Using webinars to sell or presell

[peggyebring]

Hi Everyone

Has anybody been using webinars to sell or presell products. I'd be interested to know your experience, how you use them and how it worked out for you.

I am considering using webinars either to develop relationship with my list or during the pre-launch of my product (coming out soon).

Would you agree it is more appropriate for high ticket products because of the cost involved?

Any comment, tips are welcome! ;)

Thanks!

Peggy

[Janak Mehta]

I've used webinars to sell training products. It works very well. Think of webinars as online version for live event. Much easier and cheaper. We use gotowebinar.com I'm sure there are other tools out there but this one is the best I've found so far.

I've sold products from $97 to $497 on webinar. For higher price points (more than $1000) you probably need different approach (like make them apply/qualify)

It's a great relationship builder and it works great!

-Janak

[Paul Teague]

Hi Peggy,

I think that the accepted figures are that webinars convert at 10% or higher as most people who sign up and actually attend them are pre-sold already.

I suggest you check out a chap called Steven Essa who has turned webinars into an art form ... find him on YouTube and via his site at http://stevenessa.com/

Most people go for GoToWebinar which is pretty expensive these days ... however, if you sign up and tell them that you're a small business owner they will sometimes drop the fee back to the old $99 a month ... it worked for me when I tried it :-)

The free alternative is DimDim which is not as good as GoToWebinar, but it's getting there and it does many things much better ... like recording your webinar automatically.

The price difference is a big issue and I strongly suggest that you check out DimDim forst ... Reed Floren used it for his current Giveaway, so it's even got the attention of the big marketers nowadays.

It's a real hassle processing GoToWebinar replays, but if you get that far I've done a blog post on how to do it, it'll save you a lot of time: http://paulteague.com/2010/04/16/how-to-process-gotowebinar-video/

Finally, and I haven't had a chance to try this one yet - give Freebinar a try at http://www.freebinar.com/ ... I haven't used this one yet, but it's on my list of things to do.

A couple of useful tools that I've discovered too ... might as well mention them here in case they're useful :-)

Once you record a webinar, you can set it on auto-repeat at different times using a service like LiveWebinarReplay: http://livewebinarreplay.com/

That's a subscription site, so if you want something cheaper and without recurring payments, take a look at the Automated Webinar Script: http://cheapinternetmarketingtools.com/automated-webinar

PM me if I can help further, regards, Paul

PS No affiliate links in there :-)

[Emilis Strimaitis]

Webinars are really hot at the moment. Just you need to take them very seriously, because, like I said, it's hot, and marketers are making one after another, and it leads to cheap and lame webinars that are only one big salesletter. This makes it difficult to drive people to your webinars, because they might had enough of crappy webinars.

If you are thinking about holding a webinar, think about it like a paid seminar. People who are holding a paid seminar are usually not selling stuff, but they are sharing their knowledge, since you've already bought the ticket to their seminar, and they got their share of money. Think about it when you are holding FREE webinar. Don't try to sell anything too hard, use soft selling, don't turn out your webinar to one big salesletter video.

About conversion. People convert in webinars very well, my colleague managed to get 29% conversion rate, which is really impressive.

And what I can recommend from software is GoToWebinar. Why? Because of the simplicity. And nowadays people are used to GoToWebinar, so they won't have any technical issues connecting to your webinar (hopefully!).

[tajinder]

you can use to build the relationship during the pre-sell but i think it's more effective to user webinar to actually sell your product.

i recommend that first you teach some valuable lessons through webinars to your existing list in order to position yourself as an expert in their field.webinars usually have higher perceived value than teaching with normal how to videos.

then during the pre-launch phase you could offer to do webinars for your JV partners to help them in pre-selling to their list.a lot of marketers and gurus are using this technique.

so instead of doing the hard selling through the sales page you can webinar technique to do soft-selling tecnhique.you can demonstrate how to use your product works very good if you have software based products or teach them some of the techniques covered in your course.

it's kinda of teasing them to know more about their product and they would feel like buying it after learning all the tips and tricks that you have shown them

[rmartin33]

Agreed with the posters above! Webinars seem to be really hot right now as more people use them to sell & teach. Model seems to be similar to teleseminars in that they convert really high - I think there may be some psychology in it too- people feel like they've learned something & invested their time so they buy at the end thinking 'OK, now I know how to use this thing they are demonstrating, let me buy it!" And also, seeing someone drawing live on a virtual whiteboard makes you think you are part of the process too...:)

One of the more effective ways I've seen this used recently is the Plenty Of Fish case study recently put out by the guys at PPCBully- wasn't even live (I don't think), was just a tutorial. Good content, left you wanting more.

[Nick Sharp]

Some of my clients report success with stealthseminar dot com for webinars.

[tehnolife]

Yea...I have a few friends that made good money selling their products with Webinars!

[Greg Jacobs]

I have sold quite a bit (to say the least) over webinars this year. some info

1 - Pauls blog post on GTW processing is the only workflow that works. Follow it. I had to figure it out on my own to the same result as well
2 - A custom signup page with a video intro by the host can convert better (30-50%) than the standard GTW signup form (25% average) You can use FusionHQ or hack up your own script to blow the GTW signup into a squeeze. You should also be co-regging the leads into your autoresponder as well
3 - Live demo if you are selling a software works best. (I have never used a powerpoint)
4 - I will let these testing numbers speak for it self. On a $1k product. ... Open the cart at the end of the webinar - %3 conversions. or... open the cart to the first XX people to buy = 15% conversions. need a strong CTA
5 - mail the replay while opening the payment plan the next day.

You have just been given gold. Read carefully the 5 points above and mint yourself.

[silho]

Greg:

I agree with you with you 100%. I've sold $9.95 products and I've sold $887 products with webinars. And the funny thing was I wasn't even trying to sell. I didn't to the scarcity thing. I didn't have a countdown clock or anything like that. I was really just trying to give good content and train my members, but they all wanted to buy. I had to scramble to make quick buy button for everyone.

What a dumb problem to have!!!! :-) GTW is worth the $100 per month as long as you can monetize it.

[farfrombrooklyn]

Paul & Greg, thanks for the great info!