Every webinar registration is a signal of interest — even if they don’t attend

There was a time when running an event felt like a major production.

You booked the venue, organised catering, managed registrations, coordinated speakers and worked your way through long invitation lists hoping people would attend on the day. A significant amount of time, budget and effort went into making the event feel worthwhile.

Then COVID changed everything.

Almost overnight, events moved online. Webinars became the default. Suddenly businesses could host sessions at any time of day, audiences could join from anywhere, and attending no longer required the same level of commitment. People could register, keep their camera off, multitask in the background or simply not show up at all.

Over time, fatigue naturally followed.

There was a period where it felt like every company was running webinars. Attendance rates dropped, engagement became inconsistent and many businesses started questioning whether webinars were still effective at all.

But I don’t think webinars stopped working.

I think businesses started blaming the format instead of looking more closely at the problems their audiences were actually trying to solve.

Because the success of a webinar rarely comes down to the platform, production quality or even the presenter. More often than not it comes down to whether the topic connects to a genuine problem people are already thinking about.

The reality is that webinars and in-person events serve very different purposes.

An in-person event is often about relationship building, networking and deeper engagement with a smaller audience. A webinar is usually about reach, education and visibility. It allows businesses to engage a broader audience around specific topics and industry challenges without the logistical complexity of a physical event.

One of the biggest advantages of webinars is flexibility.

A single broad topic can become an entire series, broken down across multiple sessions, audience levels or industry pain points. You can tailor webinars for different stages of understanding, from introductory discussions through to more technical or operational deep dives.

But regardless of the format, the success of a webinar almost always comes back to one thing: the topic.

If the topic connects directly to a problem your audience is already trying to solve, registrations usually follow.
People will still make time for relevant conversations. They will still register for practical insights, industry education and discussions that genuinely help them think through challenges they are already facing.

Even when someone registers and doesn’t attend, there is still value in that interaction. They have already told you the topic was relevant enough for them to express interest. That creates an opportunity for follow-up, nurture activity and future engagement.

This is where webinars become more than just a standalone event.

They become part of a broader marketing system.

The webinar itself creates visibility and engagement. The follow-up supports nurture and sales conversations. The topic informs future content. Questions from attendees create ideas for articles, campaigns and ongoing thought leadership.

When approached properly, webinars don’t sit separately from marketing. They support it.

The challenge, of course, is selecting the right topic.

But in many cases, the answers already exist within the conversations businesses are having every day.

What questions consistently come up during sales calls?
What challenges are customers struggling with?
What conversations keep repeating across the industry?

Those are usually the strongest webinar topics because they are grounded in real audience concerns rather than assumptions about what people might want to hear.

Webinars were never really about the platform or the production quality.

They were always about relevance.

And that’s why they still work.