Webinars have become an increasingly popular tool for creators to engage with their audience, showcase expertise, and drive business results. In this guide, we’ll explore the various ways to use webinars effectively for marketing and how to organize and refine your webinar strategy to achieve your goals as a digital creator.
Skip ahead:
- The top five ways to use webinars for marketing your digital product
- How to create a webinar marketing strategy
- It’s webinar D-day: Now what?
The top five ways to use webinars for marketing your digital product
Here are five ways to incorporate webinar marketing into your digital product sales and marketing strategy.
Presell your digital product
Preselling is a great way to validate your digital product idea and ensure there’s enough interest and demand for it before going all in. It’s also a chance to gather real-time feedback from your potential customers and refine your product offering before the main launch.
The most important thing to do when preselling with a webinar is to choose a topic related to the content of your digital product. That way, you can whet your audience’s appetite and pique their interest, making them more likely to preorder your product. For example, let’s say you’re selling a course on how to become a social media influencer. In that case, your webinar topic can be: How to find a niche as a social media influencer.
Keep the webinar short, simple, and valuable. But end it with a cliffhanger that prompts attendees’ interest in your digital product. For example, you could say:
Choosing a niche is only the first step to becoming a successful social media influencer. You also need to know how to secure brand deals and create content consistently. My upcoming digital product will teach you all that.
Then, offer a discount code at the end of the webinar to attendees who are interested in buying your digital product upon launch. Digital creator, TriciaBiz, often uses live webinars to promote her Monetize Your Knowledge coaching program to secure interest and potential revenue before launch.
Create a webinar funnel
Creators like Kyshira Mofett and John Michaloudis use webinar funnels to make valuable content, build trust, and ultimately drive sales. A webinar funnel is pretty similar to an email drip campaign. Only this time, you’re using a series of webinars to attract, engage, and hopefully convert your target audience into customers.
Speaking on why webinar funnels are effective, Kyshira noted that webinars automate the sales process while delivering personalized trust. In their words, “Using the eWebinar app resulted in nearly $15,000 in sales within the first week. I didn’t have to do sales calls for that; all they had to do was watch the webinar, apply, and enroll.”
To create a successful webinar funnel, you need a compelling landing page, automated sales sequence, and engaging webinar content.
- Landing page: The webinar landing page captures your unique selling point and sets expectations regarding content, duration, and what happens during and after the webinar. It should also have a clear call-to-action button that prompts people to sign up.
- Automated sales sequence: The sales sequence engages the audience after the webinar, prompting them to purchase your digital product. Most creators set up an email drip campaign to nurture people who signed up for the webinar, sharing valuable, persuasive content that convinces them to buy the product.
- Engaging webinar content: Create content that matches the audience’s pain points and delivers value. Ensure you use a reliable webinar platform like Thinkific to create and host your webinar.
Upsell clients
Use a webinar as a tripwire product to upsell your clients. A tripwire product is offered at a giveaway price to entice clients to make an initial purchase.
Once this happens, you can nurture them to buy a more expensive digital product in the future. The idea here is that it’s easier to convince existing clients to make an expensive purchase than to acquire new clients from scratch because the former already know and trust your brand.
For example, let’s say you want to sell premium coaching services. You can host a webinar on a related coaching topic for a giveaway price. Then email the people who attended the webinar a few days later to pitch your premium coaching offering.
Related: How to cross-sell and upsell your digital product
Enhance your product bundles
Use complementary webinars as add-ons in your product bundles to create more value for clients and encourage purchases. Here are three ways to pull this off:
- Create an exclusive webinar series: Instead of offering a one-time webinar, consider creating a series of exclusive webinars that delve deeper into the topics covered in the bundled products. This provides ongoing value to clients and encourages them to engage with your brand over an extended period.
- Limited-time access: Offer limited-time access to specific webinars as part of the bundle to create a sense of urgency and exclusivity. This can incentivize your target audience to make a purchase decision more quickly, knowing that they will gain access to valuable live content for a limited period.
- Collaborate with experts: Partner with industry experts or influencers to host special webinars that are exclusively available as part of the bundled offering. Access to insights and knowledge from respected figures can significantly enhance the appeal of the bundle.
Build niche authority and brand awareness
Successful creators start building an audience way before they need them. They provide value, share educational content and much more to establish good rapport and trust with their audience. That way, whenever they offer a digital product, they already have a loyal customer base willing and ready to buy from them instead of struggling to build an audience from scratch.
You can do the same with webinars. A webinar is not just a sales and marketing tool; it’s very, very effective for building brand awareness too. If you’re just starting out, consider partnering with industry authorities or bigger creators in your niche to reach a larger audience. Then repurpose the webinar content into blog posts, infographics, and social media snippets and share them on other channels to constantly engage with your target audience.
You can also host interactive Q&A webinars where you address specific challenges or audience questions within your niche. This allows you to engage directly with your audience, showcase your expertise, and build a community around your brand.
Learn more: How to build a successful personal brand as a creator
How to create a webinar marketing strategy
You need a webinar marketing strategy to create and host amazing webinars for promoting your digital product. Think of your strategy as a map or compass, stirring you in the right direction to achieve your goals.
Here are the five most important steps for creating an effective webinar marketing strategy:
Set one goal
A clear goal streamlines your strategy so that nothing goes out of scope. As we already discussed, webinars have multiple marketing use cases — from preselling to upselling and brand building. It’s easy to get distracted and go off track when you’re not working towards one specific goal.
Your webinar goal should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. For example, don’t say: I want to presell my course. Instead, say: I want to host a webinar with 100 participants and get at least 70% of them to sign up for my waitlist. The latter is well-defined and easier to track.
Once you set a goal, the next step is breaking it into objectives. Think of these as smaller goals that add up to the big picture. Based on our earlier example, your objectives could be:
- Get 400 people to register for the webinar
- Have at least 200 attendees
- Achieve a 50% email open rate
Research your audience
Audience research helps you understand your target market’s pain points and preferences. You’ll use this information to tailor your webinar content and structure to match the audience’s expectations.
For example, if you find out that your audience prefers pre-recorded webinars to live streams, you’ll know to adapt your strategy to include pre-recorded presentations or sessions.
The easiest way to learn about your audience? Ask them. The truth is your audience is always happy to share what their preferences and expectations are to help you create helpful digital products for them.
Use simple social posts to gather feedback on your audience’s current struggles and what they want to learn about. Here’s an example from Kirsti Lang, the host of The Anonymous Marketer Podcast.
Too shy for that? Here are some less obvious ways to learn more about your audience:
- Use social media listening tools like Mention and Syften to monitor what your target audience regularly talks about online
- Check out what other creators in your niche share on their social platforms. The idea here is to get inspired, not copy blatantly.
- Join niche communities and groups on Slack, Reddit, and Facebook to interact with your audience in real-time. For example, if you’re a family digital creator, you can join The Modern Parenting Hub on Facebook.
Develop your content
At this point, you should already have a high-level idea of what your webinar will be all about. Now, it’s time to transform this idea into well-structured topics that deliver the right information to your target audience while accomplishing your goal.
First things first, you need a content outline. This is basically a list of what your webinar will cover in the right order. For example, if your topic is how to find a niche as a new creator, your outline might look like this:
- What is a niche?
- Why is niching down important for creators?
- Step 1 for choosing a niche
- Step 2 for choosing a niche
- Creator examples
- Product promotion
- Wrapping up
Now, flesh out the content for each item on your outline. Keep these things in mind as you do this:
- Bite-sized content is king: Keep your content short, simple, and straight to the point. Ensure that the webinar doesn’t drag out for too long, or else people will lose interest.
- Keep things interactive: A webinar can be a one-way street, but it doesn’t have to be. Use quizzes, polls, live chat, and Q&A sessions to involve your audience and make the presentation more dynamic.
- Set expectations early: Don’t beat around the bush. Be clear on what people will learn from your webinar, and ensure that your content delivers on that promise.
Choose your hosting platform
Your hosting platform is where your webinar content lives. It’s a big decision because it’s the only way your target audience can access and engage in your webinar. If the platform is buggy or difficult to use, it will ruin the audience’s experience and put a dent in your marketing efforts.
The right webinar software comes down to three things: pricing, features, and usability.
- Pricing: Ensure that the webinar platform offers the best value for your budget. Some platforms offer tiered pricing based on features and number of attendees, while others may charge a flat rate.
Take into account the potential for additional costs, such as fees for exceeding attendee limits or accessing advanced features. Also, steer clear of platforms that try to lock you into expensive long-term contracts early.
- Features: Ensure that the platform supports the core features for organizing and hosting a successful webinar. Look for features such as the ability to host interactive sessions, integrate with other marketing tools, and provide analytics to track the performance of your webinars.
Consider scalability too. You need a platform that can accommodate a growing number of webinar attendees as your business expands — without requiring expensive upgrades.
- User experience: A user-friendly interface and intuitive tools can make a significant difference in how effectively you can create and manage your webinars. Make sure your webinar platform is easy to set up and doesn’t require advanced technical skills.
Why use Thinkific for hosting webinars?
Thinkific is the easiest way to create and host webinars for marketing your digital product.
Our Live Events feature allows you to schedule and host standalone webinars without setting up a community first. You can monetize these webinars as separate digital products to earn extra money. Or use them in your marketing funnel for lead capturing and nurturing.
Learn more about Live Events here!
Market your webinar
You’ve done the hard work of planning a webinar, but it doesn’t end there. You also need to market it to attract the right audience and achieve your goal — whether that’s building brand awareness or as a lead generation tool for your upcoming course.
When it comes to marketing, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s all about trying different approaches and marketing channels based on your resources to see which one works best. Consider the following tips if you’re a solo marketer with a small budget:
- Share social media posts promoting the upcoming webinar to your followers
- Collaborate with bigger creators in your niche to reach a broad audience
- Post about your webinar on niche Slack communities to reach potential attendees
- Place ads in bigger creators’ newsletters to drive webinar registration through email marketing
- Send promotional emails to subscribers on your email list
That’s not all. Check out other webinar promotion ideas for creators.
It’s webinar D-day: Now what?
Your hard work paid off. Tons of people registered for your webinar and are excited to learn from you. Here are a few tips to help you exceed their expectations and deliver the best learning experience.
First, do a test run to make sure your tech and equipment work perfectly. It’s a good idea to have backup internet in case your primary network provider starts acting up.
Next, place your notes where you can easily see them. That way, you’re not scrabbling to check what’s next on your agenda while the webinar is in progress.
Finally, relax. Hosting a webinar can be nerve-wracking, especially if it’s your first time. But the only way to overcome this fear is to treat it as a learning experience.
Approach a webinar like you’re having a fun chat with a friend over lunch. Your audience isn’t a jury, and they know you aren’t perfect. Focus on delivering value, and don’t obsess over anything else. You got this!
Check out the Thinkific blog for more tips on hosting successful webinars as a creator.
