7 Must Have Tools For Creating A Must-Attend Webinar

Webinars are loved by those who embrace them and feared by those who may be overwhelmed by speaking “in public” or the technical aspects.

We’ll dispel all your worries and show you how easy it is to get started with webinars. Delivered live, webinars are incredible. Sharing and teaching quality of content LIVE over the internet and around the glove to folks who are participants in the experience not passive attendees can really be something special and lucrative. Provide your best content, entertain and encourage engagement are you are well on your way.

Once you have a great recording of a high-converting webinar, you can used an automated or hybrid system to keep that webinar attracting audiences and closing more sales. If you’ve never thought about adding a webinar to your marketing mix, now is the time.

Webinars provide an amazing opportunity to connect with your audience. It is the ultimate way to add value and deliver top-quality content that your participants can relate to and take action to implement immediately in their lives, job, or business.

Why Not Video?

When it comes down to it, some people just record a video with the same content they could provide in a webinar. Some people record a “video sales letter” and pass it off as a webinar. The purpose of marketing is to add value to what you’re creating and offering to your customers. The question is, do you want a passive experience or an active experience? Webinars are live events and they are an active experience.

Along with the training content this information is not part of a discussion on a webinar. The depth, interaction, and even entertainment your participants will receive makes the webinar an individual experience.   Note: Your webinar can turn into a video once you record the live session.

Tools To Get Started With Webinars

Starting webinars can be a daunting task. With all the talk of funnels and conversion and traffic, and the scary technology you may not know what your actual first step should be. Here is a list detailing the tools you need to get started with webinars right away. There are links to the tools mentioned and of course you can use the search engine to find similar tools and country specific links. Most of the tools listed below are software as a service (SaaS). SaaS is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over a network, typically the Internet.

7 Must Have Tools For Creating A Must-Attend Webinar:

1. A Presentation Software Tool

The word “webinar” comes from “web” and “seminar”. The seminar is typically a training or demonstration. Some are live streamed which are more of “talking heads” unless you opt for studio quality streaming. We’ll talk about live streaming with the webinar platform.

The idea behind the presentation is to provide visuals to support the content.

Creating visual content such as graphs, charts, text, images, can be done with presentation tools such as paid software PowerPoint or Keynote. You can also use free software Google Slides or Open Office Impress to put it all together.

2. Stock Photo Images

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A webinar is an audio and visual experience. People do not want to just read text on a slide. Include images that create a bond and emotional connection and that supports the content you are teaching on your webinar.

There are many sites offering suggestions for images. Here are two compilations from Entrepreneur and Hongkiat

14 Amazingly Free Stock Photo Websites

30+ Websites for Stock Photos and Royalty Free Images

3. A Webinar Platform

To run a live event, you’ll need a webinar platform allow your prospects to register, show up live, and have the full experience.

There many webinar platforms available from free to thousands of dollars per month. Many offer a free trial period to try them out. Definitely take the time to test each one before going live. To get started, we recommend Meeting Burner http://freemeetingburner.com/ because of the ease of use, built in easy-to-customize registration pages, and paid webinar registration pages.

You can check out the following platforms:

• FreeMeetingBurner

• Google Hangouts

• WebinarJam (based on Google Hangouts)

• GoToWebinar

• Instant Teleseminar

To livestream, the most popular is Google Hangouts on air.  With the advent of video broadcasting such as Periscope your livestream me fall into “just another talking head” if you do not have visuals to go along with your training content.

4. Service to Capture Email Address

You can rely on the webinar platform to send confirmation, reminder and follow up email addresses. But how will you connect with these folks after the webinar?

You may already have an email auto-responder. You may already have a more sophisticated multi-use integrated service with email, campaigns, shopping cart. That’s great but if you don’t you need to capture email addresses.

There are free email services such as MailChimp that you can use to send email follow up messages and invite them to future webinars.

Your registration page can capture the email address. If you want to set up detailed webinar follow up and sales funnels, you can go to the experts at Insightful Automation. If you are ready to launch a webinar funnel, then Insightful Automation has the expertise to design one for you.

5. A Registration/Sign-Up Page

Once you’ve chosen a webinar platform, you will need a dedicated place where the traffic you send from social media, blog posts, and other forms of connection can land. This special web page called a landing page, sign up page, or registration page and can be part of the webinar platform. It can also be a custom web page or a part of a landing page service.

If you want custom pages contact the experts at Insightful Automation. They will help you launch a webinar funnel designed for you. Insightful Automation has implemented hundreds of sales funnels for clients ranging from incredibly complex to incredibly simple. They can discuss the best strategy to increase your conversion rates and optimize your landing pages. Most important is the user experience just as it is on live webinar. They can help you create a shopping cart checkout experience that is congruent with your current webinar. This ensures that the customer feels comfortable all the way through the buying process.

You can also use plugins for word press such as Optimize Press for your registration page. You can use SaaS software (online tool) such as LeadPages or the very popular Click Funnels for your webinar registration page and follow up thank you pages.

These dedicated registration pages have one single focus free of other distractions with the goal of getting the registration.

5. A Closing Action or Sales Page

You’ve all heard the phrase “take action” and that is exactly what we want the webinar participants to do – take an action.  And, that action should be a closing action that you determine in advance.

always be closing on your webinar

Always Be Closing scene Glengarry Glen Ross

Now the action, is a closing action and it comes at the close of the webinar. You share a link to a specific page which can be a sales page, a survey page, an application page, or any other closing action that fits the purpose of your webinar. Again you may use an online tool to create the page or create a custom web page.

It is always the POWER OF YOUR WEBINAR content and the value you provide (whether free or fee-based webinars) that will ultimately be the reason your participants take the action you request. You content will do the persuading and you can follow the famous Glengarry Glen Ross movie, and Always Be Closing. The CLOSE brings your participants closer to you, your offer and your desired outcome. Everybody benefits.

7. A Story that is Compelling

Start with a headline or sexy subject line:

7 Ways to Create a Seductive Webinar Title

Webinars can be used for lead generation, training, group content delivery, membership programs, awareness campaigns, and of course for sales. Webinars are extremely effective, but it starts with your story and webinar title. This is the copy around your pre-webinar emails, social posts, and registration page. This this story on the webinar itself. This is the continuation of the dialogue in the follow-up sequence after the webinar. If you are not great at copywriting, then hire a professional.

We really should have started with compelling copy but then you may have been confused that we are putting copy in the category of a tool. Even the most boring subject can be made interesting with the right approach and compelling words. Use your dictionary, thesaurus and a Descriptionary (thematic dictionary) to help you craft your message.

Remember people are giving you their most valuable asset, their time, when they show up and participate in your webinar. Make it exciting!

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