Webinar Length – How Long Should Webinars Be?

[smart_track_player url=”https://webinar-lab.s3.amazonaws.com/how+long+should+a+webinar+be+audio+file.mp3″ title=”How Long Should Your Webinar Be” artist=”Casey Zeman” image=”https://webinar-lab.s3.amazonaws.com/webinar-lab-logo.png” ]

If you’re just getting started with webinars, I’m sure you’ve thought, “How long should a webinar be?”

It’s a solid question because the webinar length has an effect on the overall webinar experience. The webinar length impacts show-up rates, engagement rates, and conversion rates. 

Remember, people only have so much time in the day. If you tell your audience on the registration page it’s going to be four hours long, chances are very few will show up. Your webinars need to be the right length for your audience and the overall outcome.

So how long should a webinar be?  

The answer ultimately depends on how much time you need to solve a problem for your audience. This could take 30 minutes or it could take an hour. In general, I would say between 45-90 minutes is the perfect length for a selling webinar.

Watch this video where I discuss how long webinars should be and how they can differ based on your webinar outcome goal:

How Long Should Webinars Be?

Your webinar length is very important in achieving the highest conversion rates. A Smart Bug Media survey showed that viewership of live webinars is around 55 minutes for a 60-minute webinar.

For automated webinars, viewership is around 42 minutes. Either way, these numbers are still incredible stats when we live in a world with such short attention spans.  

Based on these numbers, in general, you want to keep most webinars under the one hour mark. By keeping your webinar under 60 minutes, it will give you enough time to teach and pitch your offer. 

The important part is that you get your offer in front of them by the 45-minute mark. Ultimately, the more people you get to see your offer, the higher the chance you can get them to buy on the spot. You can do this by offering a fast action bonus and get people excited about signing up today.

Otherwise, you are relying heavily on your post-webinar follow up sequence to get them to buy. While a lot of sales will happen post-webinar, ideally it would be great to pitch them live and then followup as well. This way you can handle objections and overcome any FAQ’s they might have. 

But again, 60 minutes webinar length is not a hard and fast rule. People don’t care about length if it’s valuable information. Just make sure to let the audience know about how long it should take when you are in the first few minutes of your webinar.

Here is a more in-depth look at how long your webinar should be based on the type of webinar you are hosting. 

Sales Webinars

As I’ve talked about in other blog posts, there are so many different kinds of webinars. But one of the most popular webinar formats is a sales webinar. 

With this type of webinar, you are teaching valuable content to your audience and pitching at the end. For a sales webinar, I would recommend keeping it between 45 – 90 minutes. This is an ideal length if you are selling a digital course or product between $197 – $997. 

Let’s use Amy Porterfield as an example. Recently, she just opened the doors to her once per year, “Digital Course Academy.” The entire course is all about finding your idea, launching your course, and scaling it. To get students enrolled, she ran a live webinar that was about 90 minutes long. 

While this is longer than most sales webinars, it’s important to remember, Amy is a webinar expert who has been doing this for years. Since she has so much experience, she knows how to keep her audience engaged and has tons of amazing content to present.  

If you’re just starting your webinar journey, maybe 35-50 minutes is better and less intimidating. Don’t forget to factor in your own webinar experience when deciding how long it should be. The important thing is to get started and you can always adjust your webinar length based on your sales and results. 

Q&A Webinars

While sales webinars should be around 60 minutes, Q&A style webinars can be very different. As I’ve mentioned on several of these videos, some of my highest converting webinars have been four hours long! 

While this obviously isn’t something I recommend doing every day, it can be very effective during a big launch. A Q&A style webinar allows you to engage with your audience, answer any questions, and help them build more trust with you. 

In general, set an expectation at the beginning that these will be between 60-90 minutes with a chance of being longer. If you have the time and energy plus the audience is sticking around, go longer so you can make more sales! 

Coaching Webinar

A coaching webinar can be like a weekly meetup for clients who chose an upgraded package to work with you more directly. This makes you more accessible to them and thus, costs more as well. 

As you will engage with them more frequently, you can keep these webinars similar to the sales webinar. Depending on the total number of calls, you probably want to keep them between 30-60 minutes.  

I’ve also seen even shorter ones for Easy Webinar clients who have membership sites and use webinars to onboard clients. Remember, it really depends on the outcome of your webinar and what you want to share.

You can check here to see how using slide decks can also help hold your audience’s attention and create a more immersive experience.

High-Ticket Coaching Webinar

Another type of webinar a lot of coaches use is a high-ticket webinar. The goal with these types of webinars is similar to a sales webinar but instead of pitching an online course, the goal is to get people to book a call with you or your team. 

A good time for these types of webinars is between 30-45 minutes long. This is long enough to provide value but short enough to keep people engaged and ready to book a call.

Webinar Length Summary

As you can tell, there are a lot of different options when it comes to timing your webinar. There is no hard rule on how long your webinar should be. The ideal length of your webinar is however long it should take based on the format. 

For sales webinars, I would stick to an hour including Q&A with the audience. If you plan on turning it into an automated webinar, you want to make sure and pitch before the 42-minute mark. This will help you pitch your offer before a lot of people drop off from the event. 

While a Q&A webinar could last hours like I used to do, most of them will be shorter. I recommend placing a stop time as some people might not ever stop asking questions. While you want to provide value, you don’t want people to take advantage of your time. 

Remember, your audience took time out of their lives and came to this event to find a solution to a problem they’re facing. So make sure to deliver on your webinar promise and provide tons of value in the right amount of time.