If you want engagement, webinars are the way to go.
But, there’s a problem.
Since they’re based online, they’re also at the mercy of human behavior.
So, you’ve got to adapt.
In this quick guide, we check out when is the best day to have a webinar and what you can do to improve your attendance rate.
When is the best day to have a webinar?
Short answer: Wednesday and Thursday.
It’s the middle of the week and most of the urgent things that your audience needs to do will probably all be done by this time.
You get their full attention spans, they’re not really anxious about anything pressing, and you’re not messing with the beginning of their week.
Basically, you’re making it easier for them to choose to attend your webinar and that makes all the difference.
Why Monday and Friday Don’t Work
Monday is the start of the week – as we said earlier – and Friday is when it ends.
You want an attendee’s full focus and you can’t have them distracted thinking about what their plans are after work.
How About Weekends?
No.
Never let your audience, prospects or leads, make a choice between you or their personal lives.
They might choose you, but it’s a hard sell.
You want to make the experience of dealing with your organization as easy as possible.
When’s the best time to post on LinkedIn? Here, we’ve figured it out.
When is the best time to have a webinar?
Skip the Early Morning
Again, people have a lot of work to do, and most of the time they try to get most of their urgent stuff in order at the beginning of the day.
If you hold a webinar early in the morning, you’ll be competing with the beginning of their work and that won’t sit well with them.
You need to make things as convenient as possible.
Here’s the Best Time to Have a Webinar
There are experts who say 10 am onwards is the best, but some argue for 11 am because it gets a little more traction than the hour before.
We say try to set your webinar time to 11 am.
If you think you’re going to go past 60 minutes then 10.30 am isn’t so bad. (Although we will strongly advise you don’t do this unless there’s momentum towards the end.)
You don’t mess with lunchtime.
Nobody has webinars during noon to 1 pm.
The next best time would be 2 pm.
1 pm is also an option but let’s think about it this way, your audience will be sleepier right after lunch, and not everyone clocks in at exactly 1 pm. You want to give them a little time to stretch and get their energy back before they get on a webinar with you.
Don’t Do the Afternoons! (Past 3pm)
Here’s the problem with the afternoon.
They might be done with all the urgent stuff during the day and they probably have a lot of free time.
But, you know who you’re competing with?
Attention spans.
Afternoons can get slower and they might have less energy compared to before or after lunch.
The Timezones
What matters the most are the timezones.
You want to plan your webinar to coincide with the timezone of the majority audience. This is especially critical if you’re working with a global audience.
But, how about if it’s limited to the United States?
Be strategic about the affair.
If most of the people joining are coming in from the East Coast, then you’re better off planning your webinar at 2 pm.
(Given the three-hour time difference you’ll be hitting the West at 11 am which is the webinar primetime.)
If your audience is actually split with a 12-hour difference then you’re going to have to do something about it.
You can have two runs, do a recap, or have a repeat of the webinar.
Remember, there are plenty of ways to maximize what you can do after you’ve hosted the webinar.
Takeaways
When’s the best day to have a webinar?
Thursday at 11 am.
But, this is just a general rule.
If you can’t really pull it off, then just stay close to the recommendations.
Remember webinars are extremely powerful and you want to take advantage of them.
Make sure you get the marketing rolling and work on turning your attendees into real conversions.
That’s what matters.
Do you need help bringing in engagement? Take to us today.
