How to use webinars to market and promote your business

Graham McGregor says webinars are cheap to set up and hundreds of people can tune in live to watch you present and educate them about why they need your product or service. Image / iStock

One of my favourite experts on using webinars as a marketing tool is How to Webinar founder Andrew Roberts.

Roberts says webinars (or online seminars) are an extraordinary modern way to get your message, product or service in front of thousands of people.

They are cheap to set up, you can run them from anywhere in the world (you just need to have a good internet connection) and hundreds of people can tune in live to watch you present and educate them about why they need your product or service.

Let's look at three key factors in marketing with webinars
A: How can webinars fit into your business?
B: How do you get people registered?
C: What do you do when you run a webinar?

A: How can webinars fit into your business?
Burn out is the number one reason many entrepreneurs have to close their doors.

You see most business owners will generate a lead, maybe qualify the lead, have a meeting, go out and maybe make a sale, and if they don't, then keep following up until the prospect either buys or stops returning your calls.

Compare this to running a webinar.

You put some advertising around the Webinar

The Marketing allows many people to register for your Webinar.

You spend an hour with these people on your webinar, you invite them to purchase.

When you get good at it you can make multiple sales at once.

This frees up so much time for you and helps you avoid burnout

B: How to get people lined up and excited about attending your webinar
It's very important that you get people showing up for your Webinar.

McDonalds do not make the best hamburgers in town, yet they know how to market and sell their hamburgers very effectively.

Likewise, you don't have to have the greatest webinar presentation or topic in town.

You need to know how to market it well.

The number one thing that constitutes a successful Webinar is the topic.

In order to get big numbers on a Webinar you either choose a topic that people are searching for or, select a niche market.

The title of your webinar is king.

Compare these two titles; "How to grow your consulting business" versus "A five step blueprint to add seven to ten new high paying clients to your consulting business in the next 60 days without cold calling".

One way to start to get registrations for a webinar is through your current contacts that you permission to email and make contact with.

If you find that you don't have that list or you don't have that database at all, another excellent way is to use a joint venture or partnership.

You approach someone else who's targeting your niche and you ask them to promote your Webinar.

You see - if you approach someone else who has a list of your target audience (that you don't compete directly with) and ask them to market your Webinar to their list, you instantly pull people from their list onto yours.

There are many other ways you can get people to register for your Webinars. (Social media, guest blogging, Google advertising and direct mail are just a few examples.)

C: It's what you present and how you present it that counts
The key to getting people registered and showing up for your Webinar is running something of value - usually something that will fix a problem that your target audience is struggling with.

Here is the Webinar success formula that will help you achieve amazing results:
1: Have a strong introduction. What can you say to get people really excited and leaning in at the start of your Webinar - glued to your screen?
2. Stick strategy. What can you do to stick people to the end (so they don't decide half way through they have had enough)
3. Sales Story. You really need to use a sales story that connects with your audience
4. Two-three pieces of core content. Less is often more. Don't present too much information
5. Transition to close. You need to master the art of teaching and the moving towards next steps

When you get good at this, Andrew believes your conversion rates can be higher with a webinar presentation than through one-to-one sales.

In summary, here some steps you can take right now:
1. Decide you are going to use webinars and chose a webinar package
2. Set a date that you intend on running one
3. Create an offer for what you would like to sell at the back end
4. Create a presentation for the webinar.
5. Market the webinar
6. Run the webinar and enjoy the benefits of generating leads and sales

Webinars can be used by many businesses and are well worth considering as a marketing tool.

Technology is best when it brings people together.

American social media entrepreneur Matt Mullenweg

Action Exercise:
Andrew is running a free webinar on Friday September 11th that covers in detail how to use webinars as a marketing tool for any business. You can register here.

Graham McGregor is a consultant specialising in memorable marketing. Download his 396-page Unfair Business Advantage ebook at no charge from theunfairbusinessadvantage.com.