AMY PORTERFIELD: Hey there, Amy Porterfield here. Welcome to another episode of The Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. Thanks, so much, for tuning in. I say it a lot but I know you have many options when it comes to tuning in to podcast episodes. The fact that you chose mine today makes my day and makes me a happy girl. So thank you so very much for being here.
Today we are talking about the three webinar tweaks that made a $62,000 difference in my bottom line. That’s a lot of money, right, $62,000? Let me give you a sneak peek about those three tweaks: One involves what I did to a sales page to make it so much more powerful in terms of it converting; another tweak is how many webinars I did during a promo; and the final tweak we made to make that $62,000 difference was in the types of ad images we used and the types of ad copy we used during our Facebook ad campaigns.
This one totally surprised me and I think it will surprise you too. I’m going to have some images of those ads in the show notes today so that you can see exactly what I’m talking about. But I want to explain them first before you go check out the images.
That’s a little teaser of the three tweaks. I will get into each one of them in a moment but I also wanted to tell you that if you’ve done webinars in the past and have had some success and you are looking to make a bigger splash, a bigger revenue boot, with your webinars then today you are in the right place.
However, if you’ve never done webinars before or maybe you have dabbled with them in the past and you are just not sure if they are right for you or if you want to do webinars, I want you to really tune in today because you might be pleasantly surprised with what you can do with a webinar in your business to see revenue quickly.
I really truly believe in webinars, obviously. You know I do if you have been following my content for the last year or so. But, even more so, if you already have a product and have never done a webinar you definitely want to consider this platform because it’s a way to connect with people on an entirely new level, at a personal level you just don’t get with most marketing strategies. You are attracting a brand new audience all the time if you kind of follow the strategy I use for webinars so it grows your list quickly and you see consistent instant revenue. That’s kind of the coolest thing ever.
Let’s say you don’t have a product. If you have a product it’s a no brainers, webinars are something you want to look into. But let’s say you are working on an online training program or a course and you’re not done yet or maybe you haven’t started that and are wondering what the heck you would sell.
The coolest thing with webinars is you can actually sell something before you’ve created it and then you can deliver what you just sold live online, like a live workshop. I’m not going to get into all of that today but I will say that is one of the main topics I am going to talk about in my free upcoming webinar about webinars. I know, it sounds so weird but it’s true.
I’m doing a series of live webinars to teach you how to create your first five-figure webinar in the next 30 days. We’re getting specific. One of the things I am going to talk to you about is, if you have a product, how to sell on a webinar and, if you don’t have a product, how to create one to sell before you even actually create one.
We are going to go into both of those different scenarios on this live webinar plus we’re going to talk about the exact steps that I take in my own business to create a webinar system. I’m giving it all. If you’ve ever been on any one of my webinars in the past about any marketing strategy I have taught you know I put it all out there. This is going to be no exception. I’m really excited for this upcoming live webinar.
To grab your seat, because you know it is going to fill up and you don’t want to miss it, go to http://amyporterfield.com/freewebinar and you can grab your seat. I am going to be live. I cannot wait to connect with you. This is a brand new, never ever seen before webinar that I cannot wait to share all of my secrets with you.
That’s the first thing I wanted to tell you. The next thing is I’m planning on sharing some secrets right this minute. They are things I’ve never shared before about what has made a huge difference in my business with webinars.
I keep teasing you but I promise you I am going to get to those three things. But what I thought would be really fun would be to walk through what doing a webinar for some of you might have felt like in the past. Kind of stay with me here because we’re going to go through a scenario.
Many of you have had horror stories with webinars or you have a horror story in your head that really hasn’t happened but you’ve heard from other people. Or maybe you just don’t believe webinars work so you have your own stories in your head about that.
Let’s lay it out there. Here is how most webinars actually go down: First you reach out to your email list and you get people to sign up for your webinar. Maybe you don’t even have a list so you possibly whip up a few Facebook ads. You tie it all together with a registration page and you send those ads out into the universe and just kind of wait for the magic to unfold.
Maybe you actually do get a few people to sign up for your webinar. That’s great. Maybe you actually feel good about the number of people that signed up. You go to work on your content. You labor for hours wondering what you are going to share with your audience. What are you actually going to put in this webinar? You somehow seamlessly steer the conversation into a natural sale pitch that doesn’t make you or your audience feel sick to your stomach.
A lot of people get stuck with how to transition from free content into selling on a webinar. So let’s pretend you go that route. You have somehow put this webinar together and it’s a seamless transition. But even as you start to write this content into your webinar slides you already feel how contrived it all sounds.
You worry about the balance. You worry that you are teaching too little. You question if you are selling too much. You ask if you should not do it at all and even if you are crazy. You start having all of these self doubts and basically you realize you are an entrepreneur and that you have it. You also start thinking that you have already spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, figuring how to market online.
You decide to do it and know that you will figure it out. You then begin to think the doubt is all in your head anyway and you move forward. Then you start to think about the technology. You buy some technology to be sure your webinar goes off without a hitch. You probably pay more money than you need to on all of that fancy technology. You buy a microphone, webcams, recording software, broadcast software, the registration form you have to get set up, hosting, and all of that.
You get that all figured out and then start to put it together and realize, holy cow, there is a lot of tech involved and then you feel like assembling IKEA furniture is easier than all of the tech stuff. I get it.
Suppose you find your way through the technology because you found someone to help you. The day of the webinar comes, your big day, you review your notes, you make edits to the slide and begin to think your slide deck looks ridiculous. It is way to corporate. That is what most people think when they start to see their slide deck. They begin to think they didn’t do it right but then decide to just go with it. You are ready to go.
Minutes before you go live you peek into the webinar room and you realize that you only have about ten people that have shown up so far. This can totally throw you off when you see that a lot of people haven’t shown up. That is the first thing that can stop you in your tracks.
You get closer and closer and you realize that of all of the people who registered only about 15% have shown up. That is the worst feeling ever. We will talk about that and in this episode I will tell you how to get around that.
Let’s say you go for it but the fact that hardly anyone shows up gets you off your mojo just a little bit. But you decide the show must go on so you decide again to just go for it. You jump in and feel a little bit scattered. Your sales pitch doesn’t feel totally good. There is zero engagement with your audience and your slides.
I’m just giving you a scenario of how most webinars go. I have talked to many people that have just started out with webinars and these are the feelings they are having. They are going through their slides. They are rushing through way too fast. Their brain starts to flood with negative talk: “Who am I to sell this,” “What if I am too pushy,” “Maybe I shouldn’t even sell at the end,” “Maybe no one is going to listen,” “What if everyone jumps off at the end when I start to sell.
Then you actually do sell. You sell your program and it feels like crickets or tumbleweeds. Nothing is really going on because the challenge with a webinar, if you don’t do it in a way that’s all about engagement, you feel fully alone on the other side of the mike.
With that the engagement is actually a piece that most people struggle with. Let’s just say you get through it and you think it was miserable. Most people do not like their first webinar experience.
On the free webinar I am going do I am going to tell you about my first webinar experience that was a disaster. I am going to save that for the webinar. But I think you will have a good laugh about that one. I had a good cry when it happened but I think you will have a good laugh.
Let’s say you get through it. You lick your wounds and say it was terrible but at least you got through it. Then you hope webinars die a slow and painful death and do not keep rearing their ugly heads when it comes to smart marketing strategies. You aren’t spiteful or anything, you just hope they go away.
That is the last thing I want you to ever feel when it comes to doing a webinar. That was painful, right? I wanted to walk you through the scenario because it is how most people feel on a webinar. I bet if you are thinking about doing webinars or have done them in the past you can relate to some of those feelings. You question whether anyone is going to show up or why only 15% per showed up or how you sell on a webinar if you are doing free content. You question what the transition looks like.
You also ask what if no one is there by the time the webinar is over and you are ready to sell. I wish you could get into my head those first years I was doing webinars. It was a dangerous place to be. I was so afraid of live webinars.
I am here to tell you it doesn’t have to be that challenging or overwhelming and it also gets better when you keep doing webinars and then transition into automated webinars the whole process gets better. I promise you that.
I want you to stick with me through this episode and I want you to join me on my free webinar that’s coming up. I’m going to show you an easier way to do webinars, one that is a system that can actually generate revenue for you consistently and you don’t have to be on the mike all the time going through those crazy feelings wondering if you are doing it right, and what you should do with technology, and all of that.
We are going to work that all out together. Again, you are invited for my free webinar at http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/freewebinar. Grab your seat, it’s live. It’s going to be fantastic.
Let’s get into those three tweaks that I promised you because I think you will get a lot of value in terms of what you can do differently to see consistent revenue.
We had been doing webinars one way for a long time and we knew there was a way to up our game. There were a few things we wanted:
- We wanted more sales generated from our webinars,
- We wanted more people to show up live during our webinars, and
- we wanted to attract a new audience. We wanted to grow our email list with the webinars as well.
That’s how these three tweaks came about. The first thing I did early last year when I decided to change things up a little bit had to do with sales pages. This one might surprise you but I always do a sales page for any promotion I do. I know some people might do a webinar and drive people right to the order form. That’s not my style. I like to give people extra information, especially if they are on the fence and need to read up on it and want more.
I like to have a really well though-out sales page, even after someone watches a webinar, just to give them more information. In the past we used to send people directly from the webinar to the sales page to read all about the product and then buy.
My sales pages tend to be pretty wordy. I can’t help it. I’m Italian. Maybe that’s what it is. There is a lot of information on my sales pages. People would be on a webinar with me, literally right now on a webinar, I talk all about the product I am selling. After the free content I go into my actual sales strategy where I talk about the product, what you get, the features, why it’s important, how to sign up. I tell them to go to, for example, http://www.amyporterfield/whatever and they go directly to the sales page. In the past we would send people to the full long sales page.
We realized I wasn’t getting as many sales on the webinar as I had thought I should. One of the reasons was that they were taking forever to read the whole sales page and then people became easily distracted. Often they just want to think about it for a bit. Sometimes the sales page is long with a lot to go through and people decide to come back to it.
What was so redundant about the sales page was that I had just gone over everything a person needed to know. If a person is ready to buy and they go to the URL on the final slide of my webinar I don’t want to send a person to a full-on sales page to read all about it again. We already went through that and who has time for that?
If you are excited about my product, you just learned about it, you can get the best explanation about a product when the creator explains it live on a webinar. That’s another thing I love about webinars, you get to explain your product as a conversation with the best parts and benefits. They hear your voice, they hear your excitement. That’s what is really so powerful on selling on a webinar.
Instead of sending to people to a long-from sales page that exists we decided to change it up and abbreviate the sales page. We created our standard sales page for whatever product I am promoting and then create a webinar only sales page.
The only thing on a webinar-only sales page is the banner (the name of the product) at the top and then what you get (what is in each module), how much it is (the two different pricing options), maybe a testimonial or two, and then the buttons you need to use to buy.
There might be a link to support if someone wants a live chat. But that is all that is on the sales page. There is no explanation, no story, no hook. All of the stuff you would normally get in a standard sales page is not there. It’s not there because they just got all of that information…they already heard it from me. I already went over all of that in the live webinar they were just on.
People don’t need to regurgitate the information again. They need the important stuff, how much it costs, what they get in each module, payment plans, questions, live chat. That’s all they really need to know, maybe the refund policy. The abbreviated sales page just has the essentials to help people make sure they feel comfortable with what they are buying.
This method changed things overnight for me. We went from doing webinars where we sent people to the long-form sales page to stopping that strategy and going to an abbreviated sales page and we found the sales came in so much more quickly.
When you go to a long-form sales page you feel you need to read it. It is important information and you believe if you are interested in the product and you are being sent to the page you probably need to know the information before you buy.
I was leading people astray in that way. So that change resulted in instant sales from a webinar and a bigger boost of those instant sales as well. Why do I still do the long- form sales page during a promo? Why do I have both the long-form sales page and the abbreviated sales page?
After you are on my webinar you will get a series of emails, if you didn’t buy from my webinar, that will tell you more about the product. You will learn about the features, the testimonials, and case studies. The fact that you didn’t buy after a webinar didn’t mean you aren’t interested, you just might be on the fence and you need to know you can trust me, find out if you like me, and if you want to learn more from me. You get that information in the followup sequence of emails I sent out after a webinar.
In all of those emails, I send people to a long-form sales page. That is important because at that point people are more disconnected with the webinar. It will have been a few days since they have watched the webinar with me. They will probably have more questions and they will want more detail. That is when I use the long-form sales page.
Also, if I am driving traffic to people on my list that never signed up for a webinar I would send them to the long-form sales page as well. We have two different sales pages. I like to make them look dramatically different on the top. For the Webinars That Convert course the short-form sales page is a black banner and the long-form sales page is a white banner so that my team knows instantly that we are sending people to the right page (that is an internal thing to think about).
If you’re curious to see how a launch goes and the emails that I send and how I do my webinars, even if you aren’t 100% sold that webinars will work for you, sign up for my webinar because you can get that whole process that I’m talking about just to see how it really works. It works really, really good.
I want to show you my process because we’ve spent a lot of time figuring out what the customer needs to know to feel really confident about buying after a webinar. They don’t need as much information as we thought they did.
If you do a good job on your webinar you are golden. That was tweak #1. At that same time we made another tweak. This actually happened at a mastermind I was in. I am currently not in a mastermind and that feels really weird. I am always in a mastermind and usually like to be in one mastermind where I am learning from other people. It just so happens one of mine ended and I haven’t jumped into another one.
I don’t know why I am telling you that because that part isn’t super important. What is important is that last year when I was in a mastermind one of my peers suggested that if webinars work really well for me I should be doing more during a promotion.
My friend, Stu McClaren (he used to be the co-owner of Wish List), suggested this to me.
It really made perfect sense because when I was just starting out I used to do one webinar for promotion. Then I decided to do two. I might do one webinar on a Tuesday and another one on a Thursday. They were one two different days. That’s all I had done up until that point.
He said if webinars work really well for me I should be capitalizing on that. This is a good lesson even if you don’t do webinars but do something else during a promotion that works really well. Think about doing more of that. I am a huge fan of having no need to reinvent the wheel. I am not so extra creative that I always have a million ideas anyway. So, if one thing works really well for me I need to milk it and just continue to go with that until it doesn’t work.
That’s what we have done with webinars. I want you to try this, if you have tried webinars during a promotion before and it worked for you (or if you start to learn to do webinars from me and start to use my system and it works for you) consider doing more of them throughout your promotion.
You may have heard me talk about The Profit Lab, my signature program. There have been Profit Lab promos that I have done 12 webinars over a one-month period. My promos are pretty long during Profit Lab. I would do them for affiliates but I would also do them for my own list many times.
I have a pretty big list so if I did five live webinars for my own list throughout a one- month period of time that would make sense because I have a big list and I can give them a lot of options. Let’s say you have a really small list or you are going to use Facebook ads.
If you give people a few options (if you are doing webinars live you are going to obviously need to be present) they will then find a time that works best for them and they are more likely to show up live. If you make them only choose one or two times they might go ahead and sign up but they have no intention of being there live.
We have found that showing up live is going to really boost your sales. People that are there with you live are focused. If you do a stellar job on your webinar they are more likely to buy. Maybe you send a replay and maybe you don’t. But if people think you are going to send a replay they wait for the replay. They have every intention of watching the replay but life gets busy and you have now lost them completely.
I have found that giving them more options to sign up is amazingly wonderful in terms of supporting your audience and supporting your promotion. I do a lot of live webinars but I also do automated webinars. The automated ones are great because they always give people different dates and times because they are recorded. But I still think the idea of doing more live webinars during a promotion is really valuable.
Remember, we all work in seasons. After I go through a big launch I take a big break. Yes, it’s a little bit hard to do live webinars consistently. They take a lot out of you. But then you are done and you can take a big breather and give yourself down time as well.
I am not saying doing multiple webinars over multiple days is easy but I do believe it is really worth it. And if your webinars aren’t quite there yet, once you get them there you will realize this worked really well so maybe you should just rinse and repeat. And that’s what made a huge difference in our bottom line.
One more thing I will say about that, some people question how many webinars they should do during a promo. If you typically do one or two then you should maybe look at doing three. Just ease into it. That’s what I did. I used to just do one and then next promo I ended up doing two and the next promo I did one in the morning and one in the evening and then one in the morning and one in the evening another day. I did four.
Again, I did this over a three-week to four-week period. Ease into it. Don’t just decide to do ten webinars in a row during your promo. Here’s why: They are really hard to fill up. The last thing I want for you is to have ten people on a webinar. Maybe you have 100 people on your first webinar and then 100 people on your next webinar and then you start to fill less and less for the ones that you have planned.
It’s a psychological thing, a mindset thing. When you don’t have many people on your webinar it is hard to be really enthusiastic and excited to give them the next 90 minutes of your time. That’s just human nature. It’s a bummer when you are expecting a big group and you don’t have it.
I don’t want you to do too many webinars, I just want you to consider adding one or two to the mix just to see what will happen. Then you want to give them options. Give options and allow yourself a little breathing room. Don’t do too many. I think that’s a really good mix. My advice to you is to ease into it.
We went over the abbreviated sales page. We went over doing more webinars (that made a huge difference for my bottom line). The third tweak I am going to tell you about is all about Facebook ads. This is something we initially learned from my personal business coach, Todd Herman, when he did a launch.
I may have talked about this on another podcast. I can’t remember, but it is really relevant for this one. We found when we are running Facebook ads for a webinar promo to a cold audience that probably doesn’t know much about me that ad needs to look a whole lot different than an ad to my fan base, my own email list, or a retargeting list (someone who came to my opt-in page but didn’t yet sign up for my webinar or somebody who went to my sales page but didn’t buy yet – we put an ad in front of them). Those people are more of a warm audience to us.
Those people are on my email list or are a Facebook fan or are retargeted from my sales page or opt-in page. To us that’s more of a warm audience. That’s one type of ad. The other type of ad is to a cold audience, specifically if I am targeting a look-alike audience (where you take your audience and ask Facebook to find more people like this). They don’t really know you. That’s a cold audience.
My favorite way to target is to target other Facebook pages. That is likely going to roughly be a cold audience. Most of those people won’t know much about me. We have found that when we run ads to a cold audience we usually take my personality out of those ads.
I am going to show you the two different types of ads on the show notes at http:// amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/73. You will see a cold-audience ad and a warm-audience ad. What you will see with the cold-audience ad is there’s not a lot of branding to it. It isn’t spectacular. It’s not a beautiful ad image. In addition to that it is blatant: This is what we have going on, sign up here.
The text is really short and kind of punchy. I usually start with an obvious “yes” question with just a little text on top. The image does not have my picture in it. The image is graphic and colorful and tells you exactly what you are signing up for. We usually use the “learn more” button.
In the past we use the “sign up” button. We have noticed that “learn more” is working for us so we transitioned into that different button. This is all stuff that we are constantly experimenting with.
Because they didn’t know me, the more general, generic branding works better with a cold audience. I’m not saying this is a black and white rule that will work perfectly for you. What I am saying it that when it comes to Facebook ads during a promo, especially if you are getting people to sign up for a webinar, you have to experiment. If your ads aren’t converting at a level that you want them to you should consider doing them differently.
For years I’ve taught people to put their image in the ad. A smiling woman usually converts better. For many years I have done a lot of text above the image. Mine is pretty wordy. We still use that style for my own audience. They are used to that. They will read more because they trust me. They have been on my webinars before. That works.
For someone that doesn’t know me they don’t really care to see my face nor do they really want to read a whole bunch before they click and then read the registration page. The registration page copy is a whole different ballgame and we will talk about that on the webinar.
You can use this lesson for whatever you are doing. A cold-audience ad should typically look different than a warm-audience ad. You can see the examples on my show notes.
There you have it. Those are the three webinar tweaks that made a $62,000 difference early last year. We continue to do them and refine them even more today. I am going to hint at one more thing. I am going to get into this on my webinar so I want you to pay attention and see if this is something you might be interested in learning about.
One other big, big, big change we made last year that has been a game changer for us in terms of webinar attendance is what I call the Pre-Webinar Onboarding Sequence. This onboarding sequence is a series of emails starts the minute you register for a webinar.
I want you to pay attention, if you register for my webinar I want you to pay attention to the five emails that you will get before we even get on live. If you sign up for my webinar the day before you will obviously not get all five emails. But if you sign up soon, when you are just hearing this, you will receive a series of five emails.
Those five emails are called the Pre-Webinar Onboarding Sequence. It is very unique to my brand. It is built in a way to not only encourage you to get on live (I know that is where you will pay attention more and connect with me). There is something about that live energy and I want to feel it just as much as you do so I am going to encourage you to get on live.
In addition to that I am going to tell you a few stories. I am going to give you a few case studies. We will talk about some of the content leading up to the webinar. It’s my way of connecting with you and giving you value before you even get on a webinar. It’s a really powerful process to encourage your registrants to show up live.
There is nothing worse than having people sign up for a webinar and they don’t show up live. That is what is so very valuable to your audience. They get more out of it if they are there paying attention and they will likely miss the replay if I sent one anyway. I want them there live.
The second thing is, if you are going to do a webinar it really truly changes your energy knowing that people have shown up and they are there for you. You have worked so hard for the webinar so you will give it all you’ve got. If there are two people that show up I still want you to give it all you’ve got. Of course we do. They have shown up for you and we want to be there for them.
There is something around the mindset of having a full house and I want you all to experience that full house. I will talk to you about the Pre-Webinar Onboarding Sequence and will show you exactly what it looks like on my webinar. That’s just a little teaser for you.
If you go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/freewebinar you can grab your seat. I cannot wait to see you there live.
Thank you so very much for tuning in with me here today. I love, love, love doing my podcast with you and working on the content. Hopefully you have found it valuable so I just want to tell you it means a lot to me that you are here today. Again, if you want the show notes go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/73.
Have a wonderful day. I can’t wait to connect with you again soon. Bye for now.
