Livestorm’s 2025 data, 49.7% of sign-ups came in the last seven days.

What is a good webinar attendance rate?

About half of registrants attending live is typical. Livestorm’s 2026 report found a 47.7% average show-up rate, and ON24’s 2025 report found that 57% of registrants became attendees in 2024, counting on-demand viewers. If you are well below that, Livestorm suggests revisiting your topic, scheduling and reminders.

How do you get people to attend your webinar?

Send a calendar invite at registration, then reminders the day before, the hour before and at the start time. Tell people what they only get live, such as questions, polls or a guest. In Zoom’s survey, 68% of no-shows blamed a schedule conflict, so make the date easy to keep.

Are webinars still effective in 2026?

Yes, for B2B companies that follow up. ON24’s 2025 report found the average number of attendees per webinar rose 7% in 2024, to 216, and Livestorm’s 2026 report found pipeline generation was the most common webinar goal. They work best as a teaching session with one next step, followed by the recording within a day.

How do you convert webinar attendees into customers?

End the session with one call to action, then follow up within 24 hours with the recording and a reason to act this week, such as a webinar-only offer with a deadline. Send it from the presenter’s own address, and follow up personally with attendees who asked questions.

What is the best day and time for a webinar?

Midweek usually works best. ON24 recommends Tuesday to Thursday, and around 11 a.m. Pacific or 2 p.m. Eastern for a United States audience. Test other slots if your audience’s calendar is crowded midweek, and record every session for people in other time zones.

Should you run live or on-demand webinars?

Run both. Live sessions get questions and urgency, and recordings reach people who couldn’t attend. In ON24’s 2024 data, 56% of attendees joined live and 45% watched on demand, and ON24 says making webinars available on demand by default can increase total views by up to 80%.

Sources and method

Reviewed November 3, 2026. Benchmarks come from three webinar platforms’ own data, each linked where it is used, so read them as vendor reports rather than neutral censuses: ON24’s 2025 Webinar Benchmarks Report (ON24 platform data for 2024, summarized on ON24’s blog on February 20, 2025); Livestorm’s 2026 Webinar Benchmark Report (7,062,572 registrations and 33,786 webinar sessions in 2025, plus a survey of more than 850 go-to-market leaders in November 2025, as reported on Livestorm’s blog); and Zoom’s Webinar Audience Behavior Report (a survey of 1,000 webinar attendees compared with Zoom Webinars platform data, as published by Zoom in 2026). ON24 has since published a 2026 Digital Engagement Benchmarks report behind a registration form, so this guide uses the 2025 webinar edition. Founder examples come from Founderpath interviews and talks, checked against the published transcripts at the linked timestamps. An earlier version of this post listed company examples from video interviews that we could not check against a transcript; those were removed.