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How to Create a Webinar that Converts

61% of businesses use webinars to market their business. This is because they have an extremely high conversion rate.

Businesses use webinars for selling various things from software to services to even online courses.

If you aren’t using them you are missing out on a lot of leads and sales. Therefore, in this post, I am going to show you how to create a webinar that converts.

You will learn not only how to set up a webinar, but also how to set up everything else to promote it and get registrants.

Let’s get started…

Brainstorm webinar topics:

The first step towards creating a successful webinar is coming up with some topics. Picture your audience and think about the current problems they face. Then think about how you can use your expertise to provide solutions. These solutions should be the topic of your webinar.

Come up with at least 10 to 15 webinar topics. You should be able to share plenty of information on these topics as good webinars last 45 minutes to 1 hour. Some webinars are even 2 hours long. So, make sure they are meaty. Once you have a list of topics, prune them until you find the one that your audience will love most and want to attend.

An example of a Webinar on a great topic is The Anatomy of a High-Converting Mobile Landing Page from Unbounce. As Unbounce is a landing page tool and optimizing landing pages for mobile is a popular topic, this webinar will interest their target audience.

Choose webinar software:

Once you have selected a topic you should choose a webinar software. This can be a big headache as there are so many great options available. On the one hand you have all-inclusive webinar platforms that have everything you need to run a webinar including the landing pages to email autoresponders to the live webinar streaming itself and on the other hand, you have extremely specific ones that only let you live stream video.

What criteria to pay attention to?

Mobile access. Now, most of the attendees take part in the webinar from their smartphones. It is better to choose a platform with access from any device.
Free trial. It is cost savvy when you can try webinar software for free and then upgrade your plan if necessary.
Secure session. Unfortunately, not all platforms are safe. Some have a dozen security and privacy issues. So try to choose the most reliable and safe webinar platform.
Technical support. Sometimes you need to ask a question about the software. Give priority to those platforms which provide human support teams.

If you want to quickly pick one and avoid confusing yourself with all the options, you should take a look at all the software you have other than live video streaming, like landing pages, email service providers, etc.

If you have this software already you can opt for a simple tool that lets you only live stream, but if you don’t you can opt for a complete tool that has all the features required to run and promote the webinar.

Here’s a great guide on best webinar software to consider your options.

Create content for the webinar:

Some of your attendees will be visual learners, hence, your webinar should include slides to make it easy for people to follow what you’re saying. People will have something to look at instead of just listening to you. So, make some slides. The slides should be a combination of both text and graphs.

The slides will also come in handy should you forget something.

Also, create a PDF document that contains some extra information on the topic you plan to discuss as this can be used as an extra incentive to drive up registrations.

Create a landing page:

Once all the content is ready you can create the landing page to promote the webinar. This landing page should have an attractive headline, a sub-headline (if necessary) and copy that describes the content of the webinar. Write about the problems you will solve during the webinar and how it is going to benefit your audience.

Make sure you mention that it is free and include the date and time of the webinar. If you plan to promote it to people all over the world you should include the time in different time zones.

End the landing page copy with an opt-in form and call to action that asks people to sign up.

The people at Kissmetrics know how to create highly effective landing pages. Check out the landing page they created for their webinar on How to Build a Framework for Customer Empathy. It has a good headline, excellent copy and an opt-in form with a call to action.

You too should start setting up conversion focused simple webinar landing pages like these to promote your webinar.

Create a thank you page:

The thank you page is the page people are redirected to after they sign up for the webinar. This is something everyone who is running a webinar should create. On this page, you thank the person for signing up and remind them of the date and timing of the webinar.

You should also include links to Google and iCloud Calendars so that people can easily reserve time for them. About 46% of people who sign up for the webinar will attend the live event. Therefore, if you want similar results or higher, getting them to add this event to their calendar is an important step.

Also, add share buttons to the thank you page so people can invite their followers and friends to join them at the webinar.

Write reminders:

Every person who signs up should automatically receive a welcome email. The copy here should be similar to that on the thank you page. You thank them and inform them of the time and date of the webinar and place links to calendars.

But one reminder email won’t be sufficient, especially if you plan to promote this webinar days and weeks in advance. Make sure you send out similar reminder emails a couple of days before the webinar, on the day of the webinar, an hour before the webinar, 15 minutes before the webinar begins and when the webinar begins.

These might seem like a lot of emails. But you need to send them to get maximum attendees.

Write post-webinar emails:

You also need to write post-webinar emails where you send out a series of emails to webinar attendees. In these emails, you will not only promote the same products you promoted in the webinar, but also the webinar replay.

As aforementioned only about 46% of registrants will attend the live event, this is why it is important to upload the recorded version of the webinar onto a landing page and share links to it to everyone who signed up to the webinar. Some of the people who attended the live event will also watch the replay.

The replay will help convert some of the people who didn’t purchase the products you pitched during the live webinar.

You should send at least 2 to 3 emails that inform people about the replay and the products. But make sure you set the emails to pause automatically once the person converts from viewer to buyer.

Promote webinar:

Once you create the webinar and schedule all the automated emails to go out, you should begin promoting the webinar. There are many effective ways to promote a webinar. Here are a few of them…

Write a blog post: Inform your blog readers about the webinar by writing a blog post about it. Let them know everything you plan to cover and inform them of the time. End the post with a call to action that asks people to visit the landing page and sign up. You can place a sign-up form in the post itself.

Here’s an example of a blog post Shopify wrote to promote their Webinar on Dropshipping.

They also promote the webinar on their blog sidebar.

Share on social media: Share the links to your webinar on the social networks your audience is active on. Schedule several of these updates to go out in advance.

Run ads: Using ads to promote your webinar is something everyone who is running a webinar should do because as aforementioned webinar landing pages have a high conversion rate. Therefore, you will generate more email subscribers for your ad spend. Even if these people don’t convert to buyers during the webinar you can continue nurturing them and sell your products and services in the future. You can also share your latest content with them and increase traffic.

Team up with people: One of the most effective ways to generate plenty of webinar registrants is by teaming up with someone who has a huge email list. Ask them to promote your webinar and in exchange offer them a percentage of each sale made by someone they refer.

You can team up with a bunch or these influencers at a time or only work with one of them. Working with one influencer at a time can be more effective as you can then create a webinar that will only suit their subscribers. You can also create extra bonuses they will be interested in. This specificity can increase conversions.

Practice:

Once everything is set up and the webinar is being promoted, it is time for you to practice. Practice should include going through the slides you created and reading out loud. This should all be done while using the webinar software. This will help you familiarise yourself with the features of the software and will make you more confident.

You will then be able to present a wonderful webinar without any hiccups. So make sure you practice the webinar with the slides and the content 2 to 3 times at least. Ask one of your friends or employees to listen to you as well and offer feedback.

Now go create a webinar that converts…

These are all the steps you need to take to create a webinar that converts. Setting up and running webinars can take up a chunk of your time, but they are worth the effort as conversion rates are high. So follow all the above steps meticulously before you run your webinar.

content marketing strategy, webinars that convertApril 25, 2018

3 Advanced Tips to Integrate Social Media and Blogging to Get More Leads

According to Hubspot, marketers who use blogs generate 67% more leads than those who don’t. In fact, cost per lead using ‘SEO – content marketing’ (of which blogging is a major component) is the cheapest method when compared with other popular marketing methods.

Social media can help you generate plenty of affordable leads too. As displayed in the above graph, its cost per lead is only higher than SEO – content marketing.

Social media and blogging are definitely effective for generating leads when used individually. But what if you used them together, would it get you more leads? And how would you go about this?

To find out read the tips I share below. How to integrate social media into your blog to get more leads.

Provide social login/sign up options on opt-in forms:

Social login is when you let people sign up for your blog’s newsletter or lead magnet with their social media accounts instead of typing in their email address and other details.

An example below is the landing page from Long Radius.

As you can see they provided the option to either sign up for the guide with email or with social media accounts on Linkedin, Google+ or Facebook.

In the above post, they mention that the older version of the landing page only had an email sign up.

This is a screenshot of the older landing page.

After they switched this version with the landing page offering social login they were able to increase conversion by 52%. This increase occurs because it is a lot easier for visitors to just click a button and add in details instead of typing them in.

An increase in conversions isn’t the only benefit this offers. The other benefit is that you will get your leads’ best email address. People love social media and spend several hours on it daily. So, when they sign up for a social media account they will use their best email address to make sure they get regular email updates.

Therefore, when you capture a lead using social login, you will get the same email address they use for their social media account. This will be their most used email address and will help you reach them better.

Social login can be easily set up with a social login tool.

Add it to your blog’s landing pages, popup forms, and other opt-in forms.

Track site visitors:

A study found that on average blogs convert only 1.95% visits to leads while the top 10% have a conversion rate of 4.77%. This means that even if you are among the top bloggers, for every 100 visits only about 5 will turn into leads. 95 of them will leave and might never return.

To convert more of these lost leads, you can use an advanced analytics tool for tracking website visits, so you can find individual audience members and reach out to them via social media.

A tool like this provides specifics on the country they are from and the pages they visited to help you filter results. It also shows you if any of your Linkedin connections work at the company to make it easy to get in touch. If you haven’t got any connections that work here it will suggest people you can connect with.

If you are like me and mainly use your blog to get clients you will find this tool very useful. It also helps integrate Linkedin into your blog which is the best social network for B2B lead generation.

When I see a potential lead, I contact them with a Linkedin message. It works a lot like Linkedin’s ‘who viewed your profile’ feature. But it takes it to the next level by integrating your blog with Linkedin. If your blog generates a decent amount of traffic, you should definitely try this tool.

Add share buttons to encourage social recommendations:

Whose recommendations would you trust most on social media? One from a consumer or one from the brand itself.

I would definitely trust what a consumer who has no affiliation with a brand writes about them than what they brag about themselves. I am certain most people feel this way too.

Hence, you should make it easy for people to recommend your blog posts and lead magnets to their friends and followers by adding share buttons. This will drive more traffic and leads to your blog

If you want share buttons to offer strong social proof to everyone who lands on your website you should turn on the share count. Especially if your blog’s landing pages get shared a lot. When visitors see that the lead magnet has been shared plenty they will want to get a hold of it too because the shares indicate that it contains quality information.

Also, add the share buttons to the content’s page so people can share it while consuming the content or after they finish. Share buttons can be added to everything from videos to ebooks.

You can also add share buttons to your thank you page i.e. the page a lead is redirected to after signing up.

Bryan Harris found that when he did this on his thank you page and offered some extra free content in exchange for the share 54% of people shared it. This drove 3,498 new visits which converted to 349 subscribers.

Therefore, you must include share buttons on your blog’s landing pages, in the content itself and the thank you page too.

Social media and blogging together get you more leads.

As you can see above when social media and blogging are integrated they do generate more leads. They work really well together. The techniques I have discussed here are also very easy to set up and run. Hence, you should try them and boost your lead generation.

How do you integrate social media into your blogging? Has this helped you generate more leads? Please leave your comments below.

internet marketing, lead capture strategies, social media and bloggingFebruary 28, 2018

4 Things to Do Before You Run a Facebook Ad

If you want to drive paid traffic to a blog post or landing page you should use Facebook ads because they are very affordable. As this chart clearly indicates it costs only $0.25 to reach a 1000 people, cheaper than any other paid advertising method.

But to get the highest ROI for your investment you need to optimize the ad for clicks and you need to optimize your site for conversions. Many people fail with ads because they do not get the basics rights first.

Therefore, to help you get the most out of your ad, I have created this checklist on the 4 things you should do before running a Facebook ad…

Install the pixel:

A simple step you should perform before you run your ad is install the Facebook pixel on your website. The pixel is a code provided by Facebook. When you add it to your website it tracks visitors sent by an ad and shows you when a visit converted.

The pixel can also help you create custom audiences. Custom audience lets you display ads to all the people who visited your website or those who visited certain pages.

This data can be used to create high converting ads as you can target people who are familiar with your work. When you track individual pages you can increase conversions even further as you can serve highly targeted ads. Here’s a great guide from Jon Loomer on how to add the pixel.

Optimize site for sharing:

One way to get free traffic from an ad is by optimizing your website for sharing. People who visit your website from Facebook are already logged in. Hence, they only require the slightest of nudges to share your website.

The simplest way to go about this is by adding share buttons as a study by BrightEdge found that pages with the tweet button get 7 times more shares than those without. Hence, to get more shares on Facebook, you just need to add the Facebook share button.

Another thing you want to do is optimize the thumbnail image that is shared along with the link.

When a link is shared, an image is automatically picked as the thumbnail. If an image that is at least 560 X 292 pixels is set as the thumbnail, then the large thumbnail will appear. If it isn’t of these dimensions, then a small thumbnail (or no thumbnail) will appear.

If the large thumbnail appears your image will look better when shared and will drive back more free traffic.

A page well optimized for sharing is the article The Beginners Guide to Facebook Advertising by Adomas Baltagalvis.

The first thing they got right is the share buttons. They added plenty of them including Facebook share at the top.

And when you click on the Facebook share button the post is shared along with the large thumbnail. It also has a good headline and description as you can see above. This ensures that when a visitor from an ad shares it, it will drive back plenty of free traffic.

They also added an optin form to the side bar and at the end of the post to ensure traffic converts.

So make sure you optimize all your pages for sharing before sending traffic with the ads.

Check text percentage on ad:

Facebook used to have a strict rule that limited the amount of text on ad images to 20%. Ads were rejected when they had more text. They have discarded the rule, but now they limit the amount of reach the ad generates when the image has more than 20% text. If you add too much text you won’t get your money’s worth.

Therefore, always limit your text to less than 20%.

You can easily check the amount of text your ad image contains by using this Grid tool. All you need to do is upload your image and it places a grid in front of it. If text is present in more than 5 boxes it has more than 20% text and you need to delete some of it.

Run a test:

Before you dedicate high budgets for your ad, you need to test it out by only spending a few dollars on it or just running it for a day.

The best option for testing out ads is by targeting custom audiences created from your list or website traffic. You can then upgrade to look alike audiences and continue your testing before moving on to general targeting.

If you meticulously follow a testing process you should be able to get the highest ROI for your ads. Testing should be extremely easy to do now as Facebook lets you conduct split tests.

Testing will also help your ad gather some likes and comments which will increase social proof.

These are the 4 things you should before you run a Facebook ad. Start by optimizing the landing page by adding the pixel and share buttons. Also add a good Facebook thumbnail that is automatically picked when someone shares the webpage.

After that move onto the ad image and analyze the amount of text present on it. Finally, you can test the ad to see how well it converts before going live.

Do you follow a checklist to get the most out of your Facebook ads? What steps do you take before you run your ads? Please leave a comment below.

customizing your facebook ads, Facebook adsDecember 14, 2017