How We Used Webinars to Grow Our List and Increase Signups
We were banging our heads against the wall.
We’d been doing everything we knew to try to speed up audience growth, but couldn’t seem to break through the plateau.
We were…
Putting out regular blog posts
Promoting content on social media
Using tools to capture contacts on our site.
But not seeing hockey stick growth we were expecting for our efforts.
Feeling slightly defeated, we realized we needed to switch things up and find something more engaging and more compelling…
i.e. Increase website traffic and create a BETTER method of turning visitors into real prospects.
Sound familiar?
While blog posts and downloadable docs can be core pieces of your content strategy they deliver marginal benefits in terms of building a relationship and trust with your visitors and prospects.
The big question was how could we adjust our strategy to be more personable and have a higher value proposition?
We decided to pursue a webinar strategy built around collaboration with influencers to create great content we knew our audience was hungry for. After all, we had been doing something similar with our blog posts for months.
Webinars have a multitude of benefits but there are several worth noting.
- Webinars get you out from behind your emails and allow you to get face time with your potential customers.
- Collaborating with influencers makes YOU also look like an influencer.
- Collaboration allows you to leverage the audience of others to help build your email list.
It’s Works… but it doesn’t come easy
Fast forward…
After several months of constant tinkering we’ve become huge advocates of using webinars to grow your audience, and it has become the core focal point of our marketing efforts.
Why? Because we’ve seen the upside!
We are collecting roughly 3X the number of email addresses each month and generally selling at least a handful of annual subscriptions directly from each webinar.
If you have hosted a webinar before you know how time intensive preparation can be, so to try and save you some time and effort I’ve gone ahead and mapped out a strategy to use to host an effective webinar.
- Find strategic guests to help get the ball rolling
As I mentioned before, working with the right guest can help you not only boost the appeal of your webinar but it can also help you tap into new audiences.
I’ve found that guests generally promote the webinar almost as much as we do AND they usually provide lessons on what they’ve seen work in the past.
- Identify a topic that fits your target audience
Who is your target customer and what are their interests? Find a topic that allows you to demonstrate your knowledge in the field and segues nicely into your offering.
For instance, I was working with a coach recently who catered to busy females 30-50 years of age. As her brand is heavily tied to the idea that her target market is super busy and doesn’t have time to take care of themselves, the following topics would be relevant for her webinar…
“The top 5 healthy dinner recipes for women on the go”
or…
“How to create a time-saving workout routine that provides results”
Frame your webinar around providing a solution to a specific need or problem of your target audience, so they know what they are getting by signing up.
Keep in mind that a concise topic will ALSO make it easier for you to market to others.
- Promote!
There are two strategies we use consistently for our Nudge Coach webinars that I’m more than happy to share.
First off, to maximize signups from site visitors we set up a new campaign using the Sumome Welcome Mat, which is a simple plugin that delivers a simple call to action to visitors on your page.
This simple tool is incredibly effective when it comes to capturing leads, and the best part is that it integrates directly with Mailchimp allow this to feed into your other email lists.
Secondly, as one of the key goals of our webinars is to expand our audience we generally use some paid promotion as well.
Even if you are on a shoestring budget I recommend spending something on Facebook promotion, using their promoted post option. More and more companies are finding success through this channel because of how well you can target and the ability to measure your campaigns.
- An automated email campaign is key
One of the hardest aspects of hosting a webinar is structuring all the necessary emails to accompany a person’s experience. For instance, a person signs up for the webinar on your site… then what?
You need to thank them and send them instructions on how to attend, reminders leading up to the actual event, etc. It’s tough, but once you have everything crafted you can reuse the framework for future webinars.
Here are some of the emails you should prepare ahead of time…
Email 1. Thank You and Next Steps (right after a person registers)
Email 2. Reminder 1: Don’t Forget about the Webinar Tomorrow
Email 3. Reminder 2: Webinar Starting in an hour
Email 4. Thank You for joining + Next steps (Purchase? Trial? etc.)
Email 5. In case you missed the webinar last night – link to recorded version
Email 6. Last change for this special offer
As you can see hosting a webinar is no easy task, but with fine-tuning can be an incredibly effective tool to grow your email list and start boosting sales.
Remember to ALWAYS provide folks with a way to watch the webinar on the own time as well as a clear action you want them to perform next, such as signing up for a special offer.
Using tools, like Nudge Coach, will help you establish a foundation for long term growth and will make sure you never miss a chance to provide great service to your clients.
