How A Virtual Assistant Can Make Your Webinar a Success
Have you ever given a webinar?
For some small business owners, the idea of presenting a webinar is almost crazy. It’s simply not in their frame of reference as far as marketing strategies go. But I’m here to tell you that webinars are one of the most effective marketing techniques for positioning yourself as an expert online!
The trick is that webinars are a ton of work, especially if you’ve never created one before. If that’s the case, a virtual assistant can be worth their weight in gold, especially if they have experience working on a ton of webinars in the past!
Chose a Winning Topic
Every journey starts with a single step, so you better make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward!
Coming up with your webinar topic is going to impact every part that comes after it. If you don’t have a great idea, then attracting people to take the webinar, let alone upselling them on your products and services, will be much more difficult.
Thankfully, you don’t need to come up with your topic by yourself. Maybe you have a vague idea of what you want, but you’re having trouble putting it into words. If that’s the case, you could likely use some help figuring out what, exactly, your customers want from a webinar.
I’ve helped dozens and dozens of successful small business owners come up with winning webinar topics that not only established them as experts in their field, but also grow their business! And, as superficial as it sounds, one of the most critical parts of this is to come up with a fantastic title. For example, if you were to create a webinar called “Starting a Small Business,” customers might say, “Boring!” But if you name it something like, “It’s Time for Your Small Business to ROAR?” Now THAT is going to get their attention!
Package It As a Product
Speaking about getting attention, if you’re going to be creating a webinar, you need to look at it through the lens of a new product. Even if you’re giving it away for free, it should still have all of the trappings of your paid offerings, including a detailed description, graphics, marketing plan, and much more.
If you were to release a webinar with no production value in the presentation, that could reflect poorly on all of your other products. Prospective customers will assume that your webinar is an accurate representation of what you offer your paying clients. Therefore, you need to package your webinar in a professional and “slick” way, then “launch” it like you would any other paid product!
Writing A Script
You know, some people can wing a webinar off the top of their head. I… am NOT one of those people.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. When I am presenting a webinar or doing a podcast, I want to make sure that I get in all my points. I don’t want to miss a key piece of information accidentally. That’s why, whenever I do something like this, I make sure that I have a script in front of me.
Now, there are many different kinds of scripts. You might only require a detailed breakdown of your presentation with all of your talking points. Others might require everything to down on paper, word-for-word. Either way, that’s a TON of work. And what’s more, writing a script is way different than writing something like a blog post. With a blog post, yes, it needs to have personality, but no one is saying it out loud. When you’re writing a script, it needs to sound natural when spoken. And for that, you might need a pro writing it for you.
Design a Slide Deck
A slide deck has two components. The first is the text part. Every slide should be packed with information, laid out in a clear and accessible manner. It shouldn’t be as detailed as your script, but the most important points should be there.
Next is the visual component. If your customers think that you created your slides in Microsoft Paint in about 20 minutes, that’s going to hurt your presentation. When building a slide deck, you need a graphic designer who works closely with a copywriter to create however many slides you need for your webinar’s duration. If you have a virtual assistant, like myself, who specializes in both of these areas, that’s even better!
Marketing the Webinar
With all of the work you’re putting into your webinar, the last thing you want is to be talking to an empty “room.” To prevent this, we need to market your webinar with the same zeal as one of your paid products. And by far, the most cost-effective way is through digital marketing.
Facebook Ads are a fantastic way to get the word out about your webinar to your followers and those who would most benefit from hearing your content. You will need some top ad copy and some eye-catching graphics for them to work, but trust me, Facebook Ads can work magic when it comes to webinar signups.
Email marketing is another necessary branch of your webinar marketing strategy. If you’ve built up a substantial email list (and you absolutely should be working on that), then you already have the contact info of those who are most likely to want to sign up for your webinar. By sending out a dedicated email blast, you can instantly get in contact with loyal customers who would love to spend an hour or so with you in a webinar!
You could also work mention of your webinar into your usual email marketing strategies, such as a weekly newsletter. You don’t want to spam anyone, but at the same time, be sure to mention it wherever you can to maximize the chances that you’ll get signups!
Webinar Presentation Training
If you have limited experience hosting webinars (or any other kind of presentation), then you might feel in over your head when it comes to getting on mic and webcam. Hosting a webinar can be tricky, even if you have a ton of experience. If your content is top-notch, you still might be worried that your presentation will be lacking.
If that’s the case, there is an easy solution: practicing with someone who knows the ins and outs of webinar hosting. In other words, an experienced virtual assistant. If you want to get some webinar presentation training, I would be happy to help out! We can schedule a coaching session where you do the entire webinar JUST for me. Afterward, I can break down what I thought and give you some places to improve. In other words, some constructive criticism!
Live Technical Support
Calling tech support is the worst. Not only do you need to sit at your desk on hold listening to scratchy elevator music for upwards of a half-hour or more, but even when you DO get on with someone, the person usually can’t see the problem for themselves. It’s the blind leading the blind.
Obviously, you can’t call tech support while you’re presenting a webinar. That’s why having a virtual assistant working behind the scenes during your webinar is an essential part of everything going smoothly. If you have someone experienced with handling technical snafus on the fly, then there is a good chance that you and those watching your webinar might not even realize that anything went wrong. When it comes to tech support, doing it live is the way to go!
Funneling Prospects
While your webinar’s focus should be to share valuable content with your customer, that isn’t the only goal. You want to be upselling those who are attending to get one of your paid offerings. This strategy requires you to gently funnel them from your webinar to another “location.” That could be to a dedicated landing page, your web store, or specific product pages on your website.
The first part of this is simple: you need to mention your products throughout your webinar in an organic way. Don’t just stop in the middle and give them a sales pitch. Instead, use your talking points to integrate the funnel into the webinar itself. For example, let’s say that you’re talking about the importance of digital marketing. While giving examples of your prior successes, slip in mentioning one of your products focused on the same topic. Think of this as planting the seed that will start to grow by the end of the webinar.
Then, at the very end of the webinar, you can begin to get a little more forward about funneling potential prospects. By name, pick one of your paid products and market it as a continuation of what you talked about in the webinar. If you engage your audience on a deep level, they will want to continue learning from you. And, therefore, buy your other products! So, be sure to have links at the end of the webinar that will direct them to your web store or dedicated landing pages!
Reuse the Content
The wonderful thing about doing a well-produced webinar is that now you have an evergreen freebie or product that you can use to entice customers into your product offerings!
If you avoid specific mentions of dates or current events, a recording of your webinar could be paying dividends for years after you present it. You could have it on your homepage to entice people to sign up for your email list. Or you could even send it for free to clients in nurturing sequences. Webinars are the content that keeps giving, so far as marketing is concerned!
What If They Don’t Bite?
Not every person who takes your webinar will instantly become a new customer. For some, the webinar might just be the foot in the door. To invite them in, you’re going to need to do a little more work!
This strategy can require you to engage them in an email nurture sequence. Without being “salesy,” you can provide offerings that they will be interested in, both paid and free. Do you have another webinar? If so, maybe send them a link to it. Do you think they need some more proof that you’re an expert? Maybe send them some third-party testimonials. And sending valuable content for free is always a great way to nurture a new lead!
So, What Did We Learn?
Let’s review what we learned:
- The key to a winning webinar is a great topic/title.
- Treat a free webinar the same as you would any of your paid products.
- If you aren’t comfortable with winging it, then you will need a script for your webinar.
- The visuals are just as important as the words, so professional graphic design for your slide deck is a must.
- Marketing your webinar is necessary to get a great turnout. Facebook Ads and Email Marketing are excellent methods.
- Practice makes perfect. Go through your webinar with a VA as a sounding board.
- If something goes wrong in your webinar, having a VA running live tech support can save it.
- The point of your webinar should be to funnel potential customers to your paid offerings.
- Webinars make for fantastic evergreen content.
- If your webinar attendees don’t bite, they might not be ready yet. Create an email nurture sequence to bring them in.
If you’re still shaking your head, thinking that creating a webinar sounds like way too much work, I have a few things that might help. The first is my free Ultimate Webinar Launch Planner: Workbook. In it, I go through every part of creating a webinar in detail so you can see exactly what goes into one. And if you think that partnering with a virtual assistant for your webinar is the way to go, you might want to check out my free Ultimate Step-by-Step Webinar Checklist for Your Virtual Assistant. In it, I expand on many of the things I spoke about. Providing a literal framework so you and your VA can effectively partner to create an exceptional webinar!
So, if I’ve sold you on the idea of creating a webinar for your small business, I invite you to book a FREE consultation with me today. Let’s take the first small steps towards creating a presentation that could entirely change the way you market your business online!
Links For This Episode:
- The Ultimate Step-by-Step Webinar Checklist for Your Virtual Assistant
- The Ultimate Webinar Launch Planner: Workbook
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