Even if you’d never attended an online event before, lockdown probably changed that for you. Instead of jumping in the car and meeting face-to-face, we all got to grips with online platforms like Zoom and Remo (and many others).
Online meetings have retained their currency as people realised that you don’t have to be in the same room with others to get things done. Zoom, Teams and GoogleMeet have all gained massive usage in the past few years, where previously only a few people used these tools.
GoToMeeting was the domain of webinars and mass promotional meetings with hundreds of participants. Although there were others, this one was usually at the top of the list for professional promoters. Zoom has carved a large chunk of that market out now as the preferred platform.
However, it doesn’t matter what your chosen platform is – as long as it works. What does matter is what you can use it for.
Why a webinar works
Now we’re all used to attending webinars, it makes sense to use them to expand your reach to more people. You can deliver webinars:
- To share your knowledge
- To educate your audience
- To promote your offer
Or a combination of all these. If all you do is sell, people will switch off, but if you share good content, people don’t mind the offer, it just depends on how it’s delivered.
When your webinar is stuffed with great content that genuinely delivers value, more people will be interested in buying a more in-depth service or product. If they don’t buy, they’ll still have had a positive experience and may buy at some point in the future.
The secret of making sales is to have
- A good sized audience
- Who are highly focused – i.e. they are exactly who your offer can help
- Have already received great value
- Can see exactly how the offer will benefit them
- Will get a reduced price or something exclusive that isn’t available elsewhere.
The offer needs to be ethical, of real value and with a great reason to buy – and remember, people buy people. So they’re not just buying your offer, they’re also buying you.
People that Tony Robbins mentors nearly always bring him into the mix when they’re doing online presentations. His reputation not only swells the audience size, but means that the offer comes with validation built in.
That doesn’t mean you need a big name to back you, but you do have to be able to offer some kind of validation.
Get your ducks in a row
Even the big names in webinar delivery work hard on the pre-event marketing. That means social posts and ads, on Facebook, Google, interruption ads on games, etc. As the saying goes ‘speculate to accumulate’.
If you don’t do this for free webinars, you’ll end up with three people and maybe your Mum! Even if 20 people have registered, free events have a big drop out rate.
What can you do to get registrants to actually turn up?
- A ‘hot’ title – with something that is specifically for your audience.
- Reminder emails, at least the day before and on the day an hour before, 15 minutes before and at go live time. Include the link in every email to make it easy to join in.
- A teaser – e.g. ‘Don’t miss this as I’ll be sharing the strategy that netted £10,000 in just 30 days’ or ‘I’ll be sharing the secrets that let me double my fees – and my client base’. Know your audience and what they want.
- Scarcity – e.g. only 30 places – first come, first served. If you don’t log in on time, you could miss out.
Practise your presentation, including the offer, with your slides, if you’re using these. This helps things to go smoothly on the live event.
Make sure you are comfortable using your chosen platform (Zoom or GoToMeeting or whichever you choose). Know your way around the tools.
If you’re going to encourage participation in the chat, have someone else in your team monitor it, so you aren’t trying to present and respond at the same time.
Plan, Practise and Perform – and your webinars will work!
