Webinars give you the perfect medium to easily get in front of your target audience. You have the opportunity to connect with a large number of them, restricted only by the amount of people that can get on your line and the software you’re using. They’re also great for helping you build your expertise, as you’re putting yourself and your knowledge ‘out there’… so why do small business owners shy away from them?
It’s not just about the money
One of the main reasons business owners want to run webinars is their desire to make money from them. Often though, they end the webinar disappointed and disillusioned by their results. Why? Because they have their focus so firmly on making money, they miss the steps needed to actually make the webinar interesting to the attendees!
When you run a webinar your focus needs to be on:
- Providing valuable content, that attracts your target audience
- Over-delivering on that content
- Giving attendees something to relate to – tell stories and give examples
- Scheduling the live webinar at a suitable time or your target audience
- Maximising your sign-ups, as this will help ensure you have a good turnout on the webinar
Are you actually offering attendees anything?
Giving interesting and valuable content is a great starting point, but you’ll only make money from your webinars, if you actually offer the attendees something to buy!
You could offer a free strategy session, with a view to working one on one with them or you could create a product or service that relates to them and solves a problem they have. You can then look to make an offer on this, during the last section of the webinar, and making that offer available for a strict time period.
You’ll also want to encourage them to stay until the end, so they actually know what product or service you’re offering. You can easily do this, simply by explaining how you will be giving them a great opportunity or offer at the end of the webinar.
This will help build on the urgency to act AND, if you weave in details of your product during the rest of the webinar, a desire to purchase what you’re offering or to work with you. If you don’t have your own product to offer, look to become an affiliate for someone else and promote that product.
Where the money really is
When it comes to hosting webinars, if you’ve given out great content, you will get a small amount of attendees signing up for your end offer. However, most of the money really is in what happens AFTER the webinar.
You see, your money is actually in the list of sign-ups. This list is an invaluable tool to you, as it gives you access to those people who have already raised their hand and registered their interest. So make sure your email follow-up sequence includes the webinar recording, details of the offer you made during the webinar AND that you actually HAVE a follow-up email strategy in place – as most of your sales will come from these emails.
Make the most of your webinar content
Another way you can make money from your webinar is to actually break down and repurpose the content. Consider repurposing the content for:
- Blog posts
- A series of YouTube videos
- Separate webinar content on specific elements of it
- Transcribe and convert into an eBook
- Convert to MP3 format
You could also save the webinar recording and sell access to it or even create a paid-for product from it.
Making money from webinars can be achieved, if you stop focusing on the money and build on giving your attendees valuable content instead. This will free your mind up to create the perfect product and/or service for them – and lead to a bigger return on your time and energy.
How do you feel about webinars? Do you sell from them yourself – if so, what strategies do you use? Maybe you haven’t yet started hosting them yet, so what are your primary concerns? Why not share your thoughts in the comments box below!
Images © Login & Maksym Yemelyanov/Dollar Photo Club
