How to define webinar target audience

If you want your webinar to actually work, not just look good on paper, you need to know who you’re talking to. It sounds simple, but many webinars fall flat because they try to speak to everyone.

Defining your target audience gives your webinar purpose. It helps you attract the right people, speak their language, and offer something they truly care about. In short: it’s the foundation of a webinar that converts.

Let’s walk through how to do it.

Start with the problem you're solving

Before you think about who’s watching, start with why they’d want to watch your webinar in the first place.

What problem are you helping them solve? What question are they already asking that your webinar can answer? This is the core of your content and it’s how you make your webinar more than just another event invite in their inbox.

Here are a few prompts to guide your thinking:

• What’s a common pain point in their day-to-day work?

• What’s holding them back from a goal they care about?

• What shortcut, strategy, or solution do you have that could help?

Maybe you’re helping new business owners understand VAT. Or showing yoga teachers how to build a stronger online presence. Or helping HR managers onboard remote teams more efficiently. The more specific you are, the better.

If your topic doesn’t solve something real, your audience won’t stick around or show up in the first place.

Create a clear picture of your ideal attendee

Once you’ve locked in the problem, it’s time to visualize the person facing it.

You’re not writing a novel, but a detailed mental picture helps you shape your message, tone, and format.

Think about:

• Job role or title – Are they business owners, marketing leads, team managers, or solo entrepreneurs?

• Industry – SaaS? Fitness? Education? Coaching? Tailor examples and language accordingly.

• Experience level – Are they total beginners or looking for advanced tips?

• Pain points – What frustrates them? What’s slowing them down?

• Personal goals – Are they trying to grow their audience, increase revenue, build a brand?

• Online behavior – Where do they spend time? What kind of content do they already engage with?

You can also include demographics like age, location, or income, but only if it adds relevance to your content. A webinar on small business tax filing might need to consider local regulations. A webinar on remote work tools? Probably not so much.

And if you serve multiple audiences? Run separate webinars or tailor your content differently for each one. Trying to speak to everyone usually means you’re not truly reaching anyone.

How Dirkzwager learned more about their audience

This isn’t just theory. One of our customers, Dirkzwager, put it into practice and uncovered powerful insights along the way.

As a legal firm hosting webinars for larger audiences, Dirkzwager doesn’t rely on webcam or mic interaction. Instead, they use interactive features like polls, quizzes, video segments, CTAs, and private chat to create meaningful engagement at scale.

These tools allow them to go beyond engagement as they collect valuable data about viewer behavior, knowledge, and preferences. Quizzes, for example, help them measure audience retention. Post-webinar forms and analytics guide their content improvements and future segmentation.

“I think WebinarGeek is very strong in that. You can find out a lot about the target audience after hosting a webinar,” added Faziel.

For Dirkzwager, interaction isn’t just about connection, it’s about data. Every quiz response, poll result, and post-webinar form feeds into how they segment their audience and shape future content. It helps them spot knowledge gaps, decide whether to revisit specific topics, and track what’s resonating, all based on real viewer behavior.

These insights simply wouldn’t be possible on platforms like Zoom. With WebinarGeek, they’re not just hosting webinars. They’re building a feedback loop that makes each session smarter than the last.

It’s a smart, scalable way to learn what really resonates with your audience and how to keep improving with every session.

Use real data, not just gut feeling

You don’t have to guess who your audience is.

Here are a few ways to gather insight:

• Survey your email list or social media followers – What topics are they most curious about?

• Look at your customer support tickets – What do people keep asking about?

• Ask your sales or success team – What problems come up again and again in calls?

• Review content performance – Which blog posts, guides, or videos get the most engagement?

• Use polls or live Q&A during past webinars – Let your audience tell you directly

Even informal feedback can reveal a lot. You might discover your audience prefers short, tactical webinars over longer deep-dives. Or that they care more about lead generation than content creation. Insights like these help you tailor not just your message, but the whole experience.

What happens when you get it right?

When your webinar is built around a specific audience and the problem they actually care about, everything gets easier:

• Promotion feels more natural because you know what to say (and who to talk to)

• Engagement improves because people feel seen and heard

• Follow-up converts better because the content set the stage for your offer

You’re no longer trying to sell a generic message. You’re delivering real value to people who need it — and that’s where the magic happens.

Define first. Then build.

Defining your webinar audience sets the tone for your title, your content, your promotion, and even your post-webinar follow-up. When you start with the right people in mind, everything that follows is sharper, simpler, and more likely to succeed.

So before you open your webinar platform or start designing your slides, stop and ask:

• Who am I trying to help?

• What do they care about?

• What problem can I help them solve?

Once you know that, your webinar doesn’t just exist — it connects.

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