How to get healthcare professionals to attend your webinar
What clinicians want, when they can join, and the invitation that works
When clinicians miss a webinar, it is usually because it landed at 10:15 on a Tuesday morning, between a ward round and a clinic, in an inbox with sixty other things in it.
The Adelo teamAdelo Guides
Published 3 November 2026
The evidence on what clinicians want, and a sequence that respects their day
The question pharma and medcomms teams ask us most is "how do we get doctors to turn up?" Most of the answer sits outside the live hour: the topic, the timing, the sender and the reminders. Get those right and attendance looks after itself.
A note on the numbers. Some of the figures below come from surveys of physicians, some from webinar platforms whose audiences are mostly business. We've said which is which, and where a figure is a yardstick rather than a rule.
1
Start with what clinicians say they want
Indegene surveyed 984 physicians across the US, the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, India and China. Webinars and webcasts came out as the most preferred channel for receiving information, named by 68%.1 The same survey found 62% of physicians felt overwhelmed by promotional content, and 70% said pharma representatives did not fully understand their needs.1
A 2024 study in BMC Medical Education of 146 physicians attending Mayo Clinic courses adds the practical side: those who chose the livestream did so for convenience (46%) and to avoid travel costs (34%), and 65% of them would choose it again.2 People who love in-person events really love them. Everyone else wants the content without the travel.
What they said
What it means for your webinar
68% prefer webinars or webcasts
Clinicians like the format, so compete on the question you answer.
62% overwhelmed by promotional content
Lead with the clinical question and the independent expert.
Convenience and cost drive livestream choice
Remove every piece of friction between invitation and join.
2
Hold it when they can actually join
In the same Indegene survey, physicians said they prefer to be contacted between 5 and 8 pm on weekdays and between 8 and 11 pm at weekends.1 That matches what every clinical audience tells us: clinic hours are off limits, and the diary opens in the evening.
Fig. 1The week
When clinicians are free to join
Preferred contact times from Indegene's survey of 984 physicians; clinic-hours shading is our own assumption
In practice, a Tuesday or Wednesday evening is a good default for clinical audiences. But five minutes asking real members of your audience when they could join beats any benchmark, including this one.
Put the time in the invitation as well as the date. "Tuesday, 6:30 pm, 45 minutes" lets someone decide in a second.
Keep it to 45 minutes and say so. Life sciences benchmark data puts average live engagement for HCPs at 52 minutes, so treat an hour as the ceiling.3
Promise the recording. For a clinician on call, the promise is what turns a maybe into a registration.
3
Write an invitation a clinician would open
IQVIA's 2025 analysis of email to healthcare professionals found 84% of emails are read on mobile, and that triggered emails, sent in response to something the person did, had a 33% open rate against 25.3% for broadcast sends.4 So the invitation will be read on a phone, probably in a gap between patients, and it works better when it follows an action than when it arrives from nowhere.
Part
What works
What doesn't
Sender
A peer, the speaker, or a professional body
A brand mailbox
Subject line
The clinical question, in their words
The product name or "webinar invitation"
First line
What they'll be able to do afterwards
Who you are
Proof
The speaker's role and institution
A list of sponsor logos
The ask
One button, one date and time
Three links and a PDF
The promise
"Can't make it? You'll get the recording."
Nothing
Fig. 2The funnel
How many invited clinicians end up watching
Adelo Guides · bar heights illustrative
4
Make signing up and joining effortless
Every step between "that looks useful" and "I'm in" loses clinicians. They are signing up on a phone between patients, and joining from a hospital laptop that won't let them install anything. If either step is fiddly, most of them won't complain about it. They will simply stay away.
Step
What good looks like
Why it matters for clinicians
The page
One branded page per session, readable on a phone
Most invitations are opened on mobile
The form
Name, email and specialty, plus any consent you need
Specialty lets you tailor the follow-up; everything else can wait
The confirmation
Sent instantly, with a one-click join link and no password
Nobody hunts for a password at 6:29
The calendar
One link that adds it to Outlook, Google or Office 365
The invite holds the slot, and carries the link
The join
In the browser, with nothing to download
Hospital and NHS laptops often block installs
The lobby
Agenda and speakers visible before it starts
Early arrivals know they're in the right place
Afterwards
The replay, with the original chat, one click away
Half your audience will watch later
If it's for clinicians only, say so and check at registration. Nobody should be turned away at 6:29.
Test every step yourself, on your phone, on 4G. From the email to the live room. Then do it on a locked-down work laptop.
Keep promoting until the start. People decide late, and the last 48 hours often bring more sign-ups than the first week.
5
Remind like a person
Every reminder should have one job and read as though a person sent it. The sequence below is the one we'd use. The message that moves the needle most is the short note from the speaker the day before: it turns an event into an appointment with someone.
Fig. 3The sequence
The five-message invitation sequence
Adelo Guides
68% of physicians preferred webinars, and 62% felt overwhelmed by promotional content.
On Indegene's survey of 984 physicians
6
Make the live hour worth the diary slot
Attendance is a promise you make in the invitation and keep in the room. Start on time. Say the one thing people will be able to do by the end. And let people ask questions without putting their name next to them: a clinician is far more willing to ask "is this a diagnosis?" when their colleagues can't see who asked.
Let them ask anonymously. Say so before they type: clinicians ask more when colleagues can't see who asked.
Take questions throughout, from the first ten minutes.
Answer the rest in writing, with a short note from the expert within a day.
7
Treat on demand as the main event for half your audience
Life sciences benchmarks from a major webinar platform found 55% of healthcare professionals chose to watch webinars on demand rather than live.3 For a clinical audience, the recording is the version most people will actually see.
68%
of physicians name webinars as their preferred channel (Indegene)
84%
of emails to HCPs are read on mobile (IQVIA)
55%
of HCPs watched on demand (life sciences benchmark)
52min
average live engagement for HCPs (life sciences benchmark)
Send the recording within 24 hours to everyone who registered, with corrected captions and chapters.
Lead the follow-up with the answers to the questions you didn't get to.
Measure both audiences. Live and on demand are different behaviors; our guide to analyzing webinar data shows how to read them.
HCP attendance checklistAdelo Guides · 05 · Tick as you go
Invite
Register and remind
Deliver
Get the invitation, the timing and the reminders right and the live hour has a fair chance. Then make the hour itself worth it: our guides on how to run a webinar and how to look good on a webinar cover the rest.
Frequently asked questions
How do you get doctors to attend a webinar?
Pick a clinical question they already have, hold it when they can actually join, usually a weekday evening, send an invitation from a peer or professional body that reads well on a phone, keep registration to three fields with a calendar invite, remind a week, a day and an hour before, and promise the recording.
What is the best time to hold a webinar for healthcare professionals?
Physicians in Indegene's eight-country survey said they prefer to be contacted between 5 and 8 pm on weekdays and 8 to 11 pm at weekends. Clinic hours are the worst slot. Ask five people in your audience before you fix the time.
How far in advance should you promote a webinar to clinicians?
Open registration two to three weeks out and keep promoting until the start. People decide late, so the final days matter most.
What is a good attendance rate for an HCP webinar?
Count live and on-demand viewers separately, and together. Life sciences data shows more than half of healthcare professionals watch on demand. Your own last event is the best benchmark.
Why do clinicians drop out of webinars before they start?
Friction at the door: a download, a password, a second registration or a plug-in a hospital laptop will not allow. Clinicians join between patients and will not troubleshoot. A browser-only join with a one-click personal link, tested on a phone and a locked-down work laptop, removes most of the loss.
Should you record a webinar for healthcare professionals?
Yes, and say so in the invitation. More than half of HCPs in life sciences benchmark data watched on demand, so the recording, sent within 24 hours with corrected captions, is the main event for half your audience.
Adelo Guides are written by the Adelo team, the professional video event platform for health. They draw on the sessions pharma, agency and consumer health teams run on Adelo every week, and on the research cited in each guide.
Adelo Guides
