The popularity of online education and e-learning is growing. The huge outbreak in 2020 pushed the trend even more. Hosting webinars is an effective marketing strategy for promoting online courses because webinars are inherently educational.
Webinar platforms typically have features that enable a lot more interaction than regular online conferences. Webinars also require attendees to sign up, making it a targeted lead generation tool.
Tip 1: Host live webinars to teach something practical
Webinars are online seminars, so your attendees are expecting to learn a practical skill or solve a certain problem by attending your webinar presentation.
The more practical and down-to-earth you can make your webinar, the more likely, it will attract signups. A good idea is to clearly explain what your attendees are able to do after attending your webinar.
Read more: How to create an awesome webinar presentation
If you’re selling online courses, you don’t have to give away your core curriculum or your secret sauce. And you typically can’t even do that, because webinars are typically around one hour, which includes:
- Introduction
- Problem statement
- Presenting your offer
- Taking Q&A
So, in total, you’d have about 30 minutes to teach them something. Don’t give away the core of your course, but make your attendees feel like there’s tons of value and what they’ve learned is just the tip of the iceberg.
Tip 2: Pick an attractive topic that sparks interest
People make snapshot decisions and judgements. The webinar topic is a key determinator if it’s going to attract massive signups and you’re going to fill a webinar room of 200 attendees. Or if it’s only you and a lonely cricket.
Some bad examples of webinar topics are:
- Programming for beginners
- Photoshop advanced course
- Improve your public speaking skills
Some good examples of webinar topics are:
- The 80/20 Rule of Learning JavaScript and Getting Hired as a Developer
- Top 5 Photoshop Skills You Didn’t Know [Practical & Hands-On]
- Fearless Public Speaking [Top Tips to Crush Every Presentation Ever]
It takes time to come up with the perfect webinar topic. A good practice is to brainstorm as many topic titles as you can. Choose four or five topics that you like the most and ask for an outside opinion.
Power words trigger emotions in your potential attendees. Try to use at least one of them in your webinar topic.
Tip 3: Keep your audience engaged and excited
Getting people to attend your webinar is only half the battle. Now you have to make it engaging and exciting. Your attendees are unforgiving and they’ll leave the webinar if it’s boring.
Some great ways to keep your audience engaged is to interact with them, for example:
- Greet them on webcam as they’re joining the webinar room, give a personal welcome
- When you really want to emphasize a point, turn off the slides for the time. It will direct focus.
- Use the whiteboard tool to illustrate your points. Draw on the slides to emphasize a point.
- Launch polls to ask for their opinion. Make the results public after the poll.
- Launch pre-configured videos to show examples and switch things up.
- Leave time for a Q&A at the end of the webinar. Try to answer as many questions as you can.
Plan out all the interactions and pre-configure them before the webinar. Make sure you choose a webinar software that enables audience interaction features.
Tip 4: Leverage urgency and social proof to make your offer attractive
As you’re reaching a point in your webinar where you’ve delivered some actionable content or tips that your attendees can use, it's time to make an offer to learn more and sign up for your online course.
Interactive offers on webinars work best if you’re launching them exactly when you’ve proven that you can actually teach them a lot more. Also, it’s best if you can make your offer as clear and as attractive as possible.
Make sure the webinar software you’re choosing allows you to customize your offer, add an image and create a clear and attractive call-to-action.
For an even better effect, you should make a special offer for your attendees. For example, offer a steep discount that will only last until the end of the webinar. Then enable the countdown timer. It will make them act fast if they’re seeing that the special offer is fleeting. For example, BigMarker is an excellent webinar platform for educational webinars.
Read more: Masterfully using deadlines to sell more courses
Another pro tip is to invite a previous satisfied customer to your webinar. Someone who has taken your course in the past.
When the time is right, invite them as a presenter. Let them give a 1-minute video testimonial. The social proof will dissolve doubts and increase your online course sales.
Read more: 8 Amazing social proof tips to boost online course sales
Tip 5: Personal follow-up goes a long way
Not all your webinar attendees are going to sign up for your online course during the webinar. Some people need time to think it over and count their dollars a bit.
That’s why it’s important to set up a proper webinar follow-up email sequence. A great webinar follow-up includes:
- Webinar replay recording video (webinar software will generate that automatically)
- Clear takeaways from the webinar (to reiterate the value they’ve got)
- The next action you want them to take (encourage them to buy the course)
- Something that gives a little push (e.g. limited time offer, extra resources)
It’s even better if you can include some inside jokes or something unique that happened during that webinar. That gives a personal touch and makes it seem like you genuinely care about them. Enough to teach them something live and write a personal email.
Key takeaways to boost your online course sales with webinars
A successful webinar starts with planning. Type out at least 30 webinar topic titles and choose the top four or five. Get someone to help you decide on the winning title. Also, when you’re planning your webinar, the meat of it should be something practical and interesting for your audience.
Prove that you’re skilled at what you teach and you can actually teach it in a practical way. If you can do that, you’ll create trust and win over your audience.
Keep your audience engaged throughout the webinar by launching a poll, an interactive offer and a Q&A session at the end of the webinar to dissolve objections. Make your offer attractive by enabling the urgency timer.
After the webinar, send a follow-up email to outline the key webinar takeaways, the replay and specific next steps you want them to take.
If you manage to do all these steps, your next webinar will be a huge success.
Read more: Top 6 webinar mistakes for online course entrepreneurs to avoid
