At some point in your coaching business, you are probably going to use a webinar to nurture your audience, build your email list or launch one of your courses/programs.  Like them or hate them, webinars work. They allow you to get directly in front of your audience in a live capacity. Nothing else (besides video) compares for showcasing your energy and personality.  And let’s face it, as a coach, people are buying “you”.

In this blog, I’m going to break down, step-by-step, how you can use a webinar as a marketing strategy in your coaching business.  We are going to discuss the difference between a live and on-demand webinar, how to strategize on your webinar topic, all the emails you will need and everything else that is required to build a successful webinar funnel.

But don’t let the word “funnel” intimidate you.  Your funnel is simply the journey, from beginning to end, that your customer will go on before becoming your client.  So let’s dive in…

Step 1:  Choose a Live or On-demand Webinar

Live webinars are engaging interactive experiences that are held in real-time. These can be a great way for you to connect with your audience and create meaningful interaction online. During the live event, you will lead a discussion and answer any questions from the attending participants. Live webinars also typically offer unique features such as polls, surveys, or other types of interactive elements that can help engage the audience.

On-demand webinars, on the other hand, are pre-recorded versions of a live event. These sessions can be watched at any time and offer attendees an opportunity to view a presentation without needing to attend it live. On-demand webinars typically do not have as many interactive features as live webinars, however they can still be a great way to get key messages across without needing to be present at the actual event.

How do you choose which type of webinar you will use?  Here are some things to consider:

• Live webinars provide a more immersive experience, allowing you to interact directly with your participants, asking them questions and receiving answers via chat, or responding to the questions they ask you online.
• Live webinars are great for large audiences. For instance, one of my clients just hosted a live webinar with over 800 participants.  The more people, the greater the interaction.
• Live webinars work well when you are first introducing a new topic and you aren’t sure how well received it might be.  You can gauge the number of sign ups and receive direct feedback from the audience members. This allows room for improvement.
• On-demand webinars are great for busy people that don’t have time to attend live and want to watch at a time that is convenient for them.
• On-demand webinars work great when you know you have a popular topic and you want to use it at the top of your funnel to introduce prospects to your business.
• On-demand webinars are often used in an evergreen funnel, where ongoing marketing campaigns are aimed at enrolling participants year round.

Both types of webinars can be powerful tools for you to connect with your audience and share important information in an interactive way.

Curious about what webinar platform to use?  Besides the popular Zoom, GoToWebinar, and WebEx, here are more options that are considered great solutions for marketers.

Step 2:  Decide on Your Webinar Topic

There is a lot of strategy involved in choosing your webinar topic and is something that should be considered carefully.  Here are some rules of thumb you can use to pick a topic that will convert for your audience.

1. Always start with the end in mind.  What offer are you selling at the bottom of your funnel?  Your webinar topic needs to be related to your offer.  Because, in most webinars, you will make a pitch to your audience for your offer, you want the webinar topic to be the first step in that process.
2. Normally I advise coaches to look at what you are teaching in your offer. Then choose to do a brief overview of the steps (what and why) as your topic, or dive deep into one of the steps of the transformation (what, why and how).  Let them know they will learn the rest when they invest in your course/program.
3. If you are using a webinar to nurture your audience or build your lead list, then choose a topic that solves a particular problem you know they are struggling with.
4. The sweet spot for length is between 30 and 90 minutes. So make sure you can cover your topic well during that time period.
5. Do not be afraid to provide value.  Yes, you are giving away information for free. That is why your audience is attending.  If your free content is good, imagine how good your paid content will be.  Avoid fluffy content that is focused on selling.  It will turn your audience off.
6. Choose a high-converting name for your webinar topic. Don’t try to get too cutesy and confuse your audience. Your name should focus on the transformation this webinar will provide.  Use words you know your target market is using so they immediately resonate. And remember AI can be a great tool to help you brainstorm titles.  

Step 3:  Build Your Optin Page

Your optin page is the landing page you build on your website for people to register for the webinar. Regardless if your webinar is live or on-demand, you need people to register so you can capture their email address and add them to your email marketing software.

The two most important elements to your optin page are copy and design.  If you are not experienced in writing copy that converts or designing landing pages, this is something you want to outsource.  Our in-house copywriter and landing page designer can create a beautiful webinar optin page for you.  Just schedule a call here to discuss your project.

But if you decide to DIY, here is what you need to include on your page:

• Headline that incorporates your webinar topic title
• Date and time if it’s a live webinar
• Benefits of the webinar
• Who this webinar is for
• A brief bio of yourself
• Optin box to capture name and email address

Here are some sample pieces of a high-converting webinar optin page:

Step 4:  Promote Your Webinar

Essentially, there are two audiences you can promote your webinar to.  One is your existing email list and the other is people online that do not know about you yet. The approaches to invite these two audiences are different.

To Invite Your Existing Email List

For your existing email list, you will have a series of what we call “invitation emails”.  Normally you will start promoting your webinar 10-14 days before the live webinar.  During that time period, you will send out approximately 3-4 emails that inform your email list about the webinar and the benefits of attending. These emails will drive your audience to your webinar optin page for them to register.  Even though they are on your email list already, you want them to be captured in a specific list for webinar participants.

To Promote to New People

There are 3 primary strategies that work well for getting new people to register for your webinar.

Organic social media:  Share the details of your webinar on all your favorite social media platforms. Write and design eye-catching social posts that convert prospects and send them to your registration page.  If you have your own podcast or YouTube channel, don’t forget to use these platforms as well.

Paid advertising:  Use FB/IG or other social media advertising campaigns to promote your webinar.  Using paid advertising is like pouring gasoline on the fire and watching it grow.

Joint ventures:  Find collaboration partners that are willing to help you promote your webinar. Aim for individuals that have larger email lists than you.  Some of these joint ventures are paid, while others may work with a swap arrangement.

When promoting to new people, the primary goal is to get them to register for the webinar and get added to your email list.

Step 5: Follow Up with Attendees

Once people have registered for your webinar, you want to keep following up with them. People are busy and they often forget they registered for your event.  It is your job to keep them interested and engaged, and you do that with your follow up emails.

There are a series of emails you want to set up to automatically deliver to all your webinar attendees:

• Confirmation Email:  This is the email they receive immediately after they register.  Let them know they are confirmed, reiterate the details of the webinar, the benefits for attending, and ask them to mark their calendar.
• Show Up Emails:  These are emails you will send 3-4 days before the event. Depending on how long you choose to promote the event, it’s good to keep your attendees excited about the webinar several days in advance.
• Reminder Emails:  I like to send 3 reminder emails:  48 hour, 24 hour and 1 hour before the webinar event.  These emails can be short, sweet and a gentle reminder to make sure they attend.
• Replay Email:  This is an email you will send out to everyone with a replay of the event (unless you choose not to do a replay).  This goes out to everyone so people can re-watch or watch if they missed the live webinar.

Step 6:  Conduct the Webinar

Whether you choose to do a live or on-demand webinar, the event needs to be delivered to your participants either on the day of the event or as a pre-recorded event.

If you are using this webinar to nurture your audience or just build your leads list and you are not promoting an offer right now, there still needs to be some sort of call to action.  Deliver the content of the webinar but tell your audience what the next steps are.  Book a call with you, follow you on social media, subscribe to your podcast, join your Facebook group, or some other action you want them to take.

But most of the time, you will be using a webinar event to sell one of your courses/programs. As I mentioned above, give your audience some valuable content and leave 10-15 minutes at the end of your webinar to deliver your sales pitch.  Outline your value proposition, provide the details of your offer and give your attendees an incentive to take action now.

Step 7:  Sell Your Offer

At the very bottom of your webinar funnel is the goal of converting your webinar attendees into paying clients.  Although you are making a pitch for your offer in your webinar, the selling does not stop there.

You will need sales emails that are designed to help you get new clients.  I normally recommend a series of 5-7 emails that have very specific objectives. And these are…

1. Introduce your prospects to your offer
2. Acknowledge the struggles your market has and tie in your offer as the solution
3. Highlight the benefits your audience can expect to receive
4. Share stories of transformation other clients (or you) have experienced
5. Answer frequently asked questions you know your audience will have
6. Given them an incentive to take action now with limited time discounts, bonuses and/or a closing window to buy

These emails should be written with a marketing mindset, so if conversion copywriting is not your skillset, make sure you hire a skilled copywriter.  Start sending this series of emails out immediately following your webinar and choose an end date for these emails to be 7-10 days from your webinar event.

Webinars can be a powerful tool for getting new coaching clients, but only if you build a strategic and effective webinar funnel that does the heavy lifting for you.  At Amazing OBM, we build amazing funnels all the time for coaches.  Contact us today to schedule a 30 minute consultation.