To help answer this question, we (Astadia) recently had a chance to reconfirm initial tests we performed several years ago, but with some interesting new results.
We wanted to know:
- How many webinar invitations do people ignore before finally signing up?
- How many webinar invitations will people tolerate receiving before unsubscribing?
- How long or how soon before the webinar do invitation(s) work best in generating registration signups?
Here are the results:
- 2 weeks out = 21 submissions – Subject Line: Register Today
- 1 week out = 55 submissions - Subject Line: There’s Still Time to Register
- 3 days out = 34 submissions-- Subject Line: Last Chance to Register
- 1 day out = 37 submissions -- Subject Line: You Have 24 Hours Left to Register
- Day of Webinar = 46 submissions -- Subject Line: You Have 30 Minutes Left to Register
Key Takeaways:
- 19% of registrants waited until the day before the webinar to register
- 24% of registrants waited until the day of the webinar to register
- 43% in total waited to within 24 hours of the webinar to register
- Adding urgency to the Subject Line increases conversion
- There was no spike in unsubscribes whatsoever throughout the entire invitation process
While these results only reflect what worked best for this particular client, I'd love to hear what metrics you have captured and what timing is working best for you.
The client was apprehensive about sending out so many invitation emails, but in this case it really paid off.
Steve Kellogg
Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant
NOTE: We were unable to test invitations sent further than 2 weeks out as the webinar content didn't get finalized until then.