How to Setup Webinar Basics and Start Integrating With HubSpot

• Things to get right before your webinar starts
• Step 1. Create your webinar event
• Step 2. Integrate webinar engagement data with HubSpot contact records
• Step 3. Configure your webinar email settings
• What you need to do during the webinar
• Step 4. Engage webinar attendees with Q&A, polls, and chat
• 1. Close knowledge gaps with Q&A
• 2. Increase engagement (and uncover insights) with polls
• 3. Create a dialogue with effective chat
• What to do after the webinar is over
• Step 5. Follow up with webinar registrants

Before you run your first webinar, you need to set up your HubSpot instance to properly track, manage, and measure your webinar program. ⏱️ Setup Time: 30 minutes 📋 Prerequisites: HubSpot and your webinar tool of choice

Things to get right before your webinar starts

Before diving into complex automation or lead scoring let’s start by setting up the fundamental building blocks in HubSpot that will support your webinar program.

Step 1. Create your webinar event

Whichever webinar tool you choose, you’ll need to define the basic details of your event before you can publish and start distributing it to your audience in order to drive registrations.

Here are the 5 key elements you’ll need to define for every event:

1. Webinar Name

Your webinar's title is the topic of your event and the first thing potential attendees will see. You title needs to instantly communicate the value of the topic you’ll be discussing while attracting clicks (especially when your registration page is shared).

1. Include a specific outcome or result (e.g., "0 to 1M Impressions")
2. Keep your title under 60 characters for readability
3. Use the current year or result timeframe to create urgency
4. Include your target audience persona (e.g., "for SaaS startups", “for solo marketers”)
5. Lead with action words (Build, Create, Transform, etc.)

2. Webinar Description

Your description needs to convert interest into registration by clearly communicating value and the expected outcomes from a visitor investing their time and attention.

1. Open with a compelling hook or statistic
2. List specific, tangible takeaways (and if they will be shared afterwards)
3. Include a clear agenda and webinar structure
4. Address your target audience's pain points
5. End with a clear call to action to register

💡 You can use the rich text editor in Contrast to style your text in the way that you want. Markdown is also supported to improve formatting.
3. Cover Image

Combine professionalism with information clarity to attract attention. Think of this like a billboard for your webinar especially when used as the meta image for your registration page.

1. Use high-quality speaker headshots to build connection
2. Maintain consistent brand colors and styling
3. Ensure text is readable at all sizes
4. Include essential event details (date, time, speakers)
5. Optimize for both desktop and mobile viewing
4. Date & Time

Did you know choosing the right day and time for your webinar can significantly impact attendance rates? It’s always a good idea to consider your audience's availability time zone.

1. Most webinar registrations happen on Tuesdays (21%)
2. 17% of webinars happen at 11am local time (the most of any time)
3. Select business hours in your primary target timezone
4. Include multiple timezone listings if you have a global audience
5. Avoid major holidays and common vacation periods
5. Speakers

Speaker credentials and presentation establish authority and help convince potential attendees of the webinar's value to de-risk their time investment.

1. Highlight relevant expertise and experience
2. Include current role and company affiliation
3. Keep bios focused on topic relevance
4. Share specific achievements or results

Step 2. Integrate webinar engagement data with HubSpot contact records

Buying journeys involve multiple touch points, and webinars often provide the richest engagement signals. When integrated effectively with HubSpot, webinar data can help you:

1. Understand prospect intent
2. Personalize follow-up communications
3. Score leads more accurately
4. Route prospects effectively
5. Measure content effectiveness

To understand how your registrants are engaging with your webinars and take appropriate follow up actions you’ll want to integrate 3 primary types of webinar data with your HubSpot CRM. 1. Registration Information:

• Registration date/time
• Custom form answers
• Source/campaign
• UTM paramaters

When integrated with HubSpot, this data helps you understand which marketing channels are most effective, optimize your form fields for conversion, and begin segmenting prospects before they attend.

2. Attendance Data:

• Live attendance
• Watch durations
• Replay views

Understanding attendance patterns does more than measure webinar success. This data reveals content relevance, helps optimize future webinar timing, and identifies highly engaged prospects who warrant immediate follow-up. It also provides insights into which topics resonate most with your audience, informing both content strategy and sales conversations.

3. Engagement Signals

• Questions asked
• Poll responses
• Chat participation
• Resource downloads

Engagement data is most valuable for sales and marketing alignment. These real-time signals reveal prospect pain points, indicate purchase readiness, and guide personalized follow-up conversations.

Ultimately your webinar platform's integration with HubSpot should do more than just pass registration data—it should enrich your entire revenue operations workflow. A strong integration turns webinar engagement into actionable insights across HubSpot's core features.

• Contact Records & Timeline Events
• Lists & Segmentation
• Workflows & Automation
• Lead Scoring
• Reports & Dashboards

When evaluating webinar platforms, ensure they can seamlessly integrate with these HubSpot features to create a unified view of prospect engagement and enable automated, personalized follow-up at scale.

Step 3. Configure your webinar email settings

Once attendees start registering for your webinar, it’s important to have automated email workflows in place to guide them through the event lifecycle.

Contrast makes it simple to automate these emails for each webinar attendee but whichever webinar tool you’re using there are 3 types of automated webinar emails you should send:

1. Pre-Webinar Invitation Emails

Converting your target audience into webinar registrants requires a thoughtful approach to email invitations. Here's how to structure your outreach using HubSpot workflows.

Start by identifying ideal webinar attendees based on your ideal customer profile and the specific topics you’ll be covering in your webinar. Using HubSpot lists based on:

• Fit criteria (industry, company size)
• Recent engagement history
• Content interests
• Sales cycle stage
• Previous webinar attendance

💡 Use an active list in HubSpot and include a filter to exclude contacts who have registered for this webinar so they are not sent an invitation for an event they already plan to attend.

We could either use an automated workflow to send the emails or manually schedule them to be sent to the list ahead of the event.

Pre-Webinar Email #1 - [Event Name] Webinar Invitation

Here’s a simple template you can modify for the first email in your webinar email sequence. The goal of this email is to introduce the topic and use the social proof from the speaker to highlight the benefits of attending.

Pre-Webinar Email #2 - [Event Name] Follow Up

A second invitation can be the nudge people to register. This email should tackle potential objections they have about attending. Reiterate the benefits and include a testimonial from a previous similar event to build credibility and interest.

Webinar Registration Confirmation Emails

When someone registers for your webinar, send a confirmation email immediately. This reinforces their decision and keeps the momentum going. This email should confirm their spot and provide more details to help them prepare for the event.

Pre-Webinar Reminder Emails Automatically sending reminder emails to registrants with event details, such as the date, time, and access link helps increase live attendance rates, which typically hover around 40% of total registrants.

Webinar Reminder Email #1 (1 day before the event) - [Event Name] Reminder

A day before email might be the nudge a registrant needs to plan around attending your webinar in their day.

Webinar Reminder Email #2 (day of) - [Event Name] Is Starting Soon

Sending a final reminder shortly before you event begins can catch those who might be on the fence or may have forgotten to add the webinar to their calendar.

Simple Integration, Powerful automation

Unlike other webinar platforms such as Zoom or Livestorm that require manual data uploads or additional tools to integrate, Contrast's HubSpot integration means you can:

1. Keep your webinar signup process in HubSpot
• Use HubSpot as your source of truth
• Maintain current form strategies
• Leverage existing lists
2. Automate registration and notifications
• Use a HubSpot form to capture webinar signups
• Register those signups in Contrast using a workflow
• Automate email notifications in HubSpot or Contrast
• Track engagement in HubSpot
3. Maintain data quality
• No manual CSV imports
• Real-time synchronization
• Accurate engagement data
• Complete activity history

What you need to do during the webinar

Step 4. Engage webinar attendees with Q&A, polls, and chat

Live interaction transforms a webinar from a one-way presentation into a meaningful conversation. When attendees actively participate, they're more likely to:

1. Retain key information
2. Stay until the end (so they don’t miss anything)
3. Take post-webinar actions
4. Attend future sessions

But webinar engagement doesn’t happen by accident, you can design the live experience to encourage audience participation and create space for discussion. Here’s an example of how you might structure a 6:

1. Close knowledge gaps with Q&A

Before the webinar

• Prepare 3-5 seed questions to get discussion flowing
• Brief speakers on how to handle technical vs. strategic questions (and which questions they should defer to other resources or a later time)
• Designate a team member to manage Q&A
• Plan time blocks for answering questions

During the webinar

• Address simple questions immediately (quick wins also encourage other audience members to ask their own questions and continue the discussion)
• Save complex questions for dedicated Q&A time
• Call out attendees by name when answering (in Contrast you can highlight questions from the chat in your presentation)
• Use questions to transition between topics
• Reference earlier questions to show you are actively listening and invested in the dialogue

2. Increase engagement (and uncover insights) with polls

Polls can be an effective way to get your audience engaged around your topics in a low barrier way. Consider these 3 common polling opportunities:

1. Opening poll: Break the ice and learn about your live audience
2. Mid-session polls: Maintain engagement and reinforce your message
3. Closing poll: Capture immediate feedback and signal for next steps

Try asking these questions as a poll in your next webinar:

1. Audience Context: "What's your biggest challenge with [topic]?"
2. Knowledge Check: "Which approach would you take to solve [problem]?"
3. Next Steps: "What would help you implement [solution]?"
4. Future Interest: "Which topic should we cover next?"

Adding engaging polls to your webinar experience is easy with Contrast. You can quickly deliver them in your event chat and see all attendees answers in their contact record in HubSpot.

3. Create a dialogue with effective chat

Your webinar chat provides an opportunity to capture unstructured feedback and engage attendees in parallel with the planned content itself.

• Welcome attendees as they join
• Ask engaging opening questions
• Encourage attendee introductions
• Share relevant resources
• Acknowledge good comments

To implement these engagement strategies effectively, you need webinar software that makes interaction seamless. Contrast's built-in engagement tools help you:

• Run polls that appear directly in the presentation
• Manage Q&A with speaker notes and private responses
• Foster chat discussions with moderation tools
• Track engagement metrics automatically
• Use engagement data for lead scoring

Whether you're running product demos, thought leadership sessions, or training webinars, engaged attendees are more likely to become customers so invest intentionally.

What to do after the webinar is over

Step 5. Follow up with webinar registrants

Once your webinar is over, it’s critical to follow up effectively, both with your live attendees to help capitalize on their engagement but also with registrants who did not attend to ensure your on-demand content becomes a valuable asset for driving continued engagement. Post-Webinar Reminder Email #1 (immediately after the event) - [Event Name] Attendees

Start by sending a thank you email. This shows appreciation for attendees' time and also keeps the lines of communication open for future interactions. A good webinar thank you email, thanks people for joining, shares the recording link, and has a clear CTA that’s relevant to the webinar topic. You could optionally ask for feedback on the webinar.

Post-Webinar Reminder Email #2 (immediately after the event) - [Event Name] Non- Attendees

Many webinar registrants will not attend it live. It’s important to keep them in mind in your webinar email sequence.  Include these 4 key elements in your email for increased engagement:

1. Acknowledge Their Absence: Note their absence but not in a negative way.
2. Send the Webinar Recording: Provide a link to the recording so they can watch it.
3. Highlight Key Takeaways: Summarize the main points covered in the webinar.
4. Encourage Questions or Feedback: Invite questions since they couldn't take part live.

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