AMA Los AngelesAmerican Marketing Association

Using Surveys to Find the Best Time for Monthly Webinars

The best time of day for a monthly webinar is rarely the same for everyone. A session that suits Sydney can feel early in Perth, while a late-afternoon slot may appeal in Melbourne but not Brisbane. Finding a workable window means balancing stated preference with actual turnout. Surveys provide the first layer of evidence, provided the questions are precise and their answers can be checked against attendance.

Many Australian marketing teams schedule around existing deadlines, then guess which slot attracts the most people. A better approach treats the monthly event as a repeating experiment: compare response patterns across several candidate times, measure turnout and refine the calendar. The learning culture behind AMA Los Angeles offers a useful model, because professional knowledge grows through sharing, testing and peer exchange.

This matters more for a recurring programme than a one-off launch. One popular session can create a false impression, while consistent scheduling reveals which audience members return. Keep the survey short, make every time option unambiguous and report results in Australian Eastern Time. Clear labels stop a morning meeting in Melbourne from being mistaken for the same clock time in Adelaide or Darwin.

Treat the survey as a decision tool, not a popularity poll. Ask when people can attend, what they prefer and what would make a session worthwhile. Then compare the responses with registration, live attendance and engagement. For Australian audiences, account for daylight saving, public holidays, summer leave and the mix of commuters, remote workers and people joining by phone between household duties.

Frame the scheduling decision

Begin with a scheduling hypothesis rather than a vague request for the best time. Select two or three slots on the same weekday, keeping duration, topic type and speaker format constant. For a monthly webinar, a consistent forty-five to sixty-minute session gives you cleaner comparisons than alternating between lunchtime, morning and evening formats.

Write the hypothesis in advance: “Eastern Australian evening attendance will exceed morning attendance among our registered audience.” Define the decision rule, such as choosing the slot with the highest live-attendance rate while keeping engagement steady. Date every result because Australian Eastern Time moves between AEST and AEDT, while Brisbane remains on AEST and Perth sits roughly two to three hours behind Sydney.

Design a survey people will finish

Invite recent registrants, lapsed attendees and relevant prospects to complete a mobile-friendly survey. A completion time of three to five minutes encourages participation, and a small incentive can improve response rates without distorting the results. Include the candidate slots in Australian Eastern Time, with your city label beneath each option for people who prefer local references.

Questions worth including in your scheduling survey include:

Avoid leading respondents towards one option or asking about preference and likelihood in a way that produces duplicate answers. Pilot the wording with a handful of people, then segment the final results by time zone and prior attendance. You need enough responses in each slot to compare patterns; a large total sample with almost no observations in one time can still be misleading.

Compare time zones and work patterns

Australian geography makes time-zone discipline essential. A 9:00 a.m. Perth start may reach Sydney at noon, yet Brisbane registrants see it as 11:00 a.m. A Melbourne evening session can work for local commuters who have finished work, but Sydney-based participants may already be settling into their evening. Present one canonical time and a conversion note so registrants do not perform the arithmetic themselves.

Time-zone analysis also needs a human check. Listen for reasons such as “I can’t catch up before dinner” or “no worries, morning suits me better”; the language reveals constraints that a grid of numbers cannot. Where you need stronger research guidance, the Pacific PRRP community offers a relevant connection for professionals interested in responsible survey and research practice.

Measure what audiences actually do

Survey answers are intentions, while registration and show-up data are behaviour. Track both, then ask no-shows what changed. That group may reveal clashes with shifts, school pickup or customer meetings that respondents forgot to mention. Separate the attendance rate from the number of registrants: a popular slot can produce more sign-ups but a weaker percentage turning up live.

The measurements that matter after each webinar include:

Compare these measures over several cycles rather than one launch. A quiet chat can mean a genuinely smaller group or a speaker who answered everything in the presentation, so pair it with poll participation and viewing time. For a regional audience in places such as Bendigo, Cairns or Hobart, test whether mobile access and household sharing affect live participation as well as replay viewing.

Turn findings into a repeatable calendar

Choose a recurring slot that performs reliably, not the one with the biggest response in a single month. Keep the weekday and time stable long enough for people to form a habit, then use calendar invitations and reminders to reinforce it. If two slots perform similarly, favour the one that is easier for the wider Australian audience to remember and discuss.

Build exceptions into the calendar around the Australian year. Summer school holidays, the Christmas period and the January return to work can reduce live attendance even when the chosen time normally works. A daylight-saving transition also changes how an Australian Eastern Time slot appears locally. Record these exceptions rather than abandoning a strong schedule because one month’s participation is lower.

Test preferences against actual behaviour

Run a controlled comparison across consecutive months: keep the topic mix, speaker format, promotion and reminder sequence as similar as possible, then rotate the candidate times. If timing is tied to a specific subject, vary the slot before changing anything else. You may also test time-of-day wording in registration emails, but treat that as a separate test from the webinar schedule.

Report ranges and sample sizes, not a single winning percentage. A two-point lead based on eight responses is weak evidence; a consistent advantage across several months is more persuasive. Revisit the choice quarterly as the audience, team and working patterns change. The survey should become a recurring input to programming, not a questionnaire filed away after launch.

Keep improving with community input

Use the findings to strengthen relationships as well as attendance. Share the selected time early, invite feedback after each session and give speakers a clear brief on when to appear. Volunteers and mentors can also help test reminder copy and identify people who prefer phone participation, creating a more inclusive monthly experience.

A professional chapter offers a practical way to develop that capability through volunteering, mentorship and peer learning. If you work with the Los Angeles marketing community or want to support professional marketing networks, you can join the chapter and participate in its events and working groups.

For your next cycle, choose three candidate slots, survey recent registrants and live attendees, and schedule a follow-up after four weeks. Measure the first two sessions in the same way, publish the chosen time and invite people to confirm that it works. Make the monthly commitment easy to keep and give every audience member a dependable time to return.