Webinars are extremely powerful for generating leads, building brand awareness, and selling. Here, you’ll learn everything you need to know about building a successful webinar sales funnel.
What is a webinar funnel?
Why is it important?
How long does it take to start working?
And most importantly, how much money can you actually make by building a successful webinar sales funnel?
Those are the questions we’re going to answer in this article — by the end, you’ll know exactly how to craft a webinar funnel, how to optimize it for conversions, and even how to use that same funnel over and over again to make sales and generate revenue.
Let’s dive right in!
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What is a Webinar Funnel?
A webinar funnel is a marketing and sales tool that can be used to automatically convert visitors into leads and leads into buyers. Inbound or outbound marketing tactics can be used to drive ideal traffic to the webinar registration page. Once people sign up, they are taken to a “Thank You” page, and they can then attend the webinar live or as a recording. The goal of the webinar funnel is to generate leads and make sales.
Here’s what this process looks like — it’s really pretty simple.
But you might be asking yourself, “Why should I create a webinar funnel instead of using some other marketing tactic?”
And that’s a valid concern — there are a lot of different sales funnels you could create to grow your business and drive revenue.
But to be honest, the webinar funnel stands out to us as one of the most powerful strategies of all.
Here’s the proof.
Proof That Webinar Funnels Can be a Game-Changer for Your Business (+ REAL Case Study)
To start, watch the below video to learn how Natalie has used sales funnels to build a 7-figure informational fitness business entirely online.
If she can do it, you can do it, too 🙂
But… why are webinars and sales funnels so powerful (ESPECIALLY when you put them together)?
There are a few reasons. First of all, people love video content. 72% of consumers prefer watching a video over reading an article.
Practically speaking, this means that you can sometimes generate more leads by running a webinar than you can by offering a free downloadable resource like a whitepaper or ebook.
But that’s not the only benefit. On average, a whopping 20% to 40% of webinar attendees turn into qualified leads and about 5% of attendees purchase at the end. It’s not surprising, then, that 74% of B2B marketers say that a webinar is the best way to generate high-quality leads.
From our experience, the webinar funnel is the most powerful sales funnel of all.
But maybe you’re still not convinced.
Consider this: at the very least, running a webinar will help you capture a new group of leads who prefer watching video and attending an event over downloading a resource or reading an ebook…
So why not give it a try and see how it goes?
But before you do, here are three things to avoid.
WARNING: 3 Critical Mistakes That Most New Webinar Hosts Make
The first time that most people host a webinar, it’s not so good. As with everything, you have to learn how to keep your audience engaged and how to sell.
To some degree, mastering the perfect webinar is always going to be a process of trial-and-error.
But to make it as painless as possible, here are the three most common mistakes that new webinar hosts make…
1. Boring Presentation
In one survey, 48% of people said that webinars were least enjoyable when the presenter was un-engaging.
Naturally, people will keep watching a webinar for longer when the presenter is interesting and they’ll stop watching sooner if the presenter is boring.
So the question is, how do you make sure that your presentation is engaging?
A few tips…
- Use Empathy — Remember who your audience is, what they want, and where they come from. This presentation isn’t for you, it’s for them. So speak to their desires and their frustrations and you’ll keep people engaged far longer.
- Enjoy Yourself — The more that you enjoy yourself, the more that other people are going to enjoy themselves. Smile, laugh, and get into your element.
- Be Authentic — It’s not fun to watch someone who is clearly “faking it.” Try to be authentic and honest about who you are. That’s far more engaging for your audience.
2. Awkward Pitch
One of the most difficult parts of any webinar is transitioning from your free training to your offer or pitch.
Many new webinar presenters feel awkward during this part and it comes through to the audience, which unfortunately turns them off to the offer itself.
The good news is that there’s a dead-simple way to completely eliminate this awkwardness and encourage people to keep watching at the same time.
Here’s what you say when it’s transition-time.
“So now I’d like to offer you guys something that I’m really excited about. It’s something that I think is going to change tons of lives and businesses for the better. But I don’t want to do it without your permission. If you guys want to learn more about [PRODUCT/SERVICE] then just type “Yes” in the chat bar.”
Under the rare circumstances that no one types “Yes,” then say something like this…
“Okay. Well I don’t want to take up too much of your time. But I really think this is going to be a game-changer for you. Is it okay if I just spend 10 minutes showing you this offer I put together?”
If you’ve done everything else right throughout the webinar, then people are going to say “yes.”
3. No Follow-Up
Ideally, the majority of people who purchase will do so during the live webinar, but don’t neglect the people who didn’t.
You should send follow-up emails for at least one week after the webinar to people who did attend and people who didn’t attend, encouraging them to take you up on your offer “before time runs out.”
Urgency and/or scarcity is a great tool here. Maybe your special offer expires in the next 48 hours, maybe bonuses go away, or maybe you’re only accepting the first 100 people.
Just make sure you don’t use false urgency or scarcity as that will hurt your reputation down the road.
How to Build the ‘Perfect’ Webinar Registration Page (With Examples!)
It wouldn’t do much good to host a webinar without an audience.
So let’s spend a little time talking about how to build the ‘perfect’ webinar registration page — and by that, we mean a page that converts visitors like clockwork because it has all of the necessary elements…
…three elements, in particular.
Here’s what they are.
1. Irresistible Headline
The success of every webinar registration page ever starts with having an irresistible headline.
I don’t mean you should have a headline that’s irresistible to the general population, I mean a headline that’s irresistible to your target market.
What does that look like?
Here’s an example…
What I love about this headline is that it’s appealing to a really specific group of people who want to make more money from the comfort of their home.
And the promise of making $75 per hour is sexy because it’s a lot of money for the target market, but it’s also believable. If the title said “How To Earn $1,000/hr With a Simple Skill Anyone Can Learn,” that might be exciting… but not very believable.
Finally, the promise that someone can make $75 per hour by mastering one simple skill that anyone can learn is extremely enticing for someone who’s thinking, “But will it work for me?”
They will at least want to find out what that one skill is, right?
And that’s how your headline should emotionally impact your target audience. It should excite them, it should be extraordinary, and it should be believable.
Ultimately, it should make them think, “Man… I’ve got to at least find out what they’re talking about here. What if it’s a really good opportunity?”
2. Short “Loop-Opening” Video
Whenever possible, we highly recommend adding a video to your webinar registration page.
Sales pages with videos typically have more engagement than sales pages without videos, so this is a simple way to increase time-on-page and even conversion rate.
What should you talk about in your video?
I think it’s really powerful to start with a relevant question — the question that your target market is already asking. For example…
- “How much more energy would you have if you lost 30, 50, even 70 pounds in the next 30 days?”
- “How would your business be different if you generated twice as many leads this month as usual?”
- “What if I could help you attract more women by making 3 simple changes to the way that you communicate?”
You get the idea.
The goal here is to open a loop in the prospects mind and to get them dreaming about how their life might change if they sign up for your webinar.
In order to close that loop, people will sign up for your webinar like clockwork. Caleb Maddix uses this open loop tactic in the video on this page.
He starts by saying…
“Let me ask you a question: how would you like YouTube to write your next paycheck? Imagine you could profit from YouTube, which by the way is a platform that has 1.8 trillion views every single year and pays out 6 billion dollars to creators just like you last year alone — imagine you could use that platform, you could profit from YouTube, without being a YouTuber or even spending a single dime on YouTube ads.”
That’s a great way to set the scene for your audience and start getting them to buy into your webinar.
For the rest of the video, you can flex other psychological selling muscles such as urgency, scarcity, and even building your own credibility by talking about what you’ve done with the things you’re going to teach.
3. Promising Bullets
Before someone signs up for your webinar, they’ll want to know exactly how what you’re going to teach them is going to benefit them.
Notice I didn’t say, “they’ll want to know what you’re going to teach them.”
Don’t give away the gold just yet. Your webinar registration page is for building suspense and making promises.
The headline and video will do a great job of creating irresistible suspense while bulletpoints do a great job of making enticing promises about how people’s lives can be changed.
Consider the bullet points on Caleb Maddix’s registration page…
Notice how he makes an enticing promise with each bullet?
- “…make true passive income…”
- “…create over 2,000 streams of income…”
- “…people with no previous experience are using the YTA method to make a full time income…”
- “…turn profiting from YouTube into a science and formula…”
- “…screen shots and case studies… the exact framework that you can ethically steal and use.”
When you make promises like those with your bullet points, it not only distinguishes your target market, but it also shows them that you’re going to give them everything they need to get whatever it is that they want… and what’s more compelling than that?
How to Host a Winning Webinar in 3 Easy Steps
1. Put Your Webinar Funnel Into Perspective
How many people should you expect to attend your webinar?
If you’ve put on or even attended a successful webinar in the past, you’ve probably seen webinars with anywhere from a few people in them to perhaps thousands of viewers.
So it’s really necessary to get a sense of what to expect for your own webinars.
Pre-webinar, try to set some realistic goals and benchmarks for your campaign.
This step helps you to have a better understanding of how well your content is working.
While every industry is different, it’s helpful to keep in mind about 50% of registrants attend any given webinar, 20%-40% become qualified leads, and 2%-5% will buy something from you afterward.
This means that if you 1,000 registrants, about 500 will attend live, 200-400 will be qualified, and 20-50 people will buy something.
But of course, the better your webinar… the better your results. 😉
So here’s our quick-start guide to hosting a high-conversion webinar…
Quick-Start Guide to Hosting the Perfect Webinar
- Address as many objections as you can — It might sound odd, but one of the best things that you can do during your webinar is address objections that you know people have about what you’re going to teach them (i.e. “This won’t work for me.” “I don’t have the time.”). We recommend spending at least the first 15 to 20 minutes of your webinar addressing possible objections. This is engaging and life-changing for your audience. You’ll probably be surprised by how many people come to you at the end of the webinar and say, “You totally changed my life.”
- Use open loops — Open loops are a great tactic for keeping your watchers invested during your webinar. Here’s an example of what this might look like… “So the question is, how do you generate leads to your website consistently in as little as five minutes per day? Well, that’s what I’m going to show you how to do on this training. But first, let me talk about something else that’s really important for you to understand…” The idea here is to ask a question that your audience really wants the answer to, but then to make them a wait a little bit until you answer it. Then, when you answer the question and close a loop, open a new loop that keeps them engaged. Here’s a more thorough explanation…
- Provide real value — New webinar presenters sometimes make the mistake of trying to pull an audience along without ever giving them real value. But the open loop principle above only works if you consistently close the loops and give the audience what they want. So make sure to offer some practical tips and advice during the second half of your webinar.
- Have an open Q&A at the end — 92% of people want an open Q&A at the end of a live webinar. So definitely include this during the end after you’ve provided value and pitched your product or service.
- Steal this “Perfect” script — Want to just skip the hard work and get a free webinar script that’s proven to work? Go here. 😉
2. Create a Deployment Schedule for Your Webinar Funnel
To ensure your pre-webinar funnel goes well, you’ll also want to set the pace with a deployment schedule.
Just like cutting corners for your other sales funnels will hurt your overall conversion rates, skipping your deployment schedule is a serious no-no.
As we noted earlier, webinars are complex affairs, and many audiences have gotten used to a certain level of interaction leading up to the event.
By determining the best time to have your webinar, long before the date, you’re setting yourself up for a far smoother ride during the rest of our steps.
And just like with any marketing campaign, there are good times and better times to have your webinar.
For this step, there are always plenty of tools available online to lay out your schedule.
But really, your deployment schedule can be as simple as using a Google Calendar to mark when you are sending your content.
The goal here is to have your content plan laid out in advance, which will enable you to deploy it, measure its impact, and focus on your webinar.
Here are a few good rules of thumb when creating your webinar funnel calendar…
- Spend a few weeks promoting your webinar — The trick here is to get as many people signed up for your webinar as possible but also to not take so long doing so that people who signed up early on forget about it altogether.
- Email every day — In order to stay top-of-mind with people who registered for your webinar early on, we recommend emailing every day.
- Send 2-3 emails the day of — This is the crux. The day that you’re going to run your webinar, it’s important to send multiple emails that day reminding people to attend. You don’t want them to miss just because they forgot.
- Follow-up consistently with people for one week after the webinar — For at least one week after the webinar, continue to follow-up with people. This is a great time to A) encourage people to watch the replay if they didn’t attend your webinar live and B) to encourage people to purchase your offer.
- Increase your marketing efforts the day of — About 29% of attendees won’t register for your webinar until the day that you’re going live. For one reason or another, a lot of people want to register at a time when they can get the value as soon as possible. So it’s probably worth increasing your marketing efforts and budget on the day of.
3. Drive Traffic to Your Webinar Funnel
The great thing about running a webinar once… is that you can run it again and again.
That’s when your webinar truly becomes a sales funnel and you can make money like clockwork.
But how are you going to drive traffic to your webinar funnel not just when you host it live, but well into the future?
Well, to be honest, there’s no magic formula here. As with most sales funnels, driving traffic is simply a matter of emailing your list, running paid ads, improving your SEO rankings, and other common strategies.
Okay, okay… so more specifically, how do you use any of those traffic-driving tactics effectively?
Here are some articles we’ve done one each of those tactics…
- A Funnel Hacker’s Guide To Facebook Ad Targeting
- SEO You Need to Know Before Building Your Next Website
- Email Marketing Funnels: The Missing Strategies to Build and Profit from Your List
- How to Advertise on Google Search: Leveraging the Traffic You Control
- 8 Proven Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Sales Funnels
Ready to Build Your Webinar Funnel?
Now you have everything you need to build a successful webinar funnel, drive traffic to that funnel, and convert like crazy!
But… what are you going to do with this knowledge?
After all, that’s what makes the difference between an entrepreneur who succeeds and an entrepreneur whose business falls flat: applied knowledge.
So steal the script below, get started, and let us know how it goes!
Want a shortcut? Get Our FREE Million-Dollar Webinar Script!