From Practical to Tactical Webinar Tips: Ring in the Sales

• Contest Factory
• July 7, 2020

Practical & Tactical Webinar Tips: How to bring the crowds in

Webinars are the new black in 2020. B2C and B2B are killing it alike with raving fan-like attendance. People are consuming content at incredible rates while sheltering in place.  There is something to be said about the mind needing distractions whether its learning or entertainment or a combination…which is what you want to aim for.

Producing a webinar is not the most difficult task, but it’s also not a simplistic task; there are many moving pieces to ensure you webinar goes smoothly.  We’ve listed both practical and tactical tips below:

1. Choosing your webinar platform may be the most daunting of them all. There are so many options and somehow Zoom has become a household name.  Microsoft teams, Webex (trusty old faithful), WebinarNinja, GotoWebinar, Jet Webinar, LiveStream, and a host of others we don’t need to bore you with.

There are important considerations for these platforms that you need to evaluate.  Will you need breakout rooms with facilitators?  Will you have bi-directional speaking or single direction from host to guests?  These all matter, but we’re going to presume if you are reading this that you are just starting out and will have a one-way communication and no breakout rooms.

Most of the platforms can support all of these options…it’s just figuring out how to use them, what plan level you want to pay for, and how intuitive they are to you.  You can check out complete ease of use rankings at G2 Crowd Source , the yelp of business software, where users like yourself review professional business software.

Pricing on these platforms are typically in the sub $100 range per month when you use their lowest paid subscription model. This level typically supports 100 webinar audience members with the ability to host as many webinars a month as you want.  You can even replay a webinar to a new audience.

2. Once you select your platform, you will want to build your presentation. You want to not only talk to your audience but it’s best as in all marketing to provide valuable content to your audience at no cost. This give works well to receive a get from your audience.

Make sure you keep your webinar to under an hour with your presentation.  Be sure to include visuals, surprise information, and humor always helps.  If you are looking for ideas on presentations, you may want to look at the thousands of presentations hosted on  SlideShare by LinkedIn.  This will get your creative juices flowing and get you off to a good start.

Be sure your branding is on key by utilizing a professional graphic designer. Colors and imagery are extremely powerful, so in absence of being in front of your client, use your tools wisely. Be sure to show examples of what you are sharing. The following tactics are recommended for your presentation to engage, entertain, and inform your audience.

Invite a guest speaker or panelist that is well known or offers a role of respect in the industry. The head of automotive design or scientist in your field will lend a lot of credibility to your presentation. This also makes the presentation a lot more engaging and conversational.

Infographics are extremely popular. You can share one in your presentation and ask for a raise of hands (virtual of course) to who would like to receive this infographic. Remember, getting buy in on small things is where it starts. This will be your 3^rd engagement in the webinar funnel.

Hold pop quiz contests in your webinar to keep people alert, break up the presentation and award a valuable and relevant prize. You may want to offer a 90-day free trial to your service or offer a tour of your facility with travel included. You may want to offer random rewards to keep folks on the line through the whole presentation.

Ask your audience questions that they can answer in the chat box. For example, how many folks out there are frustrated by the lack of ability to do (x) and of course your product or service solves this problem. Another form of buy in.

Shout out to the folks there – Hey Lisa, hey Mike, hey Michelle…great to see you all out there. Mind you, you only want to see their names and not camera…privacy issues still exist, so this will be a setting you set up beforehand.

Offer low prices, limited time offers that are 10X in value with a low buy in to get to the next level of your relationship. (e.g. When you buy within the next hour, you will get all of these benefits worth 10X what you charge)

At the close of your webinar thank your audience and invite them to the next level of engagement, a personal meeting. You may do this by offering a free consultation, 30 minutes free support, or offering straight up cash for the meeting….yes this works. Sharpspring was offering $200 in catered lunches to get 1 hour of your team’s time to share their platform.  While we don’t have success numbers on this, we did have lunch!

3. Inviting your audience to your webinar. This is a very key part to your webinar…who wants to present to an audience of 2? That’s more like a meeting than an event. So let’s fill those 100 seats as efficiently as possible.  Let’s start with your house file of existing customers and prospects in your CRM. If you don’t have a CRM, (we can talk later about that) then we’re referencing all the emails you may have on file or any customer information you have.

If you have 100s of business cards in a drawer, now would be the time to buy one of those card scanners or hire your niece to enter the data.  This data will be used a couple of ways; first you will design an email blast inviting your audience to your event.  Remember copywriting matters. Sell the benefit of the information, the offer to win while attending, and surprise ending that you must show up to see. Use colorful imagery with why this information is so important and how people of stature in your industry have contributed to this data and find your information valuable as well. Share valuable guest speaker information and most importantly share the when and the link to register. You may want to offer an incentive to the 1^st 25 people to register to instill a sense of urgency.

Now you blast off your invitation and wait for the replies to come in while you are simultaneously building your Facebook and LinkedIn ads. Here is another place you will want to upload everything you know about your customer. Once you do this, you can target lookalike audiences and start building your funnel of new prospects. Data in itself is valuable to continue email marketing with drip campaigns.  Again, you want to test your copy with a couple different ads as well as test your imagery with 2 more ads, and test your call to action with a couple more ads. You will start to see what is resonating with your audience and this will get easier with each new webinar ad campaign.

4. Getting your audience to attend is key! This is a large effort and why we encourage incentives and reminders. Be sure to turn on your webinar reminders inside the platform you choose. Typically, you can set it for 1 week, 1 day, and 1 hour before the webinar.  You may also want a countdown clock.  In this reminder, continue to sell why the prospect or client will benefit from attending. Reinforce your benefits and whys.
5. On the day of the webinar, you’ll probably have jitters and excitement just like a live event. Don’t worry, this is all natural with new technology and new ways of doing things.  People have come to appreciate authenticity and are very forgiving when you share your excitement and jitters as well as genuine insecurity over a new platform.  Most people are new to this, so they will have compassion for your plight and be more open to you.  Almost every webinar we have hosted gets accolades at the end with thank yous and great job, excellent information, can I get a call back, and even sales. Use this new experience to your advantage and you will be happy with how folks on the other end respond.

And while it may be uncomfortable, turn your camera on.  People want to know who you are and most of all today, they really want to connect. We are all human and looking to engage and learn. Seeing your face shows your enthusiasm and shows you are human just like them.  You can change your visual layout to make the camera image smaller while the larger image is of the presentation.  Though we do recommend starting and ending with you in full screen mode. This is another way of being genuine and not needing anything but you to welcome your very important guests that have carved out an hour of their day for you and saying thank you just the same at the end.

We wish you the best in producing your first webinar. You will learn that these are not only affordable lead gen tools, engagement tools, and funnel helpers, but fun too!  If you are looking to host a contest during your webinar, let us know, we have some great instant win games that you can send out in the chat box and enable X number of guests to win during each webinar.  You can email us at engage@contestfactory.com or give us a ring at 855-744-6966.

Happy Selling!