Austin Rotter is a veteran media strategist with over a decade of experience in the industry. Here he shares five tips to help companies cash in on Webinars.
Webinars are a terrific way to capitalize on your potential and promote your product to a wider audience without any significant upfront cost. The idea of webinars didn’t catch on until 2020 when most gatherings around the world got banned, and businesses rapidly adapted to the online format. Since then, there’s been a huge surge in webinars and other such virtual events.
Today, businesses are trying more than ever to grow internationally. Webinars, in this regard, hold a prominent place in helping them reach out to their audiences with a personal touch added. Hosting webinars is, therefore, a great way to generate leads and increase revenue while earning loyal clients.
In this article, we present five of Austin Rotter’s best suggestions for monetizing your webinars. However, before proceeding, we strongly advise you to consider the following tips. They will help attract more clients and improve your sales significantly.
1. Understand Who Your Audience Is
Before jumping on to the organizing part, the first thing you need to figure out is who your audience is and what interests them. Or, if you already have the desired audience in mind, the question would be rephrased as “how can you reach out to them effectively.”
Learn more about what would interest them by running polls or sharing surveys on your social media channels.
2. Generate Demand for Your Webinar
One of the most common mistakes people make is that they begin asking customers to join their webinars without actually creating awareness or the hype necessary to get them motivated. Generating demand simply means rolling out why the cause you are working for or the product you are selling can make a change. Who is it for? What positive impacts it will have on them? And the list goes on.
You can do this by creating and sharing infographics, posts, case studies, and videos on various platforms and build on why the topic is actually an issue.
3. Promote on Multiple Platforms
Promoting to a wider audience always comes in handy than confining yourself to a smaller group of interested folks. If you don’t advertise your webinars enough, you will never be able to reach out to enough people.
Use every medium you can and keep track of the time you post. Regular updates and build-up to the event day help intrigue attendees further as they wait to get their hands on the ticket.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram have given businesses the leverage to be connected with their consumers at all times. So, if you aren’t very active there, take the time now and start engaging.
Now that we know why and how to engage your clients in advance, here are the top five tips from Austin Rotter that will help you create massive revenue through your webinars.
1. Add a Registration Fee via Your Website or Through a Third-Party
One of the simplest ways to monetize your webinar is to keep a registration fee for anyone that wants to join the webinar. However, choose this option only if you have promoted it enough and have found attendees genuinely interested in the topic.
You can set up either your own website to collect payments or have a third-party event management platform such as Eventbrite.
2. Include Paid Subscription in a Free Webinar
Although a registration fee helps you keep clients interested, and it is almost certain that they will join, it is not always very effective in getting them to sign up. That’s especially true if your business is new.
It is, therefore, best practice to offer your webinar in two rounds, the first round is free of charge, and the second one is to be paid for. This could be, for example, if you are teaching sales techniques, you can discuss all the reasons why having great strategies help in the first round and save your premium tips for the second round (which will be a paid one).
3. Give a Brief Demo on Your Product or Service
While you’re capturing the audience’s attention with all the information you deem necessary, it’s time you bring in your sample to the table. Describe how it works. For example, in the case of software that you’re selling, you can start off by personally exercising all the features it has. If you have time, you can let them experience it firsthand as well by giving them safe login access.
Once you’re done with the demo, display the pricing plan. Keep the pricing to the final few minutes of the webinar and try to describe it casually rather than stressing too much because otherwise, it might sound rude or pushy.
4. Offer Handouts and Complementary Resources
Now that you have explained all about your service in detail, it’s time you give away a freebie. It could be a short free book or free limited access to the product. This helps engrain your business’ picture in their mind, and if they find it useful, they will have enough time to think and buy the other services you’re offering.
5. Promote Your Next Paid Webinar
When you are nearing the end of your first webinar, it is now the time to advertise for your next paid webinar. It wouldn’t just be the same one. Instead, it would be a more detailed one where you can provide training sessions, complete tutorials, the entire process behind your service, etc.
Usually, if someone finds the first webinar useful, they will want to subscribe to the next one as well. It is always best to give away a flavor of what you’re offering and how people can benefit from it rather than asking for a fee straight up. It is also advisable to declare and organize all of the topics you will cover in the description before the event. A client who is well-informed is always more likely to choose your service rather than one who joins in with no knowledge of what will be covered in the course.
So there you have it; you just learned five proven strategies from an industry-leading expert, Austin Rotter, to make big bucks through webinars. Now is the time to get in on the action and reap the rewards for years to come.
Happy cashing in!