AMY PORTERFIELD: Hi there! Welcome back to another episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I’m your host, Amy Porterfield, and today we are going to be diving into the three surprising strategies to increase sales on your next webinar.
Before we dive in I’ve got a question for you. Do you feel that you’ve been able to really connect with your webinar attendees on a webinar? If you had to guess, on the other end of the computer where they’re watching your webinar, do you think they are shaking their head while you’re going through the content saying, “Yes, yes, you totally get me. That’s me. I needed this. It’s like you’re reading my mind”?
Do you think that’s how they’re feeling on the other end of your webinar? Surprisingly, you might have the best content in the world. However, you’re just not tuning in to these strategies I’m going to share with you today to create that instant bond, that connection.
That’s why I feel this episode is really important because it’s about engagement and connection and really getting into the mind of your webinar attendee so that they feel that you really get them.
As you might already know, I relaunched my List-Builder’s Lab program not too long ago. When I relaunched it I did a series of live webinars. Because I’ve been focusing on automation and doing evergreen webinars in my business it had been a while since I had done live webinars.
Every time I do a series of live webinars I always learn some new strategies or walk away with some a-ha moments of how I did the webinar differently and what an impact that made, whether it be positive or negative.
There were some positive moments in my last series of live webinars that I really wanted to share with you because these are easy strategies. I call them surprising because they’re not the usual strategies people talk about that you would instantly connect with boosting your sales.
Instead, they are more about engagement and these strategies are more focused on creating true, real touchpoints with your audience on your webinar and, overall, creating deeper connections.
Trust me, connection on a webinar is a true path to higher conversions. There’s no doubt about it and I’m going to show you how it works when you get into it. Since this episode is all about webinars it’s only fitting that this episode is sponsored by my free workshop, How to Create and Deliver Your First Wildly Profitable Webinar Even If You Don’t Have an Email List.
If you’ve been thinking about creating a webinar or maybe you’ve done webinars and they’re just not converting like you had hoped then make sure to grab your free spot in my upcoming workshop. Go to http://www.amyporterfield.com/freeclass. It’s as simple as that.
I won’t make you wait any longer. Let’s jump into the three touchpoints to boost your sales on your next webinar.
Touchpoint #1 – Turn Your Intro Into a “Hey, that’s me” Opportunity
When I do a webinar I always tell a story in the first ten minutes. The story is different depending on what I’m teaching inside the webinar. Most people in their webinar talk about themselves in the first ten minutes.
The person doing the webinar will talk about their accomplishments, who they are, they will typically highlight their family or just make it a little bit too indulgent and make it all about them. What they are missing is that they are not resonating with their audience.
I like to tell stories on a webinar in a much different way. Whatever story I’m going to tell is focused more on the emotions I was feeling in that experience, the feelings that came up for me, the things I told myself during the experience, and the fears, challenges, or the desires that I was seeking.
When I do a story that way it’s going to resonate with my audience a whole lot faster. Any time I tell a story on a webinar I want my webinar participants to be thinking, “That’s me. I can totally relate. She’s telling my story.”
The only way to get your audience to think and feel that way is if they can relate to the feelings and emotions that came up in your story. So every time I tell a story I want it to bring my audience closer to me.
I want my story to build trust and affinity and a connection. In order for that to happen I’ve got to get vulnerable and really honest in my story.
The next time you tell a story on a webinar ask yourself if there’s enough true, raw emotion in that story. If you’re really, really getting down to the nitty gritty details it will make your participants think, “Oh my gosh, he totally gets me,” or “Holy cow! She’s really telling my story.”
I want you just to think about this because it’s a big deal. In the first ten minutes it could make or break your webinar success. Let me give you a quick example.
On my List-Builder’s Lab webinar that I do I tell a story in the beginning about how I put list building to the side for two years of my business. I tell a story about joining a mastermind and the fact that my mastermind leader, Marie Forleo, kept telling me to build my list, build my list, build my list.
I would almost laugh. I thought I would get to “that” but I’ve got more important things to be doing right now. Then when I would show up at the mastermind three months down the road I still hadn’t done anything to grow my email list.
I was really frustrating her because she said, “Amy, you’re coming here to learn from me and you’re not doing the strategies that are going to grow your business.”
I started to feel some shame around my list. I was not doing what I needed to be doing. I also talk in the story about doing my first launch. It was a huge failure. I remember thinking in that moment that I had to go back to a J-O-B, “I am not cut out for this online marketing launch situation.”
This was a huge failure and I didn’t think I could do it. During that story on the webinar I also showed pictures from when I was in that moment. It really brought it to life. That’s another thing. If you have pictures, images to show, that are real and in the moment of the story you’re talking about, by all means pull them out. They will make the story even more real.
I chose to tell this story beyond the fact that it’s true because I know my audience has shame around the fact that they haven’t focused on building their email list. I know my audience sometimes feels they aren’t cut out for “this” and they are going to have to go get a job or, “I’m never even going to get to leave my job because this is not working.”
Talking more about the feelings, thoughts, and words I was saying to myself in my head during those moments is what’s most important in the story in the first ten minutes of your webinar. You want to make that connection.
That story is not essentially about you. That story is all for them. You are essentially holding up a mirror so that they see themselves in your story. If they start to think that you get them then you’ve nailed it.
Hold up the mirror the next time you tell a story in a webinar so that it’s not all about you but all about them and their situation, where they are, and where they want to go.
Touchpoint #2 – Open Your Chat and Experiment With Building Your Community While You are on Your Webinar
I have a quick story for you. When I was doing webinars during my List-Builder’s Lab live launch a few months ago we were using Zoom. We typically use GoToWebinar but I’ve noticed that I like Zoom for live webinars better because I like the video capabilities and features.
I think the features on Zoom are really easy to use and on that webinar I turned my video camera on and during the webinar I showed my face while I was also showing my slides. It gave it an even more personal connection.
I’ve talked about that on this podcast a few times now but if we’re talking about connection, showing your face in real time is always a great way to make that instant connection.
This touchpoint is about the chat. Here’s what happened. We didn’t really know how to use Zoom so we accidentally left the chat open during the entire webinar. If you were in my Webinars That Convert program you know that I talk about the Q&A and the chat box during a live webinar a lot.
My suggestion is usually to keep it off. People can post their questions but the only ones that will see the questions is you and your team. Everybody else on the webinar doesn’t see them.
Typically, I think this is a good idea because when a bunch of questions are flashing in the chat and everybody can see them they are distracting then people get into conversations with each other, yet another distraction.
My fear has always been that people won’t pay attention to my webinar and if you’re not connected to the webinar content you’re sure as heck not going to be connected to the product I’m selling when I get there on the webinar.
I don’t love those distractions. I still stand behind that. I think that is one way to look at it and I want you to experiment. At one point I want you to turn the chat off during your webinar so that only people can chat questions but they can’t talk with each other.
That is one way to do it. The other way to do it is to leave the chat open for everybody the whole time. That’s the mistake we made. We accidentally left it open. We didn’t even know it was open but once it was open and I went live we didn’t know how to close it so we just left it open.
I was pleasantly surprised around the community building and community connection in the chat. I do think this says something about my audience. I have a really sweet, helpful audience. I’m very, very lucky in that. I know not everybody has an audience where people are so gracious and quick to say something positive and nice to each other.
I’m lucky to have an audience like that. That includes you, by the way. So people were helping each other in the chat. At one point a woman asked a question like, “What was Point #3 that Amy just shared? I totally missed it.”
Somebody added Point #3 in the chat so she could jot it down in her notes. Somebody missed a link I mentioned so somebody else in the group posted the link. Then they started talking about getting together and dive into list building together to keep themselves accountable.
There were some mini masterminds forming in the chat as well. I loved seeing that. When we use chat, just to back up a little bit, my team is always in the chat welcoming almost everybody that shows up. I have a few people in the chat so they call them by name and welcome them when the jump on before we get started.
We also troubleshoot any tech issues that people might be having and when people ask questions and nobody’s answering their question and my team knows I likely won’t answer that type of question on the webinar my team will jump in there and get that person the answer as well.
Those are things that always happen during a live webinar with my chat. But seeing people connect with each other and even talk about their challenges and when I ask a question like, “On a scale of 1-10 how frustrated are you with your email list,” and everybody floods in their responses, that’s a cool thing to see where everybody’s at.
The whole community can kind of get a sense of who is in the webinar and who’s watching and where they’re at. I think that’s cool as well.
Remember, I have a lot of people on my webinars so it’s a pretty active chat. If you’ve got just ten people on you’re not going to get that flood of responses but I think if you have a really small group on your webinar it’s not a bad idea to let them chat with each other to make the connection.
However, if you’re worried that during the Q&A, which we’ll get to as Touchpoint #3, if no one’s going to ask a question and you have to come up with the questions for them then maybe close down the chat until you think you can get some engagement on a later webinar.
My point is that I don’t think there is a right way or wrong way to use your chat. You can keep it open for everybody or you can close it down and only allow people to ask questions. I also think you should experiment with both and see which one feels right to you.
I might still play around with this idea and maybe if I start to see people getting really distracted I’ll close down the chat but for now I think I’m going to keep it open and still experiment with the community side of the webinar. I just really loved the energy and I want more of that on my live webinars.
The last thing I’ll say is that your team needs to be ready to shut down the trolls. If you’ve got any jerks on your webinar and they start posting rude things your team needs to delete those because there is no need for those on a live webinar or any webinar, for that fact. So, get your team ready to delete or block somebody. Know those functionalities inside of your chat in case you need them.
Touchpoint #2 is to open your chat and experiment with building your community on your webinar. Just see what feels right to you.
Touchpoint #3 – Use Your Q&A to Show Your Webinar Participants That You Know Who They are and You Know What They Need
I love a good Q&A on a webinar. I believe it can increase your conversions when you nail your Q&A. There are a few different areas of the Q&A that I want to dive into because I want you to look at your Q&A differently after this episode.
I’ve got three tips for you.
Tip #1 – Voice Their Objections Before You Even Get Into the Q&A – Of course during your entire webinar (I teach this inside Webinars That Convert) you are touching on the objections and challenges and fears your audience is feeling. You have the solution so you need to bring those up throughout the webinar and I teach you how to do that inside the program.
Beyond that, once you get done with your webinar, you’ve taught the free content, you have promoted your program, and now you are moving into Q&A. Before you actually take the questions from your audience I want you to voice their objections.
Here’s how I do it. I think of four or five “but” questions that come up right before I actually get into the Q&A. Here’s what I mean by “but” questions.
If I said, “Here, you need my program,” from somebody who just watched my webinar they could be thinking, “Yeah, but…” Then what are they going to say after that?
For List-Builder’s Lab they might say, “Yeah, but…I don’t have a lot of money to spend on Facebook ads so list building’s not going to work for me.” Or they might say, “Yeah, but…I’m really stressed out by all of the technology that comes up with list building. I don’t understand the integration,” or “Yeah, but…”
I want you to think of those “but” questions (sounds so weird) before you actually get into your Q&A. On a webinar I actually show those objections on a slide, slide by slide. I will say, “Okay, we’re going to do some live Q&A so get ready with your questions. Start typing them into the chat right now. But before we get there I’m guessing you have some thoughts floating through your head right now and you might be really interested in List-Builder’s Lab. However, you’re really concerned because you don’t have the money for ads.”
Then I talk about that. Then I go to the next slide, “You might be thinking technology freaks you out and you don’t know if you’re cut out for the list-building strategy.” Then I address that.
I go through about four or five of those really quickly. Right out of the gate I address their objections so that we kind of get those out of the way. Again, this is a way for my audience, those listening in the moment, to think, “Oh, she gets me. She knows exactly what I’m thinking right now.”
The more your audience on a webinar says that the higher the trust factor. They feel connected to you and they feel they can trust you because you get them. So I answer these objections right before I get to the Q&A.
Tip #2 – Redirect Back To Your Course – As you get into the live Q&A and you’re answering questions for people I want you to always use that question, if appropriate, as an opportunity to talk about your course.
If somebody asks a question I don’t want you to just say, “Oh, well buy my course and I answer that in the course.” I don’t want you to do that. However, I do want you to give a little value in response to their question so answer it a little bit. But then say, “I get into more detail and more specifics about this very question in my program.”
If you know your program well you can say, “In Module 2, I address this whole issue that you’re having so when you get into the program make sure you spend some extra time with Module 2.”
There’s a little NLP there as well, basically always talk about “when” they get into your program and “when” they are going through the modules and “as” they are watching the videos. That’s the kind of language you want to use so that they can see themselves inside of your program.
Getting back to Tip #2, redirect back to your course. Every opportunity you find to talk about your course, do so. The Q&A portion of a webinar is your time to sell. You are always selling during the Q&A portion of your webinar. I think that’s a mindset shift for some right out of the gate.
Don’t use your Q&A just to answer a bunch of questions on your topic. You’re redirecting them back into the course and you’re talking about what they will learn in the course so that they start to see the value of the course even more. Use your Q&A as a selling opportunity.
Real quick, I would also have some questions in front of you that, if they aren’t asking, you want to answer anyway. How long will it take me to get through the program? How do I know if I’m right for the program? What if I have a question, will you be there to answer it for me?
They will ask about the refund policy again even though you went over it. You might want to have a few of those questions in your pocket and answer them on the Q&A even if nobody asks those questions.
That’s actually a good lead in to Tip #3.
Tip #3 – Read Between The Lines – Early on in my online marketing career I learned to identify what my audience should be asking but they don’t know to ask. If you are answering questions during the Q&A and you realize people are asking a certain question but what they really should be asking is XYZ then go ahead and answer both questions.
When you refine the skill of knowing what your audience should be asking but they don’t know to ask you have the ability to tap into their fears and roadblocks so that you can actually move them forward and, again, see the value of your program because you’re going to get them results that they want.
This is a skill you can really strengthen. Read between the lines. Here’s an example. How much money do I need to invest in your program to make it work? When someone asks that question I talk about the extra expenses it will take to get my strategies up and running.
I also talk about the fact they’ve probably tried many programs and they haven’t worked, or they probably have a really tight budget and it worries them to have to spend extra money to make the program work.
I address these things head on because that question of how much more money they need to spend to make the program work is also, “Amy, are you going to screw me because I don’t have a lot of money and if you’re going to tell me I have to spend $2,000 more to make this work I can’t do it.”
There is fear around money that comes up and fear around not being able to figure it out. So I address all of those issues in the Q&A as well. The Q&A can be about the emotions and fears as well as the specific details that they are asking about.
One more example, “Amy, what if I get stuck? Will you be answering all of my questions?” The answer is, “No,” and I’ll talk about the fact that I have extra support in my private Facebook groups and I show up live on video once a week.
Beyond that, again, I talk about the fear they might be feeling right now because I know being a marketer online or building a business online can be really lonely. Sometimes you feel like there’s no one there to help you out.
Then I go back to the fact that my program is a step-by-step program. I hold your hand through the process. I’m able to bring it back to what I teach in the course and how I teach.
Remember, you always want to be bringing it back to your course and you want to be using your Q&A as a selling opportunity.
To review those tips really fast:
- Tip #1 – Voice their objections before you get into the Q&A.
- Tip #2 – Redirect back to your course.
- Tip #3 – Read between the lines and answer the questions they may not be asking but you know you need to get to the heart of the matter around what their question is really saying about what they’re thinking and feeling.
There you have it. Let’s first recap the touchpoints.
- Touchpoint #1 – Turn your intro into a “Hey, that’s me,” opportunity. It all comes down to your master storytelling technique.
- Touchpoint #2 – Open your chat and experiment with building your community on your webinar.
- Touchpoint #3 – Use your Q&A to show your webinar registrants that you know who they are and you know what they need.
I think Touchpoint #3 is my favorite touchpoint of all three because you can do some really cool things during your Q&A opportunity.
Here’s the thing I want you to remember. These three touchpoints, more than anything, can help you become more deeply connected with the people on your webinar that are genuinely a good fit for your program. They need you and that connection you’re making will help them understand that they can trust you and that you are their go-to person.
Remember, you’re not having to make the connection with everybody on the webinar. It will resonate with those that truly need what you’re selling the most.
I also think today in the hustle and bustle of creating webinar systems that we get lost in our registration page creation and writing our on-boarding emails and creating the funnels and all of the stuff that goes into creating a really solid webinar system.
All that stuff is important but I don’t want you to lose sight of the importance of creating an experience on your webinar. I think these three touchpoints will help you do just that.
Before I go, remember that this episode is sponsored by my free workshop, How to Create Your First Wildly Profitable Webinar Even if You Don’t Have an Email List. To grab your spot go to http://www.amyporterfield.com/freeclass.
If you’ve been thinking about doing webinars for a while or if you have done webinars and they didn’t turn out as planned don’t hesitate to grab your spot.
Finally, before I jump off, next week’s episode, #197, is with Marie Forleo. We are talking about a topic that we have never talked about online together. It is going to be so fantastic. I cannot wait to share it with you so make sure you do not miss next week’s episode.
Alright guys, I hope you have a wonderful day and I can’t wait to see you again next week. Bye for now.