So you’ve gone through a rigorous Indoctrination schedule to get your registrants to attend your webinar. Now what? You have to keep those butts in those seats! You must get people to stay long enough to hear your offer so you can GET DA MONEY, recoup your ad spend, pay your electric bill, and eventually, get that hut in Fiji.
If you’re thinking “hard sell” is the way to do it, think again. If you’re thinking shenanigans or schtick, WRONG!
There are two intuitive, quality strategies you can utilize to keep your audience with you all the way to the pitch point and beyond.
- Immediate engagement with your audience
- Freemiums
So first, Immediate Engagement… Use the fact that you are LIVE to engage with your audience! Here, you have an opportunity to strategically use the polls, chat, and surveys to learn who exactly your audience is, allowing you to customize your pitch and cater to their specific needs.
Polls are also great to use at transition points and help to keep the pace energized. Some great questions to ask are:
How many people are having this problem?
On a scale of 1 to 5, how much is this problem holding you back?
These two questions are uber important because, they not only allow you to assess your audience, but they also agitate the pain! There will undoubtedly be someone who feels the pain acutely, and answers accordingly. You must jump on this and USE IT to illustrate one of the points of the webinar… A point that EASES THEIR PAIN.
Aside from the standard chat you moderate, answering requests for clarifications, etc., use your Chat for live Q&A! Done well, your Q&A can be a great time for conversions from attendee to customer simply because you’re offering yourself via your knowledge and experience in a way that others haven’t. You see, everyone who attends your webinar believes that their specific problem is unique, that no one else could possibly have the same experience. YOU know that virtually no problem is unique, but because the problem belongs to that attendee, THEY feel alone in their pain. Live Q&A allows you to address what THEY are doing WRONG and why the information you gave during the webinar is the answer to what ails them.
Now, for Surveys… Here’s your chance to find out directly from a specialized group the answer to questions about what the most important aspects in using the solution are for them, the people who need it. For example, aspects such as:
- Speed of results
- Ease of use
- Magnitude of success
- Price
- Requires ongoing assistance
All of these are a “benefit” to the user when you go to make your pitch.
You, as the Grand Poobah of whatever issue is being resolved as a result of using your Technique or Product X, know that something the attendees have already tried, “should” have probably worked. But, lucky you, it didn’t. So, here you have another opportunity to show them that YOUR methods, if done the way YOU say, will work when the other did not.
Now, to be clear, webinar surveys are NOT fact finding missions. Webinar surveys are, how we say, “telegraphing excitement”, or offering social proof. Giving the message: These people are in the same predicament you are, and look at all the ways we can help.
Now, in the same breath that you are telling people how you can help them with your product, why not go ahead and PROVE it, by offering a FREEMIUM. A Freemium means Free Premium gift. Everybody loves presents and everybody loves free stuff. Freemiums allow you to hit both targets AND build greater trust, engagement, and loyalty (we LOVE return customers), which leads to higher sales and cash in pocket for you. Remember, it’s not just about the “get”, it’s also about the “keep”. The keep, the keep, the keep.
So, let’s keep them by promising a Freemium as a reward or thank you for staying until the end of the webinar. You can tell them right up front,
“Just for attending today and staying until the end, you’ll get this super cool….”
Make sure you have a slide dedicated to the what (bonus freemium), with screenshots showing the where (more on that in a second), while you’re telling them the how (staying until the end).
Once you’ve completed the webinar presentation and are on the last slide, right before you begin your Q&A, go ahead and offer the bonus. Once you make the announcement and offer the link, you don’t ever have to mention it again. Just go ahead and focus on your Q&A.
Now, here’s the mostest, bestest, awesomest WHERE for location to place the link to your freemium. Oh man, this is flippin’ genius…. Your bonus freemium is a link on your actual ORDER PAGE. Let’s say it again! Your ORDER PAGE! This drives EVERYONE to your order page, where the BUY BUTTON lives. I’ve got chills!
Why is this so thrilling? Because the Order page is the promised land. It should be created to sell, not just show a lonely Add to Cart button. It contains social proof with exciting quotes, testimonials and a list of proven benefits.
Then, your link to the freemium lives at the bottom, where you find your TOS, Affiliates, and Privacy links. Having the link to the bonus here also prevents people from sticking around ONLY for the bonus and ignoring the offer. Once they see your dynamic, exciting page full of benefits, they’ll still want the bonus, but will also be clawing to get at the product and BUY.
*Quick pro-tip: make sure you have your link set to open in a new browser tab. This way, attendees can still benefit from the Q&A with the offer page open in front of them without interrupting the flow of the webinar. You never know what will come up in the Q&A that will have people smashing the buy button. This is what makes each webinar an EVENT. Anything can happen.*
Whew! There it is, folks! You just got da mohnay! You just got some cash! But, we are far from finished….