If you don’t host webinars, you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity.
Whether you run your own business or freelance, webinars can be a valuable way to gain authority in your field while teaching others – and making sales.
Why Host Live Webinar Training / Marketing Conferences?
Webinars have some distinct advantages over other forms of marketing, like paid advertising or in-person seminars and workshops.
How Does a Webinar Work?
Webinars give you a chance to more deeply demonstrate your services, knowledge, and products that a quick Facebook ad can do. A simple webinar’s definition is that they’re a live video session where you talk to attendees – much like an online seminar.
Plus, the benefits of a webinar can be enormous. Marketing webinars are excellent for building your sales pipeline:
- According to ReadyTalk, 20% to 40% of webinar attendees become qualified leads.
- The majority of marketers – 58%, according to the Content Marketing Institute – promote using webinars.
- On average, 2% to 5% of webinar participants will purchase from you. That’s an excellent conversion rate in the world of online marketing – especially if you’re selling high-ticket items.
Webinars Offer a Nearly-human Interaction – From Anywhere
Not everyone is willing (or able) to get to your physical location to hear you talk. Paid advertising can quickly rack up the bills before you find the winning formula.
Webinars sidestep these problems by giving you facetime with the attendees (who can participate from anywhere around the globe), while also being relatively low-cost for you and free for your audience.
All You Need Is Your Laptop Computer and Software like Zoom or GoToWebinar for Video
If you’re a digital nomad or full-time traveler, you don’t have much space for extra gear. Fortunately, webinars don’t require much physical space in your backpack. You can reuse the essential digital nomad gear you’re already carrying.
A laptop, decent internet connection, and webinar software are all you need. A good microphone is a plus but not a requirement. You could even host webinars without a laptop – use your smartphone.
Bonus tip: use software like Krisp to cancel background sound during your webinar to enhance your perceived value (leading to more trust, and more sales).
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Time to Design – How to Create a Webinar
So you’re ready to harness the advantages of webinars for your career – but you have some planning to do.
Free Webinars – or Paid?
Your goal when designing webinars is to make money. There’s nothing wrong with that – your time is valuable. Would you trust a person hosting webinars who didn’t value their expertise enough to make money with their time?
Making money with webinars doesn’t mean your webinars need to have an entrance fee. If you’re pushing sales during webinars, that could provide your income. Maybe the webinar is just an informational session to start attracting qualified leads.
There’s no single correct money-generating model. Consider your business, personality, and sales experience to pick the best strategy for your situation.
What Type of Webinar Will You Do? Just Sales, or Weekly Learning?
Webinars usually fall into one of two categories.
Webinar Series
These webinars tend to be sequential and dive deep into a topic – much like a live course.
Your pricing model could be a monthly subscription fee to a group granting the members access to the webinars or lead generation as your prospects slowly build trust. Alternatively, the series could be free, and you can push sales during the webinar sessions.
Just make sure you’re providing enough value that your participants don’t feel like they’re watching an infomercial.
Sales / Lead Generation Webinars
These are typically a one-off webinar. Perhaps you released a new product, book, or course – or you’re looking to quickly onboard a few new clients.
You’ll need to be more aggressive, and carefully structure your pitch, so your prospects are begging for your product by the end of the webinar.
Put on Your Digital Marketing Hat – Landing Pages, Social Media, and Email
Now that you’ve decided on your money-making model, it’s time to start promoting your webinar.
About three weeks before your webinar, you should start running your promotions. Set up a landing page for registration. Collect potential attendees’ email addresses with a registration landing page covering the webinar’s topic and length.
Email marketing resources are especially useful for promoting webinars. Send emails with links to other content you’ve produced to begin building trust with your audience. Email also lets you send reminders – three is best, but give at least one.
You can also promote on social media with free or paid ads. Guest posts and interviews also help increase your exposure to more potential attendees. Add promotional banners to your website.
A cold email tool can help in your outreach efforts, sending invitations, reminders, and follow-ups.
Use the Right Layout to Get the Most Benefits from Your Webinar
You can structure your webinar in many ways – but here’s the layout for a webinar example:
Make a (Big) Promise
What will your audience gain? Address their pain points. Be specific with numbers and time. Leave no room for confusion.
How Will Your Webinar Fix Their Problem?
What will their life look like after your webinar? What specific benefits in their day-to-day life or business will they get from your information?
Why Are You Giving This Webinar?
Build trust. Don’t just say you want your attendees’ money.
Why are you giving your time to share this valuable information? For example, do you have a goal to help ten more people learn how to freelance, or are you passionate about building a community of digital nomads?
Explain The Problem and Opportunity
Describe the exact problem with as much detail as possible. Do you need more freelancers for your team? Here’s an opportunity for them to learn and join you.
Give Your “Hero” Story
Everyone has a story about how they got to where they are. What’s yours? Your story helps your audience connect with and trust you – and visualize themselves in your shoes someday.
What’s the Framework for Success?
Many of your attendees might not trust that they can apply your knowledge, product, or strategy to solve their problem. It worked for you, but how do they know it will work for them?
Give a detailed, step-by-step description of the framework for the solution – and how it changed your life – so they know they can do it too.
Re-sell the Opportunity
Provide as much proof of this opportunity’s value as possible. For who else has it worked? Can you share more testimonials? Best of all, can you demonstrate it while you’re live on video?
Build Desire – Then Reject Them
At this point, your audience wants the value you’re providing. Take it away.
Who won’t benefits from this solution? Do they need to invest time? Does it cost too much money? Are there specific skills they need?
Eliminate unqualified prospects (who will waste your time with refunds and bad reviews), and crank up desire in the qualified viewers.
Introduce the Exact Offer
You’ve given the framework. Now explain your offer in detail. Exactly how long will it take? What effort will they need to invest? Cover every tiny detail to build more trust with your audience.
Build More Value
At this point, some of your webinar attendees might begin feeling doubt. Double-down on the value.
How will this change their life, how they can accomplish the same results as you (and others), or what certifications will they receive? Cover all benefits of what you’re selling.
Be honest – but don’t let them miss out on this deal.
Call to Action
It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: close the deal.
Reveal the price and exclusive discounts for your attendees. Tell them exactly what they need to do to take advantage of your offer – for example, clicking a button, clicking a link, joining your group, or emailing you.
Make You Webinars Available After They Finish
Once you’ve finished your webinar, make your materials available for download. If you’re giving paid webinars, host it on a site like Teachable for viewing later. If it’s free, put it on your YouTube channel.
Downloadable slides, PDF notes, and infographics can help you stick in the mind of your attendees.
Tips for a Successful Webinars (Give Them More than a Downloadable Infographic)
Here are a few more tips for successful webinars:
- Don’t put too much text on your slides. You need to quickly move through them to keep your viewers’ attention.
- Look straight at the camera and sound engaging. If you’re not confident, practice.
- Boost engagement by having your audience ask questions in chat. Answer them.
- Keep timezones in mind. If your audience is in North America, but you’re in Asia, they might not be able to make it.
- Think of yourself as a teacher, not a salesman.
- Make your audience feel special and like they’re getting a great deal by offering discounts for your webinar’s attendees.
Ready to Get Started with Webinars?
They might sound intimidating at first, but webinars are an incredibly easy way to boost your income or reputation.
Now that you know the benefits, tips, and tricks to begin using webinars to promote your practice or product – use this overview to get started.
