Webinars: Your Best Promotional Tool4 min read
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Last year, my wife and I sat in the office of a Functional Doctor* to discuss my wife’s many health concerns.
About an hour later, we left after handing over a $6,000 check for six months of services.
Why on earth did we do that?
Well, about a week before we had attended a live presentation that this doctor gave on functional medicine. It addressed the big problems with the current medical model and outlined a completely different approach to addressing long-standing health issues.
It was exactly what we’d been looking for.
We were impressed and we also got a very good sense of this doctor, her knowledge, her commitment, and her personal, warm approach.
If we had visited her office without attending that presentation, I doubt very much that we would have parted with $6,000!
The doctor’s presentation was proof once again, that when you give your prospective clients an experience of who you are and what you know, you dramatically increase the chances of them working with you.
I’ve proven it in my business time and time again.
In December 2008 I gave a presentation to the ICF (International Coaches Federation) conference in Tampa Florida. We had a standing room only audience and I gave one of my best presentations ever.
At the end, I collected about 250 business cards. And then I followed up on them with information on my new Marketing Mastery Program.
When the smoke had cleared, I had generated $70,000 in new business from that one presentation!
But I didn’t do a lot of live presentations after that. I took my business 100% virtual. And I started to offer webinars instead of live speaking engagements. I presented my ideas and programs from the comfort of my home office here in the redwoods.
And I’ve been doing it here for the past 18 years.
What can I tell you? When it comes to marketing professional services, nothing is more powerful than a live (or virtual live) presentation.
Sales letters, online content, social media, emails, videos, and every other marketing method pales in comparison to the results I’ve gotten with live presentations.
And my recent series of webinars proves it. Three webinars two weeks apart over the past month just filled my latest Marketing Action Group program.
If I could wind back the wheels of time several years I’d do only one thing differently in my business: I’d give more webinars!
Look, I can write a whole lot about how to make webinars successful, but let me share just some of the most important ones today.
> The best way to promote a webinar is to those on your e-list. They already know, like and trust you.
> But If you don’t have an e-list, then search for opportunities to give webinars to other communities and organizations.
> Most of your webinar should be educational. Share your best ideas, your system, your approach, your solution. Build a case for what you do and why it works.
> In the last part of your webinar outline how your program or services works and what your audience needs to do next to see if it’s the right solution for them. Don’t shy away from asking for action.
> When you do a webinar for someone who sponsors you, you usually can’t promote directly, but you can offer a a “lead-magnet,” a valuable pice of information such as a report in exchange for their email address. Then you can follow-up with more information about your program or service.
> You can give a webinar to a thousand people or one person. Sure, we all would like a big audience, but if you do a presentation to a decision-maker in a company, you could come away with a big project.
> Put a LOT of work into developing a good presentation for your webinar. I might easily put in 10 hours or more. My current webinar has 85 slides.
> Practice your webinar out loud a few times before you go live. Think of it as a “command performance” where every word and nuance counts.
> Don’t look for opportunities to give your presentation or webinar and then develop your webinar. No, develop your webinar NOW until you are excited about it. Then you’ll find it a lot easier to get booked to present it.
When we sat down with a group of 25 other people to listen to the doctor, we had no idea we’d be spending $6,000 with her. But a week later, it felt like it was the most natural decision in the world.
That, my friends, is the power of a live presentation!
Cheers, Robert
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