Webinars (owned)
Considered purchases where teaching builds the case to buy.
Host a teaching session.
An owned webinar is a live or pre-recorded online session you run for an audience that registered to attend. Because registrants opted in — they saw a topic they cared about and signed up — the room is self-selected in a way that a passive ad audience is not. For products with a long consideration cycle, a webinar gives you an hour to explain a problem and show how you solve it, which is more instructional time than almost any other channel provides.
The channel is low-cost relative to in-person events: a webinar platform subscription and a capable presenter are the main requirements. What makes it work is a topic that is genuinely valuable on its own, so that people register for the content rather than as a favor to you. Recordings also extend the asset's life — a well-structured webinar can be repurposed as gated content, sliced into clips, or embedded in nurture sequences long after the live session ends.
When it fits
- Your product addresses a problem that benefits from explanation or demonstration — buyers need to understand the "why" before they will consider buying.
- You have at least a modest existing audience or a partner distribution list to promote to; a webinar with no registrants produces no signal.
- You can commit to a topic depth that rewards the hour someone spends, rather than a thinly disguised product demo.
When it doesn't
- Your category is impulse-driven or low-consideration, where the friction of registration and a scheduled hour is disproportionate to the purchase.
- You have no audience to promote to and no co-host or partner who can bring registrants. The channel requires a distribution channel of its own to fill the room.
The trade-off
Webinars reach a warm, self-selected audience and provide unusually deep engagement, but they require a meaningful promotional effort to fill seats and a skilled presenter to hold attention. The recording is a durable asset, but the live attendee list — people who showed up in real time — is the most valuable output, and it decays if you don't follow up quickly.
How to run a first test
A first webinar test can generate a signal in a few weeks and costs little beyond time and a platform subscription:
- Choose a topic that stands on its own merit — a framework, a case study, a live teardown — so that the value of attending is clear without mentioning your product. Registration rates tell you whether the topic resonates with your audience before anyone has sat through the session.
- Promote to your existing list and any partner audiences willing to co-promote. Aim for 50–100 registrants as a minimum for a useful read; far fewer makes it hard to distinguish signal from noise.
- Run a 45-to-60-minute session with 10–15 minutes of Q&A at the end. The Q&A is often the most valuable part for learning what your audience actually cares about.
- Within 24 hours, follow up with attendees and no-shows separately. Attendees warrant a direct follow-on offer; no-shows get the recording with a lower-friction next step.
- Measure show-up rate (registrants who actually attend), engagement during the session, and conversion from attendee to a next step — trial signup, demo request, or content download.
See Systematic Channel Testing.
Tools & services to activate it
- Zoom Webinars — Webinar add-on to Zoom that handles registration, Q&A, and post-session reporting. (From ~$149/mo)
- Livestorm — Browser-based webinar and online events platform with built-in registration, engagement tools, and analytics. (Free tier; paid from ~$99/mo)
- Demio — Webinar platform focused on marketing and demand generation, with automation and attendee engagement features. (From ~$59/mo)
Related channels
More in Events: Regional / niche events, Tier-1 conference booth.