So you’ve got a webinar scheduled. That’s great! But now we need to get the word out. Here’s how.
NOTE: This guide assumes you have access to certain website features. Ask the Outreach chair for more information.
Make a Graphic
A nice graphic makes for a more interesting calendar post or email. Here’s an example:
Canva, Inkscape, whatever you like. Or don’t do a graphic, it’s optional!
Set up Registration Form
- Go to the forms list
- Find a previous webinar series form and open the extended menu to duplicate it
Edit the Form
Find the new form in the list and click edit. There are quite a few things to update!
Form settings (left hand column)
- Form Name - Usually “ILGISA Webinar Series: [TITLE]”
- Form URL - Something unique.
shortened-title-webinar - Expiration Date - The day after the webinar
- Permissions - Should be open to all groups
Don’t need to mess with the rest of the settings.
Copy that URL! You’ll need it later!
Form Sections (right column)
Each section of the form is presented in a scrolling list to the right. You can update the properties of each section by clicking the button in the upper right of the section.
Within a section, there are also individual elements. You can edit those by clicking on them directly, clicking “edit” on the left side, then interacting with the window that appears.
So, here’s what you need to update:
- ILGISA Webinar Registration → Properties
- Event Name
- Event Date
- ILGISA Webinar Registration → text box at the top. Update title and date.
- Confirmation → Properties → Edit Confirmation Email. Update title and date
- Confirmation → text box. Update title and date.
That’s it for the form. No “save” button, it just applies immediately.
Emails
You’ll find this under Community → Contact Center.
Choose Recipients
For webinars, you’ll want to load a saved search. Find the one called All Contacts in Database.
Create a New Email Template
Search for a previous webinar email and click Copy.
Once copied, the new email is automatically loaded into the Email Composer down below.
Email Contents
- Update the speaker, abstract, and date in the text
- Update the URL in the “register” button and the linked title. Put the URL you copied from the form earlier
Email Details
- Update the subject line
Test Email
First, send yourself a test email.
- Does everything looks right?
- Do the links work?
- As long as you’re testing things, try registering for the event. Make sure confirmation emails look right, too
Schedule the Email
You’ll probably want the “recurring campaign” option.
From there, you can pick multiple dates for the email to go out. General rule of thumb:
- Two weeks before the webinar
- One week before the webinar
- Day of the webinar
But if there are other emails going out, you may want to adjust those dates to avoid overwhelming people.
Pick 10:00 so that the day-of email gets out early enough for folks to still register.
Blog Post
Now we make a page for the webinar on the site. Go to Community → Blog.
Select entries. Click the “+” in the upper-right.
Editing the Post
- Update the Title
- Update the content
- Status: Published
- Category: ILGISA News
Post Content
Copy the whole thing to notepad or something. Maybe copy the HTML view to avoid messing up the formatting.
Click Save!
Now click “unpublished” so it toggles to Published
Calendar
Go to Community → Calendar
Click the “+” to create a new event.
Event Details
- Event Title
- Categories: ILGISA Events
- Permissions: toggle all to make it fully public
- Start / End date and time
- Repeat: no repeat
- Event description
Paste in the content from the blog post.
Webinars Table
Go to Website → Articles
Search for “webinar”, find the page called ILGISA Webinar Series.
The webinars are listed in big HTML tables. The easiest way to update this is to switch to HTML view, copy the previous row <tr>…</tr>, then switch back. You can update it in the raw HTML if you like, too.
Instead of “Closed”, add a link called register that points to the form URL.
That’s it! Now get ready for running the webinar.