Companies in almost every industry have used webinars to increase sales and educate customers. In B2B industries, Webinars are ranked #2 as the best-performing content format, right behind in-person events. However, many company owners struggle with getting consistent leads generated from webinars. How could this be when this format of content sharing is so popular?
Jason Fladlien, co-founder of Rapid Crush, and Adi Klevit of Business Success Consulting Group discussed the challenges many business owners and salespeople face when providing webinars to potential customers and generating leads. During their discussion, Jason shared his successful system for building webinars that convert.
Below is a summary you can use immediately to improve your webinar game. However, this was a long interview packed with knowledge and in-depth information. Make sure you listen to the entire interview as you create a webinar system that works well for your business.
The Purpose of a Webinar
There are three things a webinar can do:
1. Make a direct sale.
2. Move a sale forward.
3. Educate.
You can utilize a webinar to fulfill one or all three of these purposes. Even if you design your webinar as strictly educational, you should be ready for increased sales. This is because, as you make someone’s life better, they will want to interact more with you and refer your company to others.
However, when designing a webinar, you should identify what you want to accomplish. Be honest with yourself. If you want to increase leads, then make that the primary purpose. If you hope to educate your clients, label that the primary objective. And if you want to move potential clients down the sales funnel, note that your primary purpose.
Identifying the primary purpose of your webinar allows you to name the core group of customers or potential clients you’d like to invite, and it helps you when positioning and constructing the webinar itself.
Use this System for Building Successful Webinars
Jason summarized his successful webinar-building system during the podcast. Here is a brief overview to get you started:
1. Identify the primary purpose of your webinar.
The reasons for doing this are listed above.
2. Create a signup link that captures the information of all who reserve a seat at your webinar.
Ideally, the software you use will also inform you which of those who signed up also attended the webinar.
3. Advertise your webinar.
This is where you want to pick your ideal audience and connect with them. Here are the most common audience categories:
- Existing customers.
- People who have signed up to your email list, no matter where they are in your sales funnel.
- The email list of a partner business or collaborator.
- A warm list (such as people who are connected with you or your partner business on social media or whom you have met previously at a convention.)
- Cold ads that target your ideal customer base.
4. Create the webinar.
A sample outline for this step is provided in the section titled “Systemize your Webinar Outline.”
5. Follow up with attendees.
Work with attendees who have purchased your product - or continue doing so if this is an educational seminar for existing customers. All other attendees should be added to your sales funnel. There is more about this in the section below called “Webinar Follow-up Systems.”
Systemize your Webinar Outline
Building the content of a webinar is incredibly important, particularly if you've put a lot of work into promoting the webinar. With that in mind, here are the essential parts each webinar must have:
1. Introduction/hook (5-15 mins).
There are a few ways to create a book. Here are some that Jason shared in his discussion with Adi:
a. Create a pop quiz. Ask true or false questions that attendees can answer in the chat. The idea is to set up the questions to address potential customers' common objections. The final question sets up the webinar's focus.
b. Provide an exciting introduction. Include useful statistics, talk about your work with well-known or local companies, or utilize someone from a sister company to hype you up.
c. State something universally acknowledged that aligns with a common pain point. Then, find a way to contradict it.
d. Tell a personal story that will bring the topic home for attendees.
e. Tackle a pain point head-on and tease the solution.
The hook should not take long - anywhere from five to fifteen minutes. The purpose is to keep the attendees engaged and interested.
2. Content (45-60 mins)
Next is the content. You want to take a common pain point that your business addresses and then change the potential customer's point of view. Meaning, they come to your webinar thinking "There's no way __ can be solved," and the content provides the solution.
During the content portion, it's essential to bring up common questions that potential clients have asked and address them head-on. This makes the attendees feel acknowledged and builds your authority on the topic. Addressing the questions running through your attendee's heads tells them, "I see you, I know where you're coming from, and this solution is truly built just for you."
3. Transition (1-2 mins or less)
You want to transition from the content to the close of your webinar. Here is one of the successful transitions that Jason recommended:
Let's say you are transitioning to the end where you would like to close the attendees on buying your product/service. Use the "two choices transition." That is when you say, "We are left with two choices. I can let you go and hope you will apply what we've discussed today and that it'll be sufficient to help you with XYZ. But, what if there was a second choice? What if we could do this together, and I can participate in your successful outcome? With this choice, we can work collaboratively to build success in XYZ."
You can probably think of other "two choices" transitions that might apply to educational webinars, such as, "At this point of the webinar, I want to provide you with two choices. You can continue using our product as-is or commit to installing the upgrade and gain access to the fantastic new features we have been discussing."
4. Close (20 mins or so)
At the close of the webinar, you introduce the offer. No matter how good the offer, many attendees will leave at this point. Jason recommends providing a 3-4 minute high-level introduction to the product, including who it's intended for, why it's amazing, and what it solves. Then, share the investment offer. For example, "On average, this product increases sales for B2B companies by 85%. This gives it a value of $---. We are offering it at a 50% discount and giving it to you today at $---."
One trick that Jason shared is that at the close, he will provide the above pitch, and anyone who is going to say "no" will often hop off the call. At that point, he will offer more value with additional content, bonus products that are included when someone closes, and more information that has not yet been covered. Providing additional value at the end of the webinar can help take someone who is on the fence about closing from an "I don't know" to a "let's do it."
Webinar Follow-up Systems
Of course, you need to build follow-up systems to ensure all attendees are either added to your sales funnel or begin receiving the product/service they have purchased - along with any bonus content.
You should have a robust product/service delivery system in place to ensure attendees get what they paid for. Additionally, you must build a follow-up- system for anyone who left the webinar and those who did not manage to attend. These would fall into different buckets and get placed on different follow-up systems.
For those who did attend but did not close, here are a few follow-up processes that have been proven to be successful:
1. Have an offer that expires in the next few days and ensure your attendees know about it. Keep up the pressure during the offer period, so that last-minute purchasers can get in on the deal.
2. Send a copy of the webinar so they can rewatch it. This can also include slides of key information or a webinar summary.
3. Offer another webinar dedicated to answering their questions. This is something Jason does with those on the fence in his sales funnel. He gets several of them together and does a full Q and A, which includes answering common questions and getting specific with the attendee's questions. This provides them with additional value and gives them the opportunity to close.
Webinars are one of the primary ways that B2B companies acquire new information about a product or service. The best way to provide a stellar webinar during which attendees feel educated and your sales team reaches its goals is to offer the process-driven discussion laid out above.
Is your company flying by the seat of its pants? Do you need to build processes for more actions than just webinars? Get in touch with the process experts at Business Success Consulting Group today. We are here to help.
