How To Host A Webinar That Sells

WHAT IS A WEBINAR MARKETING?

Webinars are an online presentation technology that online marketers use to educate potential customers.  Think of webinars as an online workshop or educational seminar.

Webinars are an inbound marketing tactic. Webinars are a great tactic if your marketing goal is to launch a new product, go after customers in a new industry or segment and to cross-sell additional products or services to existing customers.

Many coaches, consultants, information marketers, and online platforms use webinars to educate and sell their products and services. And this is where the confusion sets in. What is the best way to use webinars to generate leads that lead to sales?  This article will give you a few guidelines and resources that you can use as you explore whether or not you should use webinars as a marketing tactic.

THE ROLE OF PERSUASION IN LEAD GENERATING WEBINAR

If you’ve attended a webinar given by a consultant or marketing expert, you may have noticed that they follow a relatively structured outline which is designed to persuade.

I want to start by giving you a refresh on this whole persuasion thing. Persuasion is NOT something you can do to another person – it’s an action that person takes in response to something they’re exposed to (by you). You can’t control that action – all you can control is the stimulus you expose your people to.

It’s not about convincing someone to do something they don’t want to do with some brain control gadget or magic spell, that would be icky. It’s about showing the right people the right thing at the right time. Not so mysterious when you look at it like that, is it?

The power is in helping people feel excited about their decisions, rather than forced or manipulated. You want them to feel like they’ve made the right decision and that they’ve made it for themselves.

Today we’re talking about how to bring that very same persuasive power into your webinar pitches. Over the past two years I’ve sold more than a million dollars of online courses – all through webinars. It can be done, but only if you go in with the right approach. Let’s start!

HOW TO USE WEBINARS TO SELL PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Webinar marketing can be a powerful sales and marketing tactic if you know how to do it.  Webinar marketing is ideal if your audience is national or international and your product or service is

1. DO NOT TURN YOUR WEBINAR INTO A PITCH-FEST.

So many people disagree with me on this one – they try telling me I know nothing about business. Well… I don’t want to know anything about the kind of business that manipulates people into signing up, pretends it’s going to be action-packed then wastes their time with an hour-long sales pitch.

Providing 5 minutes of valuable content before asking people to shell out thousands of dollars… that’s not how I want to do business. And it’s not the kind of business I would ever want to buy from.

Instead —

2. DO NOT JUST CALL YOUR WEBINAR A “MASTERCLASS” AND BE DONE.

Christening your webinar as a masterclass is not enough. A new name does not make something valuable. If you’re wasting their time you’re wasting their time.

Remember the problem with 98% of your webinars:

• They’re too pitchy.

Yes, I always kick off my launches with a webinar (in fact, I refer to them as “launch triggers”) but that is not the only time I do webinars.

I do webinars before my launch trigger. I do webinars after my launch trigger. I do not do webinars solely to sell my highest priced offers.

• They’re weirdly unpitchy.

A lot of people either wait until the last 15-20 minutes to pitch their offer or get it over and done with in the first 15-20 minutes – like your pitch is “one and done” or something. It’s not. Your pitch has to be embedded in whatever you’re doing – don’t try to hide that you’re selling something. You can’t just surprise them with a pitch and expect them to buy. We’re all too jaded for that.

My biggest tip is to start priming people for the pitch from the landing page. Prime them over email. Prime them on the landing page. Prime them in the ad. Warm them up. Tease them about it.

Get them excited about the learning and about the offer. If you keep hiding the pitch, if you keep camouflaging the pitch, people are not only going to respect you less, but they will also be completely turned off when you actually make that pitch.

Here are four of my very favourite ways to craft haunting webinar pitches with this very strategy:

3. TELL THE TRUTH UP FRONT.

Tell them why you’re running this free training. Something like:

“As you know, I’m doing this series of webinars.”

“As you know, I’m doing this webinar as part of my launch for this particular thing.”

“As you know, I’m doing these webinars as part of my launch for thing X, Y, Z, towards the end of this session, I’m going to make you an offer that you will find extremely valuable.”

If people want to leave because of this – let them leave. They’re not going to buy your thing anyway.

That does not mean that the rest of the webinar is a crock of bullshit, and that you’re going to be spending forty minutes talking about how great you are, or just showing off tons and tons of testimonials.

You need to respect their time; be honoured that they showed up today. Life is hectic and Netflix calls, so you need to promise that the webinar alone will be worth their time.

Make it clear that if they stay until the end, and see what you have on offer, it will be worth their time and energy.

It’s very non-icky, it’s very easy, it’s very straightforward, and it primes people for two things:

• to expect great, valuable content from you
• to expect a great offer from you

*Remember when I said you pitch should come through in everything you do?

4. GIVE THEM THE “WHAT” AND SELL THEM THE “HOW”

As an example, the webinar topic could be “The 5 interview questions that you need to master if you want to land your dream job.”

It’s a ‘what.’ You’re giving them the five interview questions. The pitch will be how to land a dream job by mastering the interview technique, including the best ways to answer those five particular questions.

You’ve already given them the five questions. You’ve talked about what those five questions are, you’ve backed it up with data. The webinar is valuable for them because you gave them the five questions. Once you’ve given them those your pitch could be:

“Now, I’m going to share with you my great offer, and in that offer, I’m going to show you exactly the best ways how you should be answering those five questions, and how to master the interview technique.”

You give them the ‘what’ in the webinar. You sell them the ‘how’ in the pitch.

5. GIVE THEM THE “WHAT” AND A LITTLE BIT OF THE “HOW”

This is the one where you give them the full process and you sell them the speed and ease.

As an example, the topic of the webinar could be The full strategy and how-to of getting your dream job.

Now, if your program is six modules, you don’t have to cover all six modules in the webinar, but you can talk briefly about the main strategies that you’re using.

Your pitch could then be:

“If you work one-on-one with me, I can get you to your dream job in three weeks.”

You are giving them the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ for free and then showing them how fast and easy it can be if they buy.

This is a beautiful way to do it, because you will earn a lot of goodwill. Even if people cannot afford to sign up for your offer, they’ll see that you’re giving away so much and they’ll bookmark you as someone to go on the wish list.

6.  SHARE PART OF THE PROCESS… THEN SELL THEM THE REST.

This method really really does wriggle inside people’s brains and push them towards that “buy now” button.

As an example, the topic of the webinar could be The first of 6 skills you need to master to become a highly-profitable business coach.

There are six skills and you’re sharing one.

Your pitch would then be selling all six skills they need to become a highly-profitable business coach, and how to develop those skills.

If you have a framework or a process that has more than one step, you can give them one of those, and then the rest you can sell them.

GO ROCK YOUR WEBINAR

Are you ready to fill your webinar pitches with powerful persuasion? These strategies take all of the guesswork out of your webinars. You don’t have to worry about how much to share for free. You don’t have to worry about where to put your pitch. You don’t have to worry about using a formula that doesn’t fit with your business or offer.

I’ve used each of these methods and I love them all but every business is different. Every audience is different. Every person’s fears are different. Choose the strategy that most resonates with you, the one that makes you feel most excited about your next webinar. That’s the one for you.