Webinar No-Shows? How to Increase Webinar Attendance Rates with Two Simple Texts

Problem: Attendees Are Not Showing Up for Your Webinars

You’ve put in the work to create a valuable webinar—great topic, engaging content, strong promotion. But when it’s time to go live, attendance is low.

People register but don’t show up. They forget, get distracted, or lose track of the event in their inbox. Even reminder emails don’t seem to help much. The result? Fewer engaged leads, wasted effort, and a lost opportunity to move people through your funnel.

Solution: Send a Quick Text Reminder to Encourage Show-ups

A simple, automated text reminder can significantly increase webinar attendance on the day of the webinar. 

Send this message the morning of the webinar:

👉 “Still joining us for today’s webinar? It starts at 2 PM ET—join here (link).”

Texting works because it cuts through the noise. People check their texts 98% of the time, and a well-timed SMS nudge helps ensure they don’t forget.

Need proof? Marketers using Salesmsg + HubSpot SMS workflows are boosting attendance and engagement for webinars, sales demos and other appointments. See this case study for details.

Now, let’s walk through how to set up an automated webinar reminder workflow in HubSpot using Salesmsg.

Before You Start: 
Pre-work #1: Connect your Salesmsg account to your HubSpot account.

Go to Settings > App Marketplace and click to connect your HubSpot account. Then once you press connect, it will redirect you to your HubSpot account where you can connect your HubSpot account or create a new one.

For more details on configuring your HubSpot settings and syncing your contacts, be sure to read this article first.

Pre-work #2: Build your webinar registration form.

Build your webinar registration form either inside HubSpot, or with a page that’s integrated with HubSpot. Your goal: Create a page that’s integrated with HubSpot, so your leads will flow into your HubSpot account.

Pre-work #3: Get permission to text your leads on your webinar registration form inside HubSpot.

You must have explicit permission from your leads to send them text messages. We recommend you ask for your leads’ permission right on your webinar registration form.

On your webinar registration form: 

• Ask for your leads’ phone number.
• Add an unchecked checkbox with the compliance language to ask for your leads’ permission to text them. Here’s an example of compliance language with all necessary items included, including links to both your Terms of Service and Privacy Policy:  
• (Unchecked checkbox) “I agree to receive recurring automated text messages at the phone number provided. Msg & data rates may apply. Msg frequency varies. Reply HELP for help and STOP to end. View our Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy.”
• Ensure leads can submit the webinar registration form, even if they don’t opt in for your text messages.

📌 Reference Salesmsg’s SMS opt-in guide for compliant language: Read Here.

Important Note: To build this workflow, you should create your form inside HubSpot too.

Please keep in mind: There’s many ways to build a HubSpot workflow.

For this example, we’re going to show you how to build a workflow that checks if your webinar attendees opted in for text messages or not.

To add this functionality to your workflow, you can build a custom property inside HubSpot that’s connected to your HubSpot opt-in form. This property will specifically check if your webinar attendees checked this box that says “I agree to receive text messages…”

To create this form, go to forms inside HubSpot. Create a form that asks for your webinar registrant’s first name, email and phone number. Add a single checkbox to your form that will ask your attendees to opt-in for texts. Drop in the exact opt-in message you see above that starts with “I agree to receive recurring automated marketing text messages…”

On the form, create a new connected property. Give it a name like “opt-in” or “Salesmsg opt-in.” Then you can use this connected property in your workflow.

📌 Done? You’re ready to build your workflow.

Here’s a look at what we’re building:

How to Build this Automated HubSpot Workflow for Webinar Reminders

Step #1: Create a workflow that is triggered by enrolling contacts into your webinar registration list.

This workflow will send both email and SMS reminders on the day of your webinar.

(Note: You can also create a longer workflow to include all emails from the day your registrants sign up for your webinar. For this example, we’ll focus on the day of the webinar.)

Step #2: Add a Delay Until the Webinar Day

The best practice is to send a text message the morning of your webinar to remind your registrants to show up. 

For example, you might send this SMS at 9:00 AM if your webinar is taking place at 2:00 PM. To do this, set a delay until 9:00 AM the day of the webinar.

Step #3: Create Branch Logic in HubSpot

• Add a And/Or Branch based on whether the registrant opted in for text messages.
• Those who opted in get both an email and two SMS reminders
• Those who didn’t opt in receive two email-only reminders.
• To create this branch, click on “add criteria.” Then “contact properties.” Then search for the name of your custom property (like “SMS opt-in.”) From there, mark the criteria as “yes” as we did below.

Step #4: Set Up Email & SMS Actions

For attendees who did NOT opt-in in for SMS reminders: Add 2-3 emails in the second branch of your workflow.

✅ Delay – Set a delay until one hour before the start of the webinar. (You can also send an email first thing in the morning if you choose.)

✅ Add Email 1 – Starts in One Hour (Day of the webinar)

• Includes webinar details (date, time, link, what to expect).
• To add this email, click the plus sign under “delay” in your workflow. 
• Under Choose an Action, click Communications, then send email.
• Choose the email you want to send (or build a new one).
• Set up this email to send two hours before your webinar.

✅ Delay – Set a delay until the start time of the webinar. 

✅ Optional Email 3 – Send one final email when the webinar begins. 

• This email replaces the SMS for email-only registrants.
• This email is optional. Depending on your list, you may only want to send two emails on the day of your webinar.

For attendees who opted in for SMS reminders: Send both SMS and Email reminders

✅ Add SMS 1 to your workflow – Send a SMS reminder the morning of the webinar.

How to add this text message to your workflow:

• Inside your workflow, click the plus sign under the SMS branch. This will open your “Choose an Action” menu. 
• On the “Choose an Action” menu, scroll down to Salesmsg SMS Texting & Calling. Open that menu.
• Then click “Send SMS/MMS text message.” This will add a SMS to your workflow. 

How to customize this text message for your workflow:

• Click on “Send SMS/MMS text message” in your workflow.
• Fill in all properties for how you’ll be sending your SMS.
• Under “phone number property” - add both “mobile phone number” then drop in a comma, and “phone number.” (The comma is important. Be sure to include it.)
• For the “send from” - the best practice is to send your SMS message from “owner.” This allows you to scale and send thousands of texts at once.
• Owner property: Drop in “Contact Owner.” (This is important. Your workflow will not run from an owner if you don’t say “Contact Owner” in the owner property.)
• Write your text message. For example: “Still joining us for today’s webinar? It starts at 2 PM ET—join here: (link).”

Pro Tips: 

• SMS Opt-out: This is your first text message to your webinar attendees, so we recommend clicking “add an opt-out message” to include the opt-out language in this first text. (This is a best practice for compliance.)
• PhoneChekr: We also recommend you click the button for “PhoneCheckr” to double-check to see if all numbers in your list are textable.

✅ Add Email 1  – Starts in 1 Hour (Day of the webinar)

• In addition to SMS, we suggest sending at least one email on the day of your webinar. 
• Add the same “starting in on hour” email from branch 2.
• Follow the steps above to add this “starting in one hour” email.

✅ Delay – Set one final delay until the time of the webinar.

✅ Optional Text 2: Send one more SMS when your webinar starts. 

• Follow all the SMS steps above to add a second text message to your workflow.
• Optional SMS Message: “Hey (Fname), we’re starting this live training right now. Join us here: (Link)
• You can also send a second text message when your webinar begins, or you can also replace this with an email. 

Step #5 Review & Publish - Everything look good? Hit review & publish.

When your workflow is finished, you’ll see two side-by-side branches for attendees who opted in for SMS and those who didn’t. 

Good to go? Hit review and publish.

Why SMS Works for Webinar Reminders

By adding an SMS touchpoint, you’re reaching registrants where they’re most likely to see your reminder—their text inbox.

✅ Immediate engagement: 98% of text messages get read.
✅ Higher webinar attendance: Marketers using Salesmsg + HubSpot workflows see a boost in show-up rates.
✅ More engaged leads: If they attend, they’re more likely to buy your products and services.

Want help setting this up? Try Salesmsg for 14 days free to see how easy it is to send webinar reminders like this.