By Gil Dekel.
Here are golden rules to hosting a successful webinar. Everything you need to know in order to prepare, develop, design, promote, and run your effective webinar. I will explain what to do before, during, and after your webinar:
Before the webinar
Invent new names
The first thing you need to do is to invent new names for your topic or product. For example, Google doesn’t talk anymore about ‘pixels’; rather they talk about ‘retina display.’
Sell the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’
Develop a product that allows people benefit, without changing their habits. For example, some products to lose weight also promise that people can still eat chocolate… There are many products out there for losing weight – what’s the difference in your product? Design it so that people can still have the ‘bad’; that they can still eat chocolate… giving people the good and the bad.
What/how long
Tell people up front what they will learn and how long it will take them.
Small sections and give-aways
Cut your complete method (product, service) into small chunks, so that clients can take it and use it right away. Do not try to explain your complete course or product. You will have other webinars or courses where you can do that. In one and a half hour webinar, you don’t have time. You have to cut the content to small give-aways; small takeaways for people to apply it now, so they can use it and get immediate results.
I have developed a method which is called Streaming Knowledge Method. I can explain this method in 10 minutes. It takes me 10 minutes only to explain this method, and clients can use it straightaway. I call it Streaming Knowledge Method because it helps you to ‘stream’ and crystallize ideas, thoughts or aspirations clearly, and define what you want to achieve next. Very simple; it is a small give-away that people can take and apply immediately.
Curiosity
In your promotion emails and registration page make people curious. Talk about “The one thing that I have learned which changed my life. So effective and so simply. And this is the one thing I will share with you in my webinar.”
Talk about personalities: “Are you person type A or are you type B? We have found out that person B sells twice as much as person A. I will tell you about personality B in our webinar – join us.”
Tell people, “This is a webinar that will change your life” – so that it is worthwhile for people to watch it. You can also create a countdown on your registration page.
Presenter’s biography
When you describe your host, your presenter, make their biography relevant to the topic.
Testimonials are good but they convey a sell. They say to your client, “I want you to buy something and here’s another client that will tell you how good my product is.” So, testimonials are useful – but they do not talk about the presenter of the webinar. Why should I watch a webinar?
So you want a specific and relevant biography. Talk about yourself (the presenter) and what is your relevant experience to the product that you will introduce in the webinar.
Results in advance
Offer your clients results in advance, by giving them a free gift just for registering. Tell them in the marketing email that you will give a free bonus (a training video or a free PDF) just for registering and putting their details in the registration form. In that way people can start training in advance, and can have results even before they are watching your webinar.
Thank-you page
Once people register they will see a thank-you page. In that page, tell your users what to do next:
1. Add us to your calendar
2. Share us on the social network
3. Whitelist our email.
How to encourage people to login on time
Give people a bonus at the beginning of the webinar. Tell people in your email or the thank-you page, that 30 seconds into the webinar “I will give you a free bonus. I will ask a question and the first 10 people that answer the question in the chat box, will get a free gift – this will happen 30 seconds into the webinar. So make sure that you are coming up early to the webinar, make sure you’re on time because a minute after and you are going to lose this chance.”
Limit registration places
Limit your registration to certain amount of people, so that you can engage with them during the webinar. It is great to have 5,000 people attending your webinar, but can you engage with 5,000 through the chat box? Probably not. So limit the amount of people; to engage and also to make the webinar special.
Tell people in the thank-you page, “If you cannot attend, let us know so we can give your spot to someone on our waiting list.”
Build momentum – Email reminders
Two, three days before the webinar you can send reminders. In those emails you can offer free PDF so to build a momentum. Also people can start engaging with your content.
Tell people that this webinar is not for everyone. It is for certain people who are looking for XYZ results.
My own field is healing arts workshops, inspiration and creativity; so I tell people, “if you are looking to progress in life and heal, then this is the webinar for you.”
Encourage live webinar participation, and not the replay
Offer a certain tip which will be disclosed only on the live webinar, and not during the replay of the webinar. Tell your clients, “I’m going to give you a top tip only on the live webinar. It will not repeat on the replay. It took me years to learn that tip so I want to share it only with people who are committing to attend the live webinar.”
You can also tell people, “This top tip which I’m going to share only on the live webinar will be halfway through the webinar” so to make sure people are waiting for it.
During the webinar
Keep people’s interest all through the webinar
A day before the webinar (or on the start of the webinar itself), let people know that you are going to give another free gift at the end of the webinar, so it’s worthwhile to wait to the end of your webinar.
How to hold participants interest through to the end
Start your webinar with the end in mind. Be transparent about it. Tell people at the start, “I have an offer at the end of this webinar” but do it in a motivating way. Tell your users, “I’m going to give you 50 minutes of free service and advice.” In my case, I’ll guide meditations or channel information, giving useful tools to people – so I will say, “for the next 50 minutes I’m going to give you some free tools. Now if you think I’ve done my job well, if you think it was worthwhile for you, then at the end of this webinar, I’ll ask for 10 minutes of your time to listen to my offer – but only at the end, and only if you think I earned it.” Then ask people, “Is that ok with you?” and give them 10 seconds to reply in the chat box.
Create relations – story vs cv
At the start of your webinar, introduce yourself and talk about yourself; create a story. Don’t lay down long cv-style bullet points of all your achievements. Rather, talk about who you are.
My own CV is very long. I’m a doctor in art, design and media, I teach at the Open University, I’m also a Reiki Master/Teacher, I facilitate art healing consultations and workshops… – people don’t want to know about that. What they want to know is that you are a human being. So, instead of giving out my CV, I will talk about who I am, the challenges I had in life. It took me years to get to this Eureka moment where I realised that there are tools to help us in life. In my case, it’s about self-knowledge and healing. I realised some methods that can help everyone evolve; and I share these tools and how I learned about them – this is what I share in webinars.
Don’t talk about working at a certain job from year X to year Y. Rather, talk about the experience of working in that office and what you have learned.
Structure
The webinar should have three parts: Introduction, content (main body) and transition closing to your product.
– Introduction
Here you put the case for your product or service. You need to explain people why should they watch this webinar at all?
My field is healing, arts and inspiration. So, why should people come to my webinar? What in it for them?… I have to put the case for healing… I would talk about people being stuck in life, and looking for happiness. People tend to look for happiness in the ‘outside’ world, looking to be happy through a better job, a nicer car – which are all great – but you can never find happiness in those things if you don’t find happiness within you.
It is ok to progress in life and have bigger house. We all want more; there’s no problem with that. But this cannot make people happy. The Dalai Lama says he met many millionaires, and many of them are unhappy. Only when you are happy from within and ‘find’ yourself, you will then attract success with happiness. This is what I teach.
So, I will put this case, and I will say, “through healing, through meditation, through my product which develops people’s awareness of themselves, you can find your inner happiness. And when you find your inner happiness then you will be happier and more successful, because what you feel inside you attract from the outside.”
This is the case that I would put forward in the introduction. Very quick; why should people watch it? Because through my healing tools you can find happiness inside. And when you find happiness inside then you will find happiness outside.
You have to explain your product, why it is worthwhile.
– Content, the body of your webinar
Explain your product, exemplify and show it. In my case (healing and counselling services), I will facilitate live counselling session, with some advice and guided meditation empowerments.
– Transition into product
This is the closing of your webinar. In the closing, you want to mention your product. Make a transition; you don’t want to jump from the body content straight to say “Okay, now I have given you free guided meditation, free consultation, now I want you to buy my product.” You don’t want to do that. Instead you want a smooth transition.
So in my case, as I finish a guided meditation, gradually I will discuss the results with the participants, and I will then talk about the full product that they can buy from me.
Engage eyes, ears, fingers
Remember to engage your users’ full senses – the eyes, ears and fingers. Eyes: they are watching you. Ears: they hear your presentation. Fingers: let them discuss with you via the chat box. Simply stop every so often and ask a question. Give some 10 seconds for users to reply on the chat box. It could be very simple as, “Did you understand what I have just presented? What do you think about it? Take 10 seconds to reply…” Then just read what people write in the chat box. Engage your participants.
Encourage sells through valuable bonus
When you give a bonus, a free gift, make it so valuable and special that people will want to buy your product just for the bonus that comes with it. Weekly magazines work in this way, giving people free gifts attached to the magazines.
People can buy your product elsewhere but what’s the reason to watch your webinar? Well, you tell them, “I’m going to give you such a special bonus only during the webinar, if you buy my product today.”
Unique and time limited webinar
If something is special then it must expire. If your webinar is special, if the product you’re selling is special, tell people it will expire. Tell people it will be available only to the first 200 people to buy it.
The Promised Land
During your webinar, don’t focus on the module, the work that needs to be done to achieve the goals. Focus on the results and the feeling people get once they are there. Use such words as “Yes, you can do it. Wouldn’t it be great to feel enlightened?”
My area is about finding your inner sources, so I may say, “Wouldn’t it be great to have this knowledge that’s coming from within you? Wouldn’t it be great to have this inner source that can guide you and answer your questions faster and better than Google…” – give people the Promised Land.
I was born in Israel. Israel is sometimes known as the Promised Land. But did you know that according the story, it took them 40 years to travel from Egypt to Israel? 40 years they wandered in the desert, according the story, to the Promised Land. They had many challenges and they stopped many times on the way. But with each challenge, someone came and gave them this idea of the Promised Land. That kept them going, kept them pushing on.
You could do this journey from Egypt to Israel in four days, not 40 years. But they had to go through a process; taking them 40 years. And the point is, the Promised Land was given them.
Do the same thing. Give people the Promised Land. In your webinar don’t talk about the push-ups at 8am and the practise at 2pm. Rather, talk about the 6-pack; having a strong, healthy body and mind. How does it feel? Encourage people through the feeling of success. You only have one hour webinar. You cannot put everything there.
Now, my area is self-development, creativity, and finding yourself, and so I am transparent and I do talk about the challenges and process that people need to take to apply my methods. My field is about evolution, so I personally do talk about the fact that we need to practice. However, in my webinars I’ll give people the experience of meditations, so that they get a feeling of that Promised Land during the webinar…
Up-to-date
Keep your webinar current. Don’t talk in your webinar about the TV program that you watched last night because in the replay, in 6 months’ time, this TV program will probably not be broadcast anymore. You want your webinar to be up-to-date and relevant in two years’ time. Talk about the ‘ingredients’ of human beings, the reasons to use your products, the reasons to be happy, which are always relevant. Be current, relevant so your webinar replays are relevant to your future clients.
After the webinar
Promotions
When you finish the webinar, go on to social networking and write, “I just did this wonderful webinar.” Be truthful to yourself and talk about things that you’ve learned: “I did this wonderful webinar with people and guess what? I’ve learned something new today from the chat with participants. I am honoured to have given a lot to people, and also to receive something from them.”
Ask participants to share. You can offer them discount if they share.
Invite participants to share feedback with you. You can open a special web page where participants can share post-webinar thoughts, and even upload photos (if this is relevant to your product). You can also let participants know that you will post extra resources (PDFs, new videos, free audio recording) on that page for a limited time only.
Versatile
Once you finish your webinar, you can edit it and upload to YouTube. Versatile it; make PDFs, make mind-maps, make it so that it is accessible to more people in many different ways.
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I wish you much success with your webinar and selling your products. If you did enjoy this step-by-step guide; if it helped you, then feel free to share it. Good luck!
© Gil Dekel. Developed from advice received from Webinar Jam.
1 May 2015
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