Hello and welcome to the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. And my name is Melanie.Today I am joined by Sarah Gray, who is a sales attraction coach with Sarah Gray Coaching. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you, Melanie. I'm so excited to be here on the podcast and share some marketing tips with you.
Yeah, that's exactly what we're here to do today. We're going to be learning how to market a webinar. Now, this has become obviously very prevalent since 2020. And this is where you've really stood out and shone, hasn't it? Your journey has been quite epic since 2019.
Yeah.So when the pandemic hit in March 2020, my business became obsolete because I had a live events marketing business. And suddenly all events got cancelled. So in March 2020, I realized that everyone was moving to webinars. And suddenly I got over 500 clients looking to get their webinars out there in the world and everything from coaches, consultants, freelancers, service-based entrepreneurs, everyone's using webinars to add value to their audience and to close clients.And it became an obsession of mine ever since. Two years since the start of the pandemic. And webinars has completely changed already. And what I've noticed is people now are enjoying small, intimate webinars with no fancy tech, no fancy software. So any business owner can use webinars to get in front of the right people and close clients.
So that's actually a great segue there. So who can create webinars? So you reckon any business can create webinars?
Yeah.So my recommendation is the businesses who are service-based businesses.
Right.
Are the most suited to the webinar format. Now, anyone who's listening when I say webinar, what I mean is a free 1 hour live video with attendees where you're teaching three secrets regarding your topic.
Right.
So, for example, if you were a health coach, you could teach three ways to lose weight without restrictive dieting. If you were a business coach, you could teach three ways to increase your pricing. It's basically a top of mind problem or a top of mind goal that your audience has. And they'll say, yeah, I want to know about this. And they register for free and show up live as an attendee on your webinar. And I've noticed that people who sell services are getting the best results with webinars.
Okay.So that's interesting to point. So who can do them? I mean, you're saying service-based, but would it be startups or established businesses or is there any difference? Can both do it?
There's no difference because people who are start up or people who are very experienced, it all comes down to, is there a problem that you solve that someone would want to join a webinar on? So I've seen people use webinars to launch their businesses. And I've seen someone with a business of 20 years turned webinars as one of a new marketing tool that they are adding to their business. So really, I believe it's any service-based business owner. And I think it can be from startups all the way to very established businesses.
Now, do you think because in person events have started coming back, do you thinkWebinars are now going to start suffering or is it something that will still be used as much?
Yes.Like a lot of statistics out there. And what I've noticed with my clients is the attendee rate has dropped when the pandemic started. Oh, my God. You'd get hundreds registered from a simple social media post or a LinkedIn event and you get a load registered for your webinar. I do see less attendance, but I see people having the same results because they're having smaller, intimate webinars, but they're still getting really, really good results. So what I think now is it just means that you need to stop thinking of quantity and start thinking of quality.
AndI'm sure when you were saying startups launch their business with Webinars, that must be a real job, especially as a complete startup, because you're going to have to create your audience in the first place. How do you help people do that?
Yeah.So the marketing of Webinars is probably what I enjoy the most. And when people think Webinars, they think, oh, this can be so complicated. I don't know how to even get started. And if you're a new business owner, service-based business owner, you could just get 20 of your friends who would be interested in your topic join and you send them a quick text and invite them. It can be so simple.And I believe you should focus on organic ways of filling your webinar. Now it's going to be online promoting, not advertising. And then it's made through either your own network, your own connections, or partnering with someone who has those who has that audience.
So this technique that you've honed and worked on, I'm sure you've made some mistakes along the way. What kind of problems have you had to overcome in order to get this right, Sarah?
Yeah.So at the start, when I first did my webinars, I thought I needed really expensive technology and expensive software. And I invested in a lot of Webinar softwares and I didn't need them. And they were complicated. And I had complicated funnels with these complicated emails and all this kind of stuff.And that was the biggest mistake I made at the start. And now what I say to people is all you need is a Zoom account, and you can do it in Zoom meetings.You don't even need Zoom webinars and stop overcomplicating the tech part of it. And you don't need fancy graphics. You don't need any of that. People just need to know that you can solve a problem for them, give them some value and invite them to a call or sell live. The other thing I think I did was I tried to market to the same audience each month. You need building a new audience with anew type of webinar each month. So people are like, oh, hey, this is some thing new and exciting. So don't bore your audience. And the third thing is I used to obsess with the numbers. How many are registered? How many are registered? And now I see people, my clients and myself included. I could have a webinar of 50people and I could close six figures. And it doesn't have to be these hundreds that I used to get at the start of the pandemics. They're the main three things that I did wrong and that I don't do thankfully anymore. And I'll always,Melanie, I'll always do webinars. It's something I did three last month. And it's something that is so easy for any service-based entrepreneur who likes to talk. You got to like to talk, you have to like to speak, and you don't have to be a pause speaker. And you have to put yourself out there and say, I can help people in an hour so that they get to like me, get to know me and get to trust me. And I think it's the most powerful way of closing clients, because instead of them just seeing a social media post or them seeing an ad from you, they're actually sitting there spending an hour with you in the comfort of their own home. And by you giving that value, telling stories, and then your call to action, they're much more likely to want to work with you.
So one thing I have noticed, Sarah, is you do have a very strong call to action put into your webinars. Giving a call to action isn't the be all and end all, though, is it, as you say, building a rapport with your audience so that they want to respond, let alone anything else. So you said talking about three things in an hour. How on earth do you spend an hour covering three things?
It's a good question, and I agree. The call to action, a well-polished pitch at the end of your webinar is important. But if your content was either boring, overwhelming, or you overthought, it's not going to motivate them to want to book a call with you or sign up to your offer. So during the 1 hour, the way I kind of see it is the first ten minutes, it's welcoming them. It's telling them what your goal is for the webinar for them, telling your story and getting them excited about the topic. So you don't go straight into, hey, this is what you need to do. You don't go straight into the teaching. Then what you do is you spend around 30 minutes on those three secrets or ten minutes a secret.
Ah right.
And then you can spend 20 minutes on the pitch and Q and A answering questions. And those 30 minutes, it's important that you realize these are not paying clients yet. You want to give away the spice, not the recipe, but you don't want them leaving thinking "I learned nothing from that" either. So you have to find that balance. And it has been an issue of mine because I love giving value, telling people what to do. I love coaching. And it is difficult to find that balance. And the best thing that I've realized is when I put it into three secrets instead of five secrets. Or it can be five strategies, five pillars, whatever you want to call it. It allows me to structure my content in a way that I don't over-teach. So let's say I was teaching let's pretend this podcast was a webinar. And I said three ways to market your webinar. I'll let you just pick three ways instead of the 15 ways that I know. And I'll give a client story with every single secret. And I may even add an anecdote in or my own experience. So they're layered with stories so people can actually take in the information. Otherwise they're just going to write down notes that will never be used.
Yes, storytelling, that's one of the gifts I've noticed that you're well capable of putting across and making the relevant connection with the person who's listening. And I've also seen that you bring in some of your clients at times to speak about their experience and the transformation and that sort of thing.So you don't always have to do it on your own, do you? You can bring in customers, you can bring in people that you collaborate with. But one thing Ido know that you do that I personally found I struggled with when I was doing webinars was you commanded the screen the entire time you didn't share slides.I know towards the end you would sometimes bring in your guest or customer. So is it still okay to do a webinar with a small slide show just so that you're not sort of the full focus? You can share the focus with the slide?
Yeah,I've done it three ways. I've done it with a full 60 slide deck. I've done it with no slides, and I've done it with a whiteboard, a flip trash whiteboard. SoI've done it three ways. And what I've realized is when I do the 1 hour webinar, the simple 1 hour webinar, I usually will use slides. And the reason being is they're only with me for an hour. So they will see the three secrets, my stories. But I've done it as well with none. And the big thing to say is it doesn't actually matter which way you do it. If you use slides, not use slides.The thing is, it's not scripted.
Okay.
And every single one of you listening right now, you should be confident speaking for an hour on your topic. If you were a TikTok marketing person and I said, okay, can you talk for an hour? Three ways to use TikTok to market your business you should be ready to go because this is about your business. This is about something that you teach your clients, something that you're used to. So non-scripted webinars are super important. And if you're comfortable with slides, use slides. And if you're someone who is more comfortable just talking and adding value and telling stories, then don't use slides. And yes, you can bring in guest speakers and you can bring in client testimonials. They really show the credibility and social proof. I only do it when it's longer than an hour. When it's only an hour, it's just me. When it's only an hour, it's just me. And that comes down to many different types of webinars. You hear the word webinar, workshop, challenge, event, virtual event, so many different names.And I see a 1 hour webinar being the webinar. And then the other ones could be more of a master class or a workshop because you could do a two day, a three day, a five day. But I'd always start by mastering the 1 hour webinar before you ever moved to other types of events online.
So let's say you're creating your very first webinar and the preparation involved is obviously reaching your audience, creating an audience if you don't have one. But reaching your audience. So what would be the best methods to reach your audience, in your opinion, to get ready for your very first webinar?
Yeah.So for your very first webinar, what you need to have before you even market it is you need to have someone to host it. Just use Zoom meetings. You need to have a registration page, which can be Zoom meetings. You need to have a name.What is the name of your webinar? The shorter ones the better, has to be a problem or a goal that your audience has. So "how to make sure your CV is seen when you apply for a dream job" or "how to sell without being sales y"or "how to manifest your desires", whatever it was. So a topic in a title that's going to attract an audience. So once you have all those three things, you can start sending people out this link to register. I always say you need ten days. If it's too long, they're going to forget it and not show up. If it's too short, you won't get enough registering. So I'll think ten days is the perfect time to promote your webinar. And if you're new and starting out the three ways I would do to fill your webinar. One is I'll be using the event features on LinkedIn or Facebook. So LinkedIn has an event feature where you can invite 1000 of your LinkedIn connections to your webinar and it's free.It's on the home screen of LinkedIn. On the left hand banner. You'll see it when you go on your LinkedIn on your desktop, you create a quick LinkedIn event and you can invite 1000 of your LinkedIn connections on Facebook. Something similar. You can invite your Facebook friends, your fans on your Facebook page or your Facebook group members to this event. But make sure you also direct message the ones who say, yes, they actually do register and show up. That's the easiest way because your social media connections will get a ping "ohMelanie invited me to X, Y and Z". The second one that I think is really powerful is your social media, your content marketing. So what I've noticed with it is you can't just post and say, I'm hosting a webinar next week, join.It's not going to get anyone to register. And this comes back into story telling and giving value. I had a client and she wants to help you with procrastination. And she's hosting a webinar and she's like, "no one's registering. I don't get it". So I checked her social media posts and all she said was hosting a webinar procrastination, register here. I said, no one's going to register for that. I said, you need to give them value and then invite them. So what she did was she took a photo of herself with her planner and said, "how do you plan your day to stop procrastinating? Here's what I do".And she gave five things that she does. "If you're ready to stop procrastinating, register for my webinar". Something so simple, but I call it scroll stopping content so you can share value, posts, client success stories, motivating inspirational content all around your topic, and then invite them to your webinar that's your call to action with your social media posts. The third one that I found really helpful is speaking. And I know strange, but you can speak to get people to invite them to your webinar.Now, you could speak on Facebook Live, on Instagram Stories, on LinkedIn Live.You can guest speak on someone's podcast. You could speak into someone'sFacebook group or do guest training to their clients. So you could do some typeof talk that is going to be a shorter version of your long webinar and then say, if you want more, register for my webinar. So there are my top three would be the event features of the social media platforms already there, content marketing that actually sparks interest and speaking using short speaking to your audience or to other people's audiences, then to invite them to your webinar.
Yeah, speaking is my favorite as well. To be honest, it's great when people come to you rather than you having to look for them. So you've been in business now asSarah Gray Coaching since 2019. What's going to be next for Sarah Gray?
I'ma serial entrepreneur. I've been a business owner since I'm 22. I'm 31 this month.
Oh,Congrats.
Thank you. So I'm eight years in business, but this is my love. My passion is coaching. I just love coaching. Now, I always help with sales and lead generation, so I'm always going to still teach webinars. But what I'm doing now is I'm more so focused on sales attraction in general for business owners. SoI'm now more helping with having the right offer, having the right messaging and using, you know I'm teaching three ways of generating leads, one being webinars speaking, but the other two are working your network. And the other one is social selling. It's a big thing I'm passionate about how to create content that converts. So I think the direction of my business now, which is really exciting, is more so turning business owners into the right sales people they need to be for their business, because as business owners online, we get very distracted and we don't focus on sales or we're not confident with sales.And that's where my focus is now. All my clients are still hosting webinars, but it's not my only thing I'm going to be teaching now, especially since the pandemic is finished. I want my clients to do in person events. I want them todo referrals. I want them to do social selling, other speaking gigs. I've really enjoyed webinars for the past two years, and it's built my business tow here it is now. And I think for any business owner listening here, you should be doing webinars at least once a month in your business. But realize that you need at least three lead generation strategies. Three. And whatever that means for you, whatever suits you. And it could be email marketing, it could beTikTok, it could be whatever it is. But I think webinars and speaking in general will always be here.
Agreed?Yeah. We both flag wave for social media and digital marketing. Absolutely. But both of us do not use it in isolation. We use other methods of communicating, including podcasting. So your website is Saragraycoaching.com.
Exactly.
All of your products and services are there.
Yeah.So I teach either how to get your first five clients or how to scale 20K months. So there's the two main offerings, and you can go on there apply to hear about the services. And I would encourage anyone listening. Go host a webinar. You have something to say, you have value that can be given to people.And it's just Zoom webinars or a Zoom meeting and have a good topic and just post on social media and have a small webinar to start and see what happens.And I think you're going to get great results from your webinar
And just keep doing it regularly as well, because momentum helps.
Oh, definitely. I think I've posted over 50, maybe more myself in the past two years, and every time I do it, I get better at storytelling, better at my call to action, better connect with my audience. That's what it's about. It's about connecting with your audience so that you're not just sitting there reading a script because you want to give value but also create that connection.
And for those views that are terrified of going and doing webinars unscripted I definitely agree with but there's absolutely no harm in having like a little bullet point list in front of you so that you make sure.
I always have my notebook, my bullet points and they won't mind. Like you can have your three secrets in your stories here and just glance down with them
So you don't have to do it without having to memorize the whole thing. Everybody's going to expect you to be nervous the first few times you do it, but as you say, you keep doing it, you get better, you get more confident. I'm so glad we had you on because it was a topic that was actually selected by one of our listeners. So thank you so much. Hopefully this has answered all the questions you have but if you are still struggling and you want to get some direct support, I can't recommend Sarah enough.
Thank you, Melanie and thank you all to the listeners and it's time for you to get out there, get in front of the right people and host your own webinar.
Well, that's all the time we have for today, but bring in your comments, send us your emails and we look forward to speaking to you next week on the Monday MorningMarketing Podcast.