What Makes a Webinar Convert Like Crazy? (Here’s the Answer…)

How many of you have done a sales webinar and it flopped?

I’ve been doing sales webinars since 2005 and I’ve had my share of stinkers.

FUNNY SIDENOTE: In fact, there was a time that I was doing so many webinars that I actually fell asleep while presenting to over 300 live audience members. I woke back up, wiped the saliva off my cheeks and ended up having a pretty good close rate.

NOTE TO SELF: Don’t do any webinars after lunch from 1pm – 3pm (my afternoon drowsy period).

Anyhooo….

There are a TON of Things…

David Frey (Me) Doing a Webinar In My Kitchen

…that affect the conversion of a webinar.

1. The market you target.

2. How you get people to your landing page.

3. The quality of your registration landing page.

4. Your ability to get people coming back to watch your webinar.

5. The webinar itself.

6. How you follow up after your webinar

Each of these steps can have a dramatic impact on how well your convert people on your webinar.

But let’s assume that you did everything right.

You marketed the heck out of your webinar and now you have a huge live audience waiting to hear your message.

What Are The Top 5 Things…

…that will get people to take action on your webinar?

Or in other words, what are the biggest elements that will drive the success of your webinar?

Well, after doing hundreds of webinars over the past seven years, here are my “Big 5.”

1. The Message to Market Match

Some lists convert, some don’t. Your ability to get the “right” prospects on your webinar for what you’re selling will have a big impact on how much you sell.

2. Proof

The more proof you give, the higher the conversions. Period.

The more video testimonials, case studies, statistics you can add, the higher your conversion rate will be. Real world proof trumps most everything else. If they truly believe they can replicate your results themselves, they’ll buy it.

3. Trust

Is the presenter or the host a trusted source? The more trusted they are, the higher the conversion. This has a lot to do with the relationship and respect a host has with their list.

4. The Offer

The closer to “done for you” the higher the conversion. Period. The more tools, templates, software and stuff that do it for them that you offer, the higher the conversion.

Also, you need to add some form of scarcity in your offer to give people a reason to act NOW rather than later.

5. The Presentation

A boring presentation, will probably get you low conversions, and an exciting presentation will likely get you higher conversions.

So the (1) content, the (2) graphics, and the (3) presenter make a big difference in conversions.

I could write a huge article about each of these elements, but these are the Big 5.

These 5 elements are true for webinars, as they are for live presentations, as they are for salesletters.

They are the “Big 5″ persuasion elements.

But Which One (Of the 5) Is the MOST Important?

Of all the five elements, which do you think is the most important?

I don’t have any data to back up my opinion, but from my experience, the more proof you give that what you’re saying (or selling) is true, the higher the conversion rate.

And it should go without saying that you MUST have the “right” people on your webinar that have a need or want for your product or service, to generate a high conversion rate.

And although the presentation is very important, it’s not AS important as (1) how well your participants trust you and (2) the attractiveness of your offer.

I’ve seen some pretty boring and downright ugly presentations that sold like crazy because the offer was amazing and the participants really trusted the person extending the offer.

But again, this is all just my opinion (based on a LOT of experience doing a LOT of webinars).

So What’s the Marketing Lesson?

If you only have the time, energy and resources to focus on one thing to increase your webinar conversions, it should be getting more and more PROOF that your solution works.

Nothing will convert a crowd more than having undeniable proof that what you’re saying is true.

Once you have a high converting webinar, then it’s time to focus on getting the right prospect to your webinar. (I’ve seen webinars with only 10 super highly qualified people attend and it WAY outperformed one with 50 so-so qualified participants.)

By the way, would you like to discover the 7 steps to finding, partnering, and selling your products and services  using “Joint Venture Webinars?” Great, because we interviewed webinar marketing pro, Jason Fladlien about this very topic. You’ll LOVE this interview.

About David Frey

David Frey is the Founder, MarketingBlogger.com. He is also the author of the best selling book, "The Small Business Marketing Bible" and many other marketing courses. To find out more about this author, visit www.WhoIsDavidFrey.com.