Webinars? What's the Point? Pt. 1 of 2

When someone first told me I needed to start doing webinars, I blew them off completely. There is no way I was going to give a *gasp* LIVE presentation. Seriously? You want mumbling, "umming" me to talk LIVE over the internet to a bunch of strangers? Absolutely not.

I quickly pushed the idea out of my mind until a couple weeks ago when I ran into Amy Porterfield's course on the importance of webinars. I had been looking for a way to expand my business without taking on too many more consulting clients. There are only 24 hours in the day, and only so many clients I can realistically take on and continue to service effectively. I knew I didn't want to bring on employees as my control issues would never trust someone else to represent my business. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do but knew I had to do something if I wanted to keep growing. I had been musing on this for a while when a little Facebook ad popped up in my newsfeed touting that answer.

Webinars have long been used as a way to educate a large audience on a variety of topics. Where else can you get a captive audience of thousands of people around the world? Here's the catch though - you have to give them live. Yes, this means preparing slides, writing a script and hunkering down in a closed room to broadcast your voice live to all of those people. It was because of this that it took over 2 hours of Amy touting stats and successes to convince me this may make sense for me and my business. If you're like me, I know I'm not going to convince you today to run one, but I wanted to share a couple of things I learned that helped to show me it's a strategy worth considering.

- On average viewers stay on a webinar for 53 minutes. In this age of constant stimulation do you think a Facebook post or blog is going to keep someone's attention on your brand for 53 minutes? 

- Between 20% - 40% of webinar attendees turn into qualified leads. Do you have something to sell? From consulting, to digital or physical products, you have just found a high converting sales funnel that allows you to educate and pitch a captive audience on what you have to offer.

- 55% of webinar registrants watched the recorded replay. This means that while not everyone will attend live (and they won't) they still want your information and will take the time to go back and seek it out later. 

- 40% of webinar attendees participated in a live Q&A during the webinar. In the age of competing for attention, webinars are one of the most successful ways to capture undivided attention and get potential clients or customers interacting about your brand.

I know deciding to give a webinar is big decision that for many, requires overcoming some real uncomfortableness around public speaking. However, the numbers are there that prove this is a REAL way to drive traffic and increase engagement around your product or service. Take some time to do some more research and think about how you may be able to integrate this into your marketing strategy. Next week we're diving into some tips around how to work through some of your webinar concerns so you can dive in and give them a try. See you back here then!

*Statistics courtesy of ReadyTalk and Adobe Connect