Webinars have been a major marketing tool for the last decade. In order for somebody on your database to qualify as a lead, they need to take certain actions that determine that they’re interested in you and what you do. Without that, they’re just one more person on your database of people who just aren’t worth the time to call and try to sell to. It takes a long time to turn somebody brand new to your database into a qualified lead.
A popular method of determining whether somebody is a lead or not is if they attend your event — a seminar, a networking event, etc. The fact that they took time out of their day to attend is a clear sign that they’re interested in you, and thus that they’re a lead.
While events are still a great way of doing this, other ways of achieving this have come about in recent years, thanks to the internet and other technology advances.
Webinars have become a great way of separating those who aren't interested in you from those that are, as webinars require a degree of commitment to attend and watch.
In the meantime, we’ll be focusing on webinars today. But before we’ll get started, for those of you who aren't entirely sure about what webinars are, here’s a quick description.
Webinars are presentations that are given to one or more people, much like at seminars or training — but are not actually in person. They run entirely on the internet, and the host can be sitting at their home or office running it, while people all over the world can tune in and watch.
This may sound like just watching a video, but they’re much more than that. Webinars are designed specifically for interaction. Viewers can ask questions to the host and interact with their fellow viewers. They can answer polls, click links, and in many cases make a purchase or commitment for a product that is being promoted.
Webinars can have many formats, but the typical format used the most because it is the most successful is:
Anybody can run a webinar, and there are many different software providers out there — some of the top-performing ones are GoTo Webinar, WebinarJam, and Click Funnels (which does so much more than just webinars). My personal favorite is GoTo, as it’s reliable and cost-effective.
Once you have webinar software, you only need something like Microsoft Powerpoint (or for you Apple users out there, Keynote) to build and then play through the presentations like you would normally in person.
Without further ado, let’s dive in deeper to both Live and Pre-Recorded webinars, starting with Live.
Live webinars are exactly that — they happen live and are instantly transmitted to the audience. They require a host to always be there to start, run and close the webinar.
Pre-recorded webinars are… well, pre-recorded! That means that they were originally recorded live, and then saved like any other video. BUT, they’re more special than a mere video on YouTube. Pre-records allow all of the functionality of a live webinar, such as interaction, polls, etc.
There is no absolute winner — both live and pre-records have their place.
Use live webinars for practicing presenting and selling, as well as for avoiding anything specific you can’t use for pre-records.
Then once you have a perfect recording, you can start using pre-records. BUT, only for a short while. You need to ensure your webinars are constantly getting optimized and have relevant up to date info on them. Otherwise, they’re of no use to your viewers taking their free time out to watch!
By combining the two, you can really create a powerful lead creation system. Having analyzed many well-known businesses and their webinars hosted by their founders, I believe the perfect system is this:
Again, this is just a rough system that I’ve seen many successful businesses do in both the UK and US, including one of my clients, and I think it works well. I am not really able to speak from personal experience as I have yet to enter the webinar arena just yet!
Many businesses generate 99% of their leads from just webinars, so if you’re not even running one webinar a month, I suggest you get started as soon as possible!
They’re an amazing way of generating consistent, high-quality leads — and even if you don’t believe me, just look at what everybody else is doing. They wouldn’t be running webinars so often if they didn’t work for them. And they can, and will, work for you if you go and give them a try!
Dan
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Dan
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