In Part One of this two part series, we discussed webinar follow-up that consists of a carefully crafted, seven-step, replay strategy.
*If you haven’t yet read Part One, I encourage you to do so before reading further.
In Part Two (the part you’re about to read), we’re going to construct a killer email series to promote your webinar replay and, as a result, maximize your sales.
At the end, I’m going to share an awesome bonus tip that has the potential to deliver more visitors to your replay than attended your live event!
But please don’t skip ahead to see what it is. It’ll make more sense in context of the whole article, so finger off the scroll bar. Think of it as the cheesecake reward for first eating all of your veggies!
Email 1 – The Reviews Are In
Following the guidance in the previous article, you’ve now spent a fair amount of time practicing, testing, tweaking, and polishing your webinar replay video and page. Right? So it makes very little sense to waste that effort by shooting out a couple of half-arsed emails saying, “Here’s the replay! Enjoy!”
Your follow-up emails need to be crafted with deliberate care.
Start by reviewing your webinar chat box history (you can find this information in your WebinarJam Analytics). Pull out all the positive comments. If you’ve received any emails containing positive feedback, save these as well.
You can increase the feedback you receive by specifically asking for it during your live webinar. Chat box messages are great, but encourage people to go and post on your Facebook page – that way, when you use these comments as testimonials, you can take screenshots that include the commenter’s Facebook pic. Social proof is always more effective when people can see that it’s come from a real person.
Once you have a nice collection of comments about your live webinar, pick out half a dozen of the best messages and use them as the thrust of your first email. The angle should be along these lines…
“The webinar was phenomenal! If you missed it, here’s what people have been saying…”
Then, and only then, announce that a recording of the webinar is available. But just before you deliver the link, be sure to warn your readers that the replay, in a few days’ time, will be archived and unavailable.
Make sure you word it in that fashion because you want to retain the option to reuse the content at some point in the future. But, in the short-term, the replay will only be online for a few days.
Email 2 – Top Three Questions
Your second email is the place to start teasing a little bit about the content of the webinar.
You can briefly recap the webinar theme in 1-2 sentences if you like, but don’t make this the main portion of the email. If the promised webinar content didn’t get your reader to the live event in the first place, it’s unlikely to get them jumping onto the replay.
Instead, focus on the Q&A section of your webinar where you’ve covered really interesting and useful subjects that weren’t originally intended to be part of your presentation. It’s THESE questions – and the answers to them – that may grab the attention of your reader in a way that your pre-webinar marketing did not.
Pick out the three best questions that were asked during your Q&A. Better yet, choose the three questions that allowed you to deliver really great answers and share them in your email.
Naturally, in this communication, you’re ONLY going to share the questions. Do not share the answers here.
To get the solutions to these great questions, your dear reader is going to have to check out your webinar.
You can even use one of the questions as your email subject line, using this format…
SOLVED: <Intriguing and attention-grabbing question>
Email 3 – Last Call
Your third and final email is the place to hit the scarcity button hard.
Start with the positive.
Remind your readers again how great the response to your webinar has been, and throw in a couple more quotes from your list of amazing comments. Then, immediately segue into the bad news…
This is the LAST opportunity to watch the replay before it goes away.
This is also YOUR last opportunity to get your reader to click and watch, so don’t be afraid to really pluck that “Oh no, I’m going to miss out” cord of anxiety that your reader might be feeling.
Use phrases like, “Tomorrow will be too late,” and “I’d hate for you to look back on this moment and regret not taking action.”
Depending on the nature of your Offer, you can also play up the concept of those that have already purchased as being part of a private, closed-door community, all moving towards success.
This is your last chance to join us…
You don’t have to be creepy about it, but this is the last email you’re going to send about this webinar, so you have some freedom to lay it on thick.
Targeting the “Others”
Live webinars are great. They have an energy and an urgency that a replay just doesn’t have. This is one of the reasons why sales conversions tend to be better on the live event than on the replay.
But, (and this is a Kim Kardashian-sized but) it’s still possible to earn more money from your replay, even when your conversions are lower, simply by having MORE people view your replay than attended your live event.
This is a more realistic ambition than you might think, especially when you consider that it’s fairly common for less than 50% of registrants to turn up for the live event.
There are plenty of people out there who are more than interested in what you have to say and what you have to offer, but just don’t have the circumstances or the drive to turn up, on time, to a scheduled live webinar.
There’s no reason why you should exclude them.
No reason, whatsoever.
Until your live webinar has finished, by all means put your focus and attention on your attendees. These will still, for the most part, be your best customers. But after that point, turn your attention to everyone else and market your replay as aggressively as you feel comfortable with.
Start with the people that registered but didn’t attend. That’s a good warm list to attack. But also – and this is the awesome bonus tip – target the people that visited your webinar registration page and DIDN’T register.
It’s easy to dismiss these people as being uninterested in your webinar, but it may simply be that they don’t like the idea of having to schedule time to attend a live event. They could be the kind of person that much prefers the idea of watching a recording late at night when the kids are asleep. How do I know this? Because I am one of them.
Or, what about the other people who would have loved to attend the live event but just had a prior engagement?
If you’ve held back the information that a replay was going to be posted after the live event, there will absolutely be people out there with giant, genuine pouts because they really wanted to watch your webinar, but couldn’t get out of dinner with the in-laws (there’s only so many times you can fake the flu).
And here’s the really cool idea that most never even consider…
Don’t just email these people – set up a retargeting advertising campaign that specifically goes after individuals that visited your registration page and didn’t sign up! Cookies rule in so many ways!
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We’ve managed webinar campaigns where as much as 75% of our sales came from the replay. I know I’ve mentioned this already, but it’s worth a little repetition because it is why we never view webinar follow-up as an afterthought.
If you regularly host sales webinars, one of the best things you can do is change your perspective on your event campaigns. Instead of viewing the end of the live webinar as the end of the journey, mentally set the conclusion as being the moment when you take down your replay page.
Your webinar follow-up should be tackled with just as much verve and enthusiasm as the initial promotion and the live webinar itself.
Only then can you maximize your webinar views and, more importantly, your webinar profits.
If you’ve been in the market for a webinar service, but live events just aren’t your thing, have you considered Automation? Check out EverWebinar for all the details on totally automated, converting crushing events.