In this episode, we’re addressing whether webinars still work and why we still recommend webinars to our students.
Be sure to grab our free Ultimate Webinar Checklist too so you're fully prepared for your first webinar.
Here is our take on doing webinars:
“Will webinars still work?”
A lot of people always ask if it is still worth it to do webinars since so many people go on social media and complain about how they're so sick of webinars.
What if webinars already had their day and that ship has sailed?
They're afraid that it's too late.
So is it still worth it to do webinars?
Yes. And it's still the best way to grow your list quickly.
“But everyone is doing webinars now.”
Webinars have definitely become more popular today with all of the resources that have been available on creating webinars (like Webinar Rockstar®!)
All this means is that you have to do webinars differently today than how people did webinars two years ago.
In this post, we're going to focus on what's working right now and what we see working in the future.
Webinar strategies have changed
One of the key ways to keep webinars working for you is to respond to how other people are feeling about webinars.
For example, when the market says that webinars are too long, make your webinars shorter.
If people are saying that a webinar is just 30 minutes of listening to a person talk about themselves, then cut that entire section out.
You really want to adapt your webinar to the current feedback.
“Do you have to do webinars in your business?”
You don't have to do anything, really.
You could creep along, trying to figure out how to slowly build your e-mail list.
Or you could do webinars and make your e-mail list explode.
The question really is, are you willing to step outside of your comfort zone and show up to make things happen faster for you?
Webinars help you get a surge of new people and that's how the Mariah Coz brand grew so quickly.
I was doing at least one webinar every single week.
You can do it less often but even when you do do it, you will see much more substantial growth in a shorter period of time.
This is the fast track.
When your industry isn't used to webinars
You might be thinking that you audience doesn't even know what a webinar is.
Maybe you're worried that people in your industry don't care about webinars or that they don't know what it is.
It means you're the first person to do it in your niche because the other experts in your industry haven't figured it out yet.
You are sitting on a gold mine, especially since you're not in a niche where people are bombarded by webinars all day long.
The new way of doing webinars
At one point, a webinar was usually about 90 minutes long or even two hours long.
You think that the more you give, the better- right?
The truth is that people don't really see more value in a longer webinar, especially today when there are so many webinars and opportunities.
Your webinar will actually stand out more if you keep it short and to the point, because you're not wasting time giving a 20 minute background story on how you used to be so poor and awful and now you're the best.
Just cut all that out and shorten it down.
Focus on giving one quick strategy.
Keep it roughly 30 minutes. You can add an extra 15 minutes at the end, for a live Q&A.
Being specific is the best practice
You want to provide one tiny quick win for people.
In the new way of doing webinars, less is more, both in the time you spend and in the time commitment people need to make in order to get something out of your webinar.
We often see a mistake people make where someone may outline a 6 or 12 month process and then by the time their pitch comes, there's just too much.
The audience gets overwhelmed.
What we want you to do is to keep it specific so it's appealing.
Promise them a win and a solution so they know that you are teaching them real stuff.
Not fluff.
Hybrid-style webinar
In the old days, you would just have a powerpoint presentation and you wouldn't have to show your face.
This won't really work anymore so to stand out, you'll have to take it to the next level.
It might be scary, but showing your face is what builds a real connection to your audience.
Show your face on camera for the first and last ten minutes of the webinar so people can see that you are a real person.
Introduce yourself and greet people in the beginning and then at the end, turn off slide sharing and show yourself again.
You don't have to be fancy, just be yourself and have fun!