Many internet marketers shy away from using webinars as a sales tool – yet they have proven time and time again to be highly effective not only in attracting subscribers but also in converting them to customers or clients.
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Here are 10 reasons why you should seriously consider doing webinars – even if it seems like a scary concept:
1. A webinar has a high perceived value:
The typical webinar is roughly one hour long (sometimes shorter), with some additional time at the end for questions/answers and a sales pitch. In reality, quite a bit of the first hour is dedicated to telling people who you are an what you do (and “waiting for the last people to join”) – so, in fact, your actual “content period” is only about 45 minutes or so.
Despite the fact that the actual content is only about half of the webinar, people look at (a) the total amount of time that you “spend with them”, and (b) the fact that it is a live video presentation – and as such it has a much higher perceived value than say, a pre-recorded video or ebook offered in return for an optin.
2. It allows you to connect:
Being a live event, with interactions between the presenter and the audience, it allows you to connect with your audience. It also allows you to do so in larger numbers than you would otherwise be able to accommodate. For instance – you can connect with your subscribers one by one, and get feedback from them, but it would take ages to determine the general opinion about a specific issue or a product you want to create.
As such, it provides a great platform for finding out just who the people are that will buy your products, and what matters to them.
3. It raises the perception of your credibility:
If you are willing and able to offer so much value that you can do a webinar around it, it immediately changes people’s perceptions of you as an online entrepreneur. Most people think that webinars are only for serious professionals – so when you present one, that is the perception you create.
4. It allows you to address common questions and objections in real time:
Being able to interact with your audience allows them to raise their questions and concerns about your methods, tools, and products. It allows you respond to those questions and objections in real time, which builds trust. At the same time, it allows you to note the questions and objections that you may not have addressed in your sales page copy.
At the very least, it provides you with the opportunity to find out what really matters to your audience.
5. It allows you to note additional questions and problems your audience members are facing, which can become the basis for a new product(s):
Zig Ziglar used to say: “If you can help enough people to get what they want, you’ll be rich.”
During a webinar, you can often pick up on some of the specific challenges faced by your audience. It has become commonplace for webinar presenters to ask “what’s the biggest single challenge you face with ‘X’?” The answers to that one single question can expose additional needs and/or desires, which may very well be within your power to address.
6. It can be used to sell high ticket items:
Due to the high perceived value of webinars, you as the presenter will “push the free line”, as some internet marketing professionals call it. The fact that you are giving away so much value (you can teach people a lot in 45 minutes, or even less) will “justify” you making an offer for a higher priced product.
In addition to that, the fact that you are physically present to respond to questions will add to the measure of trust from potential buyers. As such, they perceive the risk of buying to be lower and are generally willing to invest in higher priced products.
7. It can be used as a joint venture tool:
Due to the fact that webinars can be – and usually are – used to sell high ticket items, they provide the opportunity to attract (or present the opportunity to) joint venture partners. After all, if you sell a (for instance) a course that is priced at $300, and you offer a JV partner 70% commission, he or she stands to make a substantial amount of money from a relatively small number of sales.
As such, using webinars as a sales tool makes it possible to connect with people with larger lists, and tap into their audiences. It’s a win-win-win situation – you benefit from getting sales, exposure and increased credibility, the audience benefits from the high amount of value you deliver during the presentation, and the JV partner is able to offer his or her list substantial value AND make some good money in the process.
8. The conversion rate is higher than on a normal sales page:
Due to the elevated trust levels, and your availability to respond to questions and concerns, webinars convert at much higher rates than normal sales pages. In short, you need much fewer people to make a sale 9then you would need on your normal sales page).
9. You can generate urgency to convert more members of the audience:
Due to the fact that a webinar is a live event, it is easy to offer bonuses – and/or discounts – ONLY to attendees. As such, it provides you with leverage to convert more of your prospects into customers or clients in a very short space of time.
If you have a specific offer that is only valid for the duration of the webinar, you will know immediately after the webinar how many sales you made. You can still make sale after that, but due to the pressure of the urgency you created, most of the sales happen during the webinar itself.
You can, of course, use any time frame you want – not just the duration of the webinar. Webinar presenters often allow the webinar offer to stand for 24 or 48 hours – especially if it is an expensive product. That way, you can also reach the people who were unable to physically attend the webinar, and present the same offer via a webinar replay before the cut-off time.
10. It attracts quality subscribers:
Let’s face it – if someone is willing to sit through a whole webinar, he or she is quite serious about solving their problem(s). In today’s hectic lifestyles, people value their personal time more and more. As such, the people who watch your webinar will be more likely to buy from you than say, people who sign up for a free ebook (which most of them never read anyway).
As a result, the subscribers you get from webinar registrations will also be more likely to buy other stuff you offer them over time.
In conclusion:
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In the beginning of internet marketing, there were simple sales pages – pretty much like you see on any e-commerce website. That evolved into professional sales letters which take people through different levels of awareness and address all possible questions and objections.
Then we started seeing video sales letters…
And after that came the use of webinars as a sales tool.
So far, it’s the best converting sales tool out there – bar none.