Webinars are proving to be a massively powerful marketing tool – provided you avoid these rookie mistakes. Webinars provide a platform that allows businesses of any size to grow their client base. With their incredibly low cost base they are ultra effective for small businesses to reach their market cheaply and compete with the “big boys” who have significantly larger marketing budgets and better name recognition.
However, for the inexperienced, there are seven rookie mistakes that need to be avoided to maximise the investment of time a successful webinar requires.
Mistake 1: Unclear benefits on the registration page
The webinar registration page is a crucial component of the webinar. It will communicate to the person landing there is the content of the webinar is worth the investment of their time to register and attend. To that end the registration page for a webinar is no different to a flyer or any other marketing material. It must have a headline or title that gets the attention of the reader, and this must then be followed up with clear benefit statements that speak to the reader’s pain points.
A well-crafted registration page triggers a commitment from the reader by engaging them to register. If the registration page doesn’t talk to the readers wants and needs they will move away from the page without providing any contact details to you.
Mistake 2: Wanting too much information for attendees to register
It is not uncommon to see webinar registration pages that require four, five, or sometimes six pieces of information before a reader can register for the webinar. By the time a reader has populated First Name, Last Name, Phone Number, City, Country, Email, etc… they have forgotten why they wanted to register for the webinar in the first place – so they abandon registering.
The appeal to capture as much information is understandable – but for every piece of information you request people to enter you will lose prospective attendees as they abandon registrations. You need to understand where the webinar fits in your marketing funnel to determine what information you need to capture. And, the emphasis should always be to capture as few pieces of information as possible.
Mistake 3: Lack of on-boarding
When someone registers for your webinar there is no guarantee they will actually attend!
Once a person registers for the webinar you need to keep in contact with them via email. This keeps the prospective client warm and massively increases the likelihood that they will turn up and watch the webinar. Without consistent contact attendance rates can be as low as 20% of registrants… Imagine how disappointed you will be, after working really hard to get prospective clients to your registration page and registered for the webinar, preparing a great webinar full of content –with a great sales pitch only for just 1/5th of them to turn up!
You can massively increase your attendance rates by keeping in contact with those who have registered to attend. Ideally you should reach out to attendees 3-4 times in the lead up to the webinar. In each email you should be reminding the reader the benefits they receive when they attend the webinar.
Mistake 4: No incentive to share the webinar
It is time consuming and potentially costly to promote a webinar to new markets. How powerful would it be if you could get your webinar to go viral? Well viral might be a little strong, but it is entirely reasonable to reach prospective attendees without investing any extra money. How? By incentivising those that register for the webinar to share news via Facebook or Twitter, or any social media that they have just registered for your webinar event.
On the page you setup to thank them for registering you can simply ask them to share news with their community on social media. Or, you can provide a compelling incentive that they can access when they do post on Facebook, twitter, etc… The incentive can be an eBook, a video tutorial, or anything that your target market will place value in. By providing them a gift for sharing you will see a greater “sharing” of your webinar and new registrants you might not otherwise have reached.
Mistake 5: Not following trusted model for selling
There is a proven and trusted model for creating a webinar presentation that sells. The model has 6 steps. The model begins with how you open the webinar through building rapport via your story and delivering great content. This provides the solid foundation you need to build that will enable you to seamlessly transition into your sales pitch without resistance from those watching. A well executed webinar will sell not only during the sales pitch but also during the Q&A session – if it is conducted properly.
The 6 Step model can be downloaded here
Mistake 6: Too much content on your slides
A webinar is a form of public speaking. However it does differ from the traditional forms of public speaking. In the conventional public speaking event the speaker is able to, and should draw attention to their delivery and away from a PowerPoint presentation. As a result the PowerPoint slides can be reffered to once every couple of minutes. However in a webinar the PowerPoint slides play a more prominent role. Even with modern webinars that incorporate more of the speaker “on camera” there is still a heavy reliance on the PowerPoint slides.
Our attention spans are as short as they have ever been. Presenting us a challenge on webinars with regards to the composition of our slides. It used to be plausible to spend a few minutes on a single slide which had several bullet points to talk about. With webinars today we need to lift the pace. As a result a sixty minute webinar needs at least sixty slides, possibly as many as eighty. The images presented on screen need to be fast moving and not allowed to dwell too long on screen.
Mistake 7: Weak transition from content to sales
A killer mistake made by rookie webinar presenters is to deliver valuable and useful content in an authoritative and confident manner – only to become apologetic when moving to the sales aspect where they deliver a solution to the attendees problem.
This is a mindset issue. After fourty five minutes of valuable content where you have demonstrated expertise and skill in your topic or niche attendees still on the webinar are looking for a solution. Your product or service is the solution to their problem. Don’t hesitate – deliver with authority and belief that you can solve the problems and challenges they are facing.
Mistake 8: Weak Follow Up (Q&A)
The Q&A session in a live webinar provides a unique opportunity to get any remaining fence sitters off the fence is handled correctly. By this point in the webinar you have delivered your sales pitch and you received your first sales. Inevitably there will be some attendees who are hesitant – however they remain on the webinar…. They are interested. The Q&A session provides an opportunity to address their questions and congratulate those that have purchased – providing social proof. This will help some of those on the fence to become buyers.
Webinars provide a unique opportunity to reach new markets with minimal effort and expense. Allowing small businesses the opportunity to compete against larger competitors in an uneven manner. Suddenly the balance of power resides with the entrepreneur, coach, and consultant who is able to connect with his or her market. Webinars provide that opportunity. And, when the mistakes described are avoided the potential to enjoy massive success can be realised.
