Webinars continue to be the number one online medium for mass influence.
Yes, webinars are not uncommon these days. But they’re still an excellent way to reach a large audience with your message and products. And perhaps the most powerful online sales medium ever invented.
Think of them as digital conferences where you are the star attraction.
The problem is, most people don’t know the proper way to conduct a webinar or how to use them to maximize their sales.
Here’s a massive look at making your webinars more effective (aka they generate more revenue).
Why Webinars?
You see, a webinar is not just a digital sales presentation. It’s an event. Just like any event, there are things you can do to make sure people show up, pay attention, and most importantly, buy what you’re selling.
Why do they work?
Here are three reasons why:
First, it’s direct attention
During a timed webinar, the attention span of the attendee is at least 45 minutes on average. In an attention economy where everyone competes for your attention, this is a real jackpot. An article or video just doesn’t have that same effect.
Do you know how much 45 minutes of educating the prospect is worth?
All the money in the world.
There isn’t any type of sales presentation that you can’t do in 45 minutes. You can sell anything from jet planes to java chips, which leads to my second point.
Second, the ability to sell directly
The genius of webinars is that after educating the prospects for a full 45 minutes to an hour, you have the opportunity to directly pitch your product. As long as you make a smooth transition, people won’t realize they’re being sold until it’s too late. It’s every salesperson’s dream.
Third, it’s about commitment and consistency
Webinars are events.
This means the user has to show up for the event. There’s a different psychology at play when a person is randomly shown a video versus when a person decides to appear for a particular presentation. It makes a day and night difference.
According to psychology experts, we humans are hard-wired for commitment and consistency. When a person decides to watch a particular presentation (which shows that they have a problem they’d like to solve), they are more likely to stick till the end.
These 3 components make webinars the multi-million dollar beasts they are.
HOWEVER, the directness of the webinar also means prospects have more time to call you out on your BS.
When webinars work, they work mysteriously well.
When they don’t, they bomb miserably.
That’s why a proper sequence is essential.
If you mess the sequence up, you’re going to have a very hard time selling anything.
The execution has to be flawless. A single webinar can lead to millions in sales, while a poorly executed webinar can tank your business.
And this is not an exaggeration. I’ve seen it happen too many times.
A Lesson From A Company That’s 178 Years Old
In 1837, Procter & Gamble was founded by two men with a capital of just $7,192.24 and now, 178 years later, the company has more than 135,000 employees in over 80 countries with revenues exceeding $79 Billion.
Obviously, they did a lot of things right to get to the position they enjoy today.
Right?
One of the unusual things they did that turned out to be a huge success, happened during the early 20th century when radios first appeared in the 1920s and later television in the 1930s.
The radio and television industry at that time desperately needed advertisers to sponsor what little shows they produced.
They had a broad demographic for prime time—evening and morning segments— but viewers for their other time slots were just stay-at-home wives and mothers who basically bought nothing and sponsors weren’t interested in them.
But Procter and Gamble, by that time already a big soap and candle manufacturer, saw the opportunity. They saw attention as currency even back then.
And there it was… attention for a dirt cheap price.
They not only became a sponsor but produced their own shows. And they discovered an interesting phenomenon.
Phenomenal Webinar Sales
P&G produced what was then called the serials. And they noticed that as the shows got better and better, sales for their soaps—which had nothing to do with shows—grew exponentially (compared to their initial TV viewership which only grew in a predicted way.)
This was the first time they had seen sales explode in an unpredictable, disproportionate way.
All they had to do was hire great TV producers, create great shows, and people would buy their soap!
The TV people jokingly called these shows “soap operas”, and the name stuck. What followed was a great era (spanning decades) of Soap Operas which pushed the P&G revenues to higher unthinkable levels.
What does this have to do with webinars?
Everything.
You probably know where I’m going with this. Better TV show pieces lead to more eager viewers and they bought more stuff.
My theory is that, as the shows became intriguing with stories involving romance, betrayal, and dark family secrets, viewers were in a hypnotic state of focused attention. And they remembered P&G commercials more which led to more sales.
(Of course, better shows also led to an increase in viewership triggering more brand awareness but that wasn’t the only factor.)
It’s The Same With Webinars
As long as you’re putting on a great show for viewers, you’re going to see both viewership and sales conversion shoot through the roof. That’s a fact.
It has little to do with what’s actually being sold and everything to do with the quality of the webinar experience.
We’ve experimented with 2 products, lets call them products A & B, in the same webinar. Same audience, different offer.
Product B outperformed product A in multiples, yet product A was way better, way more well-researched, and had a stronger offer.
The only difference was in the quality of the webinar content and delivery.
By all means, product A could have been the winner (better appeal, more quality).
Yet, because the webinar for Product B was more engaging (and more emotionally appealing) than Product A’s webinar, the sales for product B were 5X more than that of product A.
That’s the power of incredible content
This is why I want you to promise to use what you are about to learn for good.
The power of the webinar should never take your attention off quality products. Your webinar is an accelerator. You can accelerate your success. If the product has a negative Net Promoter Score (NPS), the pendulum will swing back and could wipe out the business as fast as the success came. Use wisely.
Now we’ve established the basic rule—i.e. there’s no exception to producing good, relevant, appealing content on webinars— let’s move on to the specifics.
Engineering Your Webinar
I’ve categorized the 43 things (not in any particular order) into 6 categories. The first is engineering your webinar.
But you’ll notice the bulk of the things go into actually getting people to register for the webinar— which is the #1 thing you should be focusing on.
1. Think appointment consumption
What this means is that, don’t make your webinars a one-off thing. Make it a soap opera. Let it be an event that happens every week, every two weeks, or perhaps every month.
Just like how people will set aside a specific time and day to watch their favorite TV shows, they’ll set aside the time to watch your webinars like clockwork too.
Let’s say you’re doing a webinar every Tuesday at 6 pm Pacific, people will automatically tune in. And in a short while, they’ll actually look forward to that particular time.
2. Branding your webinars
TV networks do that effectively. And so should you. Remember, the primary goal is to get repeat viewers.
What is it that makes people keep watching a show?
The overall quality, sure. But it’s also because they grow attached to the characters. They feel like they know these people. They want to find out what happens to them next.
You need to do the same with your webinars. Make it about the people and not just the product.
Your webinar attendees should feel like they are part of a community and not just another faceless customer.
And that’s what branding is all about— creating a repeatable emotional connection with your viewers.
The key here is to be consistent with your branding. The name, the colors, the logo, the font— everything should be aligned with your overall brand guidelines.
This is important because as people see your webinars popping up in their feed, they should be able to easily recognize it as yours.
If you keep changing the name, the colors, and the logo, people will get confused. And when people are confused, they tune out and fail to show up next time.
Big or small, every business should have a set of brand guidelines. If you don’t have one, now is the time to create one.
Your webinar branding should include:
- Your webinar title
- Your webinar tagline or slogan
- Your color scheme
- Your logo and other graphical assets
- Your font family
- Your webinar host(s)
- Your overall tone and style
3. Give it a hook/theme
In order to do a repeated “Soap Opera” style never-ending webinar series, you’ve got to have an underlying story. We call it our hook. Your webinar’s hook or theme should be something that resonates with your target audience.
It could be a problem that they’re currently facing. Or it could be a specific pain point that they want to solve.
Your job is to make sure that you’re laser-focused on that problem and offer a solution through your webinars.
The story doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler, the better. The key here is to make sure that your story is always front and center.
What gaps do you see that other webinars in your industry are not addressing?
Your job is to fill in that hole and become the go-to person or company for that particular problem. That way, people will start to associate you with that problem— and when they have that problem, they’ll think of you first.
Is it Education, Technology, Job Opportunities, or Fun?
No matter what it is, make sure that your webinars have a tight focus. They should always tie back to that hook. That way, people will know what to expect from you and they’ll keep coming back for more.
4. Stick to a straight line process & refine it
The “Straight Line” is a sales process from Jordan Belfort — the man who built one of the fastest growing brokerage firms in Wall Street history (who then lost it all – remember that NPS score I spoke of before? I can’t stress this enough).
The straight line is a step-by-step sales formula that works wonders when it comes to closing the sale. Its ingenuity lies in the concept itself—a straight-line process that always works. In fact, it doesn’t matter what the individual steps are.
Simply by following a process and innovating upon it, means EASY SCALING.
So for webinars, our straight line is the entire series of steps consisting of 1) Pre-webinar sequence 2) Show up sequence 3) Webinar sequence 4) Post-webinar replay sequence 5) Post-webinar sales sequence, and 6) Re-engagement and Closing sequence.
We’ll explain some of it later in this post.
But here are 2 reasons why this is important:
- The straight line provides a set of clear newbie-friendly guidelines and checkpoints that are known to work when followed to the dot. So all you have to do is to simply follow the recipe and “cook” it.
- Whenever you get a new idea to implement on a webinar, you can test it by keeping everything else the same in the straight line and only varying one single element. It’s an unbelievably accurate tool for innovation—innovating on the recipe that is (there’s a slight difference between innovating on the food and innovating on the recipe. Sometimes people innovate on the food ad hoc—a little extra sauce here, a little extra pepper there—and it clicks. However, they have no clue exactly what was the ingredient that made the difference.)
However, the straight line is not just about the steps in a process.
It’s anchored to both our inner and outer worlds.
Inner World: This is about your vision for the company— is it to change the world or just to make a quick buck? Do you want to be an authority in your industry or a small player? What’s your definition of success? Having this will help you manage your emotions and state of mind during every phase in the straight line. In other words, it anchors the “why” behind what you do.
When you educate the team on the inner world, you’ll get everyone on the same attitude towards the techniques. There’s a difference between a painter painting a Rolls Royce car and a painter painting the cheapest car in town—it’s the vision.
The Rolls Royce car painter knows the vision is to create the ultimate luxury on wheels. So his attitude is different. He aligns what he does to what the vision is. So when you hire people, you hire people that match your vision—not the skill you need.
Outer World: These are the actual steps themselves as in what you actually do—but always start with the inner world first. Then design a detailed step-by-step process to realize that vision.
5. Reuse and rebroadcast successful webinars
The title explains it well. If it has worked well in the past, chances are it will work well in the future. When done well with a straight line, you can almost predict your future. We’ve had several webinars that consistently bring a record number of attendance and revenue whenever they’re aired.
Even if you insist on doing only live webinars, copy the old webinar exactly as it worked before.
Those who sign up repeatedly for the same thing want the same thing anyway. And even if they’ve watched the previous one, they won’t even remember it. Because if they did, there’s no reason for them to sign up for the second time (unless they really want to watch it again. Which is fine too).
6. Remember the most important metric -VPL
VPL stands for Value Per Lead. Meaning, the average revenue generated by a person who signed up for your webinar. You get this by taking the total revenue from the webinar and dividing it by the number of registrants. And the idea is to keep a benchmark.
The moment the VPL dips below the benchmark, it means that something’s not working well and you need to pull the plug on the show/ episode.
There’s one other reason why it’s important. And it’s because VPL-CAQ = profits. CAQ is the cost of the acquisition of a registrant. Meaning the investment you make (whether to Facebook or Google) to get a registrant.
Once you know your VPL, this equation dictates how much you can spend on your traffic. When CAQ=VPL, your profits are 0. And this is the max you can spend to acquire a registrant.
But frankly, your CAQ can be 2X or 3X your VPL and it all depends on the registrants’ lifetime value— we measure the revenue the registrant contributes in 2-3 months’ time (buying other products or services).
7. Use the “No List, No Money & No Product” tactic
Think about this for a moment. What’s holding you back from experiencing all the success you’ve wanted in your business? Chances are, it has got to do with either of the 3—your list, the money you can invest, and the product you can offer them.
What if you don’t have all of these? What would you do if you had no money, no list, and no product?
Well, you at least need a few good friends.
All you have to do is this: Offer to do a great webinar (think about one that fills a content hole) with someone who has a good following in your industry. And then sell their product as an affiliate in that webinar.
But what about the list? Where will you get your registrants from? Chances are, the friend you’re hosting the webinar with has a proven VPL for their product (be sure to ask.) Now tell your “other friends” that you’re doing this webinar and tell them the estimated VPL.
They’ll mail it to you.
Voila. All you do is produce a great show and you will be rewarded generously. We do this and it never fails to work.
And if you want to take it up a notch, see the next tactic.
8. Phish your JV partner’s audience
This is nowhere as unethical as it sounds. Trust me.
But it works only if you get a chance to partner with an industry giant. Let’s say you use the “No List, No Money & No Product” tactic to create an amazing webinar with a giant like Jeff Walker of the Product Launch Formula fame (or even better— someone like Tony Robbins.)
What you do is promote the invitation to this webinar to everyone who talks or reads about Jeff Walker on the entire internet—be it Facebook, Google, Twitter, everywhere.
Now, just to make sure we’re on the same page, I’ll repeat that. It’s a webinar with Jeff for Jeff’s product and you’re promoting it (for an affiliate cut) to Jeff’s audience. The Affiliate cut will probably make up for the bulk of Acquisition costs (CAQ) incurred.
And you’ll have thousands of registrants who are hard-core fans of Jeff.
Now, they are on your list too.
All you have to do is deliver an amazing webinar—packed with thousands of dollars worth of tips—and the new audience will love you to pieces and stay on your list forever.
It’s especially good if the giant you’re partnering with is in a totally different—but related—niche than yours. One reason is, you can offer a new set of values to the audience you’re attracting.
Don’t go for the obvious partnerships. Look for unconventional ones.
For example, if you sell women’s handbags, partner with a popular make-up artist and educate them on how to choose the right bags that match your makeup.
If you sell software for marketers, partner with an author who has a new book on entrepreneurship and teaches them how to automate their business.
9. Choose the best days to air the webinar
Research shows that when asked to pick a date and time for their webinars, most people preferred Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays. And it’s usually in the afternoons. So it’s safe to say, if you’re preparing a show, these are the prime times.
Tuesdays, especially, have an extended sales sequence that can run till the next Monday.
And that’s another tip.
Do you know most people prefer to shop online on Mondays?
They’re fresh from their weekend shopping trip and it’s psychologically easy to pull out their credit cards. Most marketers end their sales cycle on a Sunday night. But not you. You extend it by a day so your audience has time to think about it and make their purchase on Monday.
It’s such a hack!
10. Monetize early
Showing registrants a small related product offer immediately upon sign-up is always a great idea and helps set back the cost of acquisition. Because a small part of your audience will be hungry for instant gratification. Or they’re in a buying mood already.
Help them and you’ll recoup some of your investment immediately. Having a free trial for a subscription is a great idea of a low resistance offer that has the potential for higher lifetime revenue.
However, offering them the main product (the one you’ll be promoting in the webinar) is not a good idea. Because there has to be some sort of surprise—either on the part of the product or the particular offer you’re making at the webinar.
If they’ve already seen the product or offer you’re offering at the webinar, there won’t be sufficient pattern interrupt that will lead them to take action.
Webinar Invitation
11. Serve Appetizers
Before you open up your webinar for registration, serve content that warms up the audience.
It can be a blog post, a video, or an infographic. This also helps introduce the webinar topic and the teacher (if they are new) to the audience.
It’s sort of like dating. You need to earn trust before you can proceed. Show the creds. Show the transformation people are getting. And show the author up close and personal.
12. Keep the bullets short
We’ve tested and found that short but intriguing bullets work better than long detailed ones. I suspect two reasons.
- Short ones are easier to read.
- The vagueness of the short bullets makes the viewer curious enough to register.
Keep it short and snappy. Tease them intelligently. Don’t explain it away and drain the excitement.
13. Let the visuals flow towards the CTA
First, have images of people on the webinar invite/registration page. It’s good for conversions. So if you have a special guest, make sure the guest’s photo is as close to the sign-up box as possible. People love looking at other people.
Secondly, if you can, choose an image that has the person looking or pointing towards the CTA. Not always important, but if you have an opportunity to do this, you better make use of it.
You want the flow of the visuals to be towards the CTA, not away from it. This increases readership and conversion.
14. Facebook comments on Landing Page
We’re still testing this. First, have a Facebook comment system active on the “Thank you” page of the webinar registration. And then have it displayed on the webinar registration page too.
This is so people can see what others are saying about the webinar. It is known to have worked for other well-known marketers with a loyal audience.
15. Use countdown timers
Timers increase conversion. Period. And it helps users know exactly when the webinar airs. Is it 48 hours from now, or 24 hours from now? You should have timers on the “Thank You” page, webinar invite/registration page, and webinar access page.
Plus, now with apps like http://motionmailapp.com/, you can have live timers in your emails too. For your last 2 emails, which go 48-hours and 24-hours before the webinar airs, have these little timers highlight the scarcity and urgency of the webinar
16. Offer replay upfront using exit pop-up
Some people just prefer anytime replays. Others can’t free up that particular time slot you’ve chosen for your webinar.
For these people, offer the webinar replay as a second option. Using exit pop-ups, we can offer the user that option when they decide to close the browser without signing up. We’ve seen an 8%-13% boost in sign-ups because of this option.
And no, don’t use the usual exit pop-ups. Use Exit-Intent technology. Here’s an app for that — http://www.picreel.com/
17. Best 3 testimonials on the landing page
Some marketing gurus say you can’t go wrong with testimonials. Use as many as you can on all your pages. We beg to differ.
Having three carefully chosen, well-highlighted testimonials is much better than a page cluttered with unreadable testimonials. At least that’s what works for us for webinar invite pages.
And how do you choose a good testimonial?
Choose those that communicate specific outcomes that users get as a result of applying the principles taught in the webinar. Like the ones that say “I 5X’d my revenue”, or “I earned $50,000.” When it comes to testimonials, specificity matters.
18. Deliver a powerful 24-hour scarcity email
Scarcity is a powerful marketing tool and it goes beyond mentioning that if you’re not using it, you’re probably missing out.
For webinars, you can have a registration closing date (which obviously must be the time the webinar airs). So have the copy highlight the fact that registration closes in 24 hours.
And also, tell them they won’t even get the replay and other free resources unless they register.
19. Focus on “what you’re going to experience”
Your webinar is not just a webinar. It’s an event.
An experience.
Why do people go to watch movies and dramas in theaters? Because of the experience. So think as if your webinar is an event. And you’re delivering an experience. Focus on what they will experience.
- Will you be taking them through a roller-coaster of realizations?
- Will you be demonstrating how to actually solve the client’s problems?
- Will you be shining light on the client’s biggest enemy there is?
- Or will you be shocking the audience by revealing something totally new and unusual?
Then, say so. Tell them how they’ll feel when they watch your webinar.
20. Be clear in your invitation
There’s a tendency among marketers to try to hype it up a bit. And in doing so, they dilute the message. Silly. Let the first message be clear and direct.
One of the first webinar invitation emails we send follows a simple format called WWWW— which stands for “Who, What, Why, and When”.
And highlight the time investment. The idea is that the people who love your content will sign up immediately. They won’t feel offended by the unnecessary hype.
On the other hand, for those who don’t sign up at first, use a secondary angle (which may or may not be a little hyped up—hey, there’s nothing wrong with hype if it helps customers take action on their problems) to get them interested.
21. Add a video on the landing page
No matter how clear your copy is and how visually you explain things, there are some people who prefer to watch a quick video to understand what’s going on.
Give them an escape route by adding a short two-minute video to explain the benefits. Explain what the experience is all about, what you’ll achieve by joining, and what time investment is needed.
Also, add a video on the thank you page to congratulate them on their decision.
22. Involve mystery
The best webinars have a promise to reveal something of great importance to the audience. Just like the best soap operas are the ones that seem to prolong their mysteries.
It’s not just about the promise to reveal, but also about how you prolong that sense of anticipation. Add a bit of mystery in your invitations, landing pages, and thank you pages.
Your webinar will become more attractive because of it. And people will want to join just to see how it all plays out.
The idea is to create anticipation and a sense of urgency so that people join your webinar.
23. Benefit driven title
Can you communicate the #1 benefit of listening to the webinar directly on the webinar name?
If not, then you have some work to do on your webinar title. The benefit should be in the title so that when people see it, they can immediately understand what’s in it for them.
The benefit could be in the form of a number, as we often do. For example, “5 Ways to Drive Traffic That Converts into Sales” or “44 Webinar Tactics Worth $23+ Million In Sales”.
It helps if the name starts with a power verb like discover, unleash, experience, or explore.
Getting Them To Show Up
24. Offer pre-training materials
Often marketers leave the registrants stranded for days and ultimately, they forget about the webinar itself. That’s where pre-training comes in. Give them videos to watch, assignments to do, and engage with them. Give them results in advance.
And at the same time, throughout the sequence (which we call show-up sequence), remind them of the importance of showing up for the webinar.
We sometimes highlight the Maharishi effect—the effect of having thousands of people together focused on a common goal.
To further demonstrate value, you can also offer a PDF download full of testimonials and case studies. This gets them excited about the results they’ll get from the webinar.
25. Send reminders (email and text message)
Some people hate reminders. But as marketers, it’s our job to remind them of the training they have signed up for.
So yes, do reminders. But also offer some sort of value.
Do keep educating the customer. Drop hints about what’s going to be revealed in the webinar.
And the most important one you can send is the “It’s happening now” reminder. Often marketers send all kinds of hourly reminders but fail to send the “It’s happening now” message, thinking that they have had enough reminders already.
Big mistake.
The “It’s happening now” message is very powerful. Think about this. If you’re checking your email and you see that the webinar you wanted to watch is happening now, would you not be at least curious enough to tune in and see what’s going on? I bet the majority will.
Do it. It never hurts.
26. Ask a power question
A power question is a soul-stirring hook that captures the essence of the problem situation that your audience is in. It should be open-ended and make them think.
The key is to find a problem that people are struggling with and that you can provide a solution to.
The best power questions are the ones that make people go, “How the hell did he know that?”.
Power questions should make people think, “I need to know the answer to that”. It should also provoke them to share their experiences. This ultimately builds rapport and trust between you and your audience.
You may also need a community manager who oversees these engagements because it’s important to let the users know that every one of their stories matters.
This goes back to the golden rule of marketing. The #1 job of a marketing message is to get a response. Be it engagement, taking action to try something or even just commenting on a blog post.
Make every message so compelling that they feel compelled to respond. Power question is one of those tools that get a HUGE response every time.
27. Retarget every step of the way
If you’re not using Facebook and Google retargeting, you’re probably missing out.
Every piece of the show-up sequence—the content videos, the blog posts, the power question emails—all can be retargeted to the audience depending on the pages they have visited.
Facebook (and I’m sure Google too) allows you to do that.
After they’ve registered, retarget them with pre-training content
- For those who’ve visited the pre-training content 1 page, retarget them with pre-training content
- Or even retarget with the power question and let them post a comment on Facebook.
It’s a fun way to keep them reminded of the webinar they’ve signed up for.
28. Showcase the host
Remember The Oprah Winfrey Show?
Why do people keep watching the show and keep buying products featured in it? Because they love the host. Same if you want people to keep attending your webinars, you’ve got to let the audience connect and communicate with the host.
The more personal the connection is, the more likely they’ll remember you and want to keep attending your webinars. Let your audience know your host, what they do, and why they’re the expert in the field.
Also, make sure to have a professional headshot of the host so they can be easily recognizable.
When possible, share their social media links as well so people can connect with them on a personal level.
Webinars are all about building relationships. Showcase the host and let the audience get to know them on a personal level. It’ll make all the difference.
29. Build A Community Around It
One way to massively engage with the audience is to ALLOW them to communicate with each other. Because when the audience feels connected they feel like they’re not just a person with a problem. Rather, they feel as if they’re part of a bigger movement.
And for that, we need a platform like Facebook.You can even create a fresh new Facebook group for each webinar. Let the users join where they can get special updates and extra resources.
30. Create a “ladder of awareness” invite sequence
Basically, there are 4 stages of awareness that users go through when they hear about your webinar. And when sending emails to ask for registration, you can send emails that correspond to these 4 stages.
Keeping these 4 stages in mind helps you write emails and create ads faster because it’s a ladder where you reveal more and more of the things about the webinar.
Stage 1: What is it?
There are people who’ll sign up for whatever you offer. This first email is for them. Don’t try too hard. In fact, they are offended if you use clever tactics. Just tell them what it is and they’ll sign up immediately.
Stage 2: What’s in it for me?
These are the people who didn’t sign up for the first email. So explain to them all the benefits. What are you going to get out of this webinar? Explain the benefits in detail.
Stage 3: Why is this different?
This is for the people who didn’t sign up from the first two emails. Chances are they didn’t sign up because they don’t believe that they’ll get the benefits you promised.
So what you do is explain your breakthrough new mechanism that actually makes it hard for them to not enjoy the benefits.
A little bit of hype helps. But not too much. Back up the claims with testimonials.
Stage 4: I don’t know
The people who haven’t signed up yet fall into two groups. 1) They don’t want the solution you’re offering. Fine, we can leave this group alone. 2) This is still a doubtful group.
They are saying “I don’t know, I’m confused, should I register?”
Normally, what works for this second group is scarcity.
“Last chance to register” works. So does “24 hours before registration closes forever” and so many similar scarcity-based messages.
Whenever you use this ladder-of-awareness messaging, you’ll see better results than just repeating the same message over and over again.
Experience Phase
31. Take an audience-first approach
All webinars are created equally in the sense that they are primarily for offering value.
The more value you give to the viewers, the more impact you’ll make and the more they’ll be willing to exchange their hard-earned bills. But one of the crucial aspects of teaching anything is to remind them of what they’ve learned.
Three things you can do throughout the webinar. 1) Break down the learning into concrete steps, 2) as you go through the steps, remind them of what you’ve already covered, and 3) always tell them what’s coming next. In other words, keep teaching and reminding them.
And tell stories. Powerful authentic life experiences can teach much more easily than just lectures. Offer them your heart. Paint a picture of your “darkest night of the soul.” It’s engaging. And they will not only remember the stories, but also the lessons inside the stories will be deeply imprinted in their DNA.
32. Pepper case studies throughout the class
I used the word pepper here deliberately. You know what too much pepper can do to your dish, don’t you? Don’t make the webinar look like a cheap infomercial where it’s all testimonial after testimonial. Use them carefully.
Choose detailed case studies and illustrate them in the form of stories. Refer to these case studies throughout the webinar. To make it easier for you, collect all testimonials and categorize them into different use cases.
For example, during the webinar, when you say the guest teacher has helped 100,000 people, back it up with ONE or TWO relevant testimonials saying “Her work is phenomenally inspiring. It has the potential to awaken millions from their misery.”
Or when you say her work delivers fast results, back it up with ONE or TWO testimonials that say they got results in just X number of days.
Or when you say how awesome your customer support and refund processes are, back it up with, again, ONE or TWO testimonials that say “I can’t believe there are companies like this. I’ve never seen such easy, honest, and happy people before.”
You get the idea.
Testimonials should be the first thing your prospects hear right at the beginning of the webinar, throughout the webinar and right till the end before you hang up the call. And do it artfully so it’ll look like you’re telling stories.
Flash them on-screen—let people read the full testimonial while you’re mentioning them.
33. Give it a format
This applies only for repeat webinars in the form of a weekly or bi-weekly show. Because format defines the staying power. If it’s a 60-min webinar with solid training for 40-mins, a gentle pitch for 10 minutes, and a Q&A for the rest of the 10, then stick to the format.
The format means every time they attend the webinar, the attendees can come with a certain expectation. It’s consistent. If people are not loving the format, change it. But in the long run, stick to it. Because your audience is expecting it.
It’s like how we receive bank statements. We’re expecting it to be in the format we already know. Right? It’s similar to the concept of a hero’s journey—every story has one.
34. Drive replay consumption
Timed replays work really well—give a 48-hour window for them to watch the replay. Or create a fixed schedule for replay (even one where the prospect can choose their own time.) And remind them about the expiring link.
Remember, the goal of every piece of marketing material is to create engagement.
You’ve put out a webinar, so immediately after the webinar, for the next 48 hours or so, remind them to watch the replay. Just getting more people to watch the webinar will boost your Value Per Lead (VPL).
Use retargeting Ads as well as emails.
35. Give them a reason to stay till the end
No, don’t keep the best for last. That’s a recipe for massive drop-offs. Offer the best piece upfront and they’ll look forward to more.
HOWEVER… you should have an interesting piece of information you’ll be revealing towards the end. And then constantly remind them throughout the webinar about that piece you’ll be revealing later.
It can be a product giveaway. Let’s say you’re giving out a free gift for participants and you’ll tell them how to get it only at the end. Or it can be a fun little tip or trick to solve one of their main pain points.
36. Ask for feedback immediately after
This is called digging for gold. After the webinar is done, immediately, often within minutes, ask them about their experience. You’ll get tons of feedback.
You can use them in 2 ways.
1) Use them to improve your future webinars.
2) Use them to drive replay consumption (show them what other participants are saying).
37. Have a mix of slides and face-to-face teaching
Whether you have face-to-face teaching or audio-only teaching, slides are important. For some reason, people love to read what they are hearing. So make sure the key points are conveyed visually using elegant slides.
You don’t have to go all fancy. A simple white keynote slide with black text on them will do.
Sales Phase
38. Include a “Don’t buy now” message
Did I go nuts? No.
It’s actually a very powerful tactic. Remember the pre-training materials I mentioned earlier? Somewhere in that content, showcase your actual product. Leave a link to the live product page with the normal price.
But caution them to not buy it, saying a great discount will be offered in the webinar.
What do you think it’ll do? It sets an anchor for the price point. It’s like an advanced Popeil price-drop (a Popeil drop is when you do price anchoring. Like when you say “it’s usually $500, but today it’s not $400, or $200. Not even $100. It’s just $29.)
We usually include the product page link in the case-study/testimonials PDF that we give as pre-training material.
People will check out the product page. And it anchors the price in their mind. When they attend the webinar and see the discounted price, now it looks like a real bargain.
39. Display the “order button” at the right time
If the order button is visible when the prospect first arrives, your webinar will look like a Video Sales Letter.
Whether you have a full sales page that drops down or just an order button, it must be timed to the segment of the webinar when you introduce the product.
I like to read sales pages. Especially when I know I’m going to buy that product. A sales page gives the attendees the confidence they need to buy.
There are many webinar platforms offering this technology.
40. Send out the product page link
This, like the “it’s happening now” email is crucial. And it should also be timed to the segment after you close the sale. Most people check their emails and Facebook updates while listening to the webinar.
So why not take the sales pitch to them? Send a very brief email with a link to the product and post it to the Facebook group as well.
41. Sell hard
Many marketers assume that once the webinar is over, people forget about your pitch and your teachings. So they put all their effort into selling them during the webinar. While one must sell hard during the webinar, it’s not the only place you can do that.
You can sell to them for up to a week after the webinar.
What we do is broadcast the webinar on Tuesday and for the next 7 days, we’ll send them sales emails.
And we try to hit as many psychological triggers as possible—mainly:
- Social proof (here’s what other people say how awesome this product is)
- Commitment, and consistency (you need a solution, that’s why you attended the webinar. why not take action)
- And the big one, scarcity
Plus, the email sales sequence is timed to close on Monday (because as I mentioned before, people are back from their weekend shopping and they’re still in shopping mode).
And you know when the bulk of the sales come in? During the last 24 hours.
Yes, on Monday.
42. Use profit maximizers
You have a core offer.
So when people buy, offer them expensive upsells that’ll help them solve problems even better. Like if you’re offering a course for $495, give the takers an opportunity for live coaching through a $5,000 package.
And then for those who didn’t take the core offer at $495, give them an opportunity to buy a smaller product at say $97.
One of the easiest upsells/downsells (and you can offer multiple upsells/downsells) is a low-risk subscription offer. Maybe a free trial. It has a high customer lifetime value and with the free trial, it’s extremely low-risk.
Closing Phase
43. Close cart, re-engage and thank the registrants
Always thank the registrants. One of the last emails in our sale sequence is a thank you email thanking each registrant for taking the time to join us in the event. And give them a final piece of content for staying in the community.
44. Remind them to join your next webinar
In addition to thanking them, you can also remind them of upcoming webinars. Don’t forget to reinstate your mission.
Whatever your mission is, that’s the binding force that keeps you connected with your audience. Or if you know what your next webinar is about, tease them about it.
Those Webinar Generated More Than $23+ Million In Sales
44 webinar tactics that are worth their weight in gold. But remember, a tactic is only as good as its execution. So make sure you put in the work and execute these tactics flawlessly. And I promise you, you’ll see a significant difference in your webinars.