How to market a webinar
Credit: Sam Ovens, Consulting.com
I wrote a teardown of the Sam Ovens consulting webinar in July, and it quickly became my most popular post ever. So popular, actually, that it caught Sam’s attention and now he’s using it in his Facebook ads.
If you’re reading this, Sam, thanks. I’m flattered 😉
Webinars like Sam’s work especially well for high-ticket items and enterprise acquisition. Why? Because they provide a lot of nurturing and education leading up to the close.
Take one of the other tactics I’ve covered: Facebook lead ads.
With lead ads, people usually see one ad, click one button, and start getting calls. For enterprise, that’s likely not enough to reel them in. There’s no mental, financial, or time-related investment. You need a funnel that warms them up to a sales conversation.
So let’s go through how to set up the Sam Ovens webinar funnel, since it’s one of the most successful in the biz.
Step 1: Record your webinar
It all starts with a great webinar (duh).
Seriously. This should be the holy grail webinar. Explain everything about your product or service, as well as who it’s for and the unique value propositions. Make sure there’s an offer at end—20% off, no onboarding, etc.—and don’t worry too much about length. It can be as long as 1 – 2 hours.
Here are the slides from Sam’s webinar. Pay attention to the opening and how he tells his personal story to build trust and credibility. He spends a lot of time building rapport and explaining who the webinar is for before dropping value bombs and sharing the offer.
Step 2: Record promo video
Record a promo video for the webinar to put on the registration page.
If you’re stuck, use this video script template:
Hi everyone, it’s ___________ here, and I want to invite you to an exclusive webinar with me this week where I show you exactly how I’ve ___________________.
So on this webinar, I’m going to show you _______________ and how I’ve helped __________________. But most importantly, how you can ______________.
This webinar is for you if want to ___________________________________________.
If you’re not familiar with my story, I got started in _______ over _______ years ago. I was doing ______________________________. Since then, I’ve spent my life doing __________________________. I’ve spent countless hours _________________.
So on this webinar, I’m going to show you _______________________. I’m really going to take everything I’ve learned and just boil it down and distill it and give you three key things which you need to get started today and to reach ______________.
On this webinar, I’m going to share with you these three main things.
Number one: _________________________________________________________.
Number two: _________________________________________________________.
Number three: ________________________________________________________.
So those are the three main things you’re going to learn on this webinar.
I look forward to seeing you on this webinar, and I look forward to helping you with ______________.
Step 3: Wire up a landing page
Wire up a landing page based on Sam’s layout and copy.
Specifically, try to zero-in on quantifiable benefits. Sam promises to show you how he gets 30-50 consulting clients every month. What tangible result are you promising?
Make sure to include social proof and testimonials. Also note how this is billed like a live webinar, which gives it an air of exclusivity. You can use a tool like WebinarJam to pull off the reservations and scheduling.
Step 4: Hook up text & email reminders
Hook up text reminders like this that trigger when the webinar is about to start:
For your emails, the cadence should be:
- Confirmation email immediately after registration
- Welcome email 1 day before webinar
- Reminder email 3 hours before webinar starts
- Reminder email 1 hour before webinar starts
- Reminder email that webinar is starting now
The welcome email can come from an assistant and should include some sort of personalization, such as the attendee’s name on an image. Here’s the one Sam sends:
Step 5: Get social ads running
The secret to Sam’s social ads is twofold: length and lifestyle.
He uses long-form ads that appeal to his audience’s desired future state. I won’t dig deeper into his copywriting style here, but definitely scroll through his current ads on Facebook and take inspiration from the ones that would work best for you.
For more ideas, download the Sam Ovens Funnel Checklist + Facebook Ads.
Step 6: Bake into other marketing channels
Once your funnel is up and running, bake it into your other marketing channels.
Sit down a brainstorm everywhere else you can promote it, including:
- Email campaigns (outbound and inbound)
- CTA in marketing and sales collateral
- Post about it on your blog
- Promote on podcasts, vlogs, social, etc.
If all else fails, use a ClickFunnels template
Don’t have time to set up the Sam Ovens funnel from scratch?
If you use ClickFunnels, there are a couple templates in their Marketplace that mimic Sam’s funnel pretty closely.
Thank you for sharing this. Very insightful and useful blog post.