Do Webinars Still Work? | Ep. #406

In Episode #406, Eric and Neil discuss whether webinars still work. Tune in to learn why webinars still work, though it depends on several factors. Eric and Neil discuss why webinars no longer convert as well as they used to and give you the tools you need to make sure you that you optimize on your next webinar.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 00:27 – Today’s topic: Do Webinars Still Work?
  • 00:36 – Some marketers are saying that webinars are dying
  • 00:54 – From Neil’s standpoint, webinars still work but don’t convert as much as they used to
  • 01:14 – The cost to get a webinar is one of the reasons why the conversion rate suffered
  • 01:24 – If you have a ton of organic traffic, you should consider webinars
  • 01:49 – With Kissmetrics, their webinars work well because of the content
  • 02:04 – Webinars work if you educate and give advice that your audience can actually use
  • 02:29 – Some are just trying to sell people over
  • 02:47 – Neil uses Webinar Jam and AWeber Webinar for his webinars
  • 02:53 – You can use email sequences from Drip, Infusionsoft and ConvertKit
  • 03:12 – Neil changes his webinars once every 6 months
  • 03:30 – With webinars, you have to look at all of your conversion rates
  • 03:57 – There’s an ad from Billy Gene Is Marketing Inc on YouTube that is creative and worth checking out
  • 04:55 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year subscription to Crazy Egg which is a visual conversion tool
  • 06:01 – That’s it for today’s episode!

3 Key Points:

  1. Webinars still work if your content is educational and the advice is valuable to your audience.
  2. If you have consistent, organic traffic, then it is worth utilizing webinars.
  3. You have to check your webinars’ conversion rates to see if it’s worth it for you.

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Full Transcript of The Episode

Voiceover: Get ready for your daily dose of marketing strategies and tactics from entrepreneurs with the guile and experience to help you find success in any marketing capacity. You're listening to Marketing School with your instructors, Neil Patel and Eric Siu.

Eric Siu: Welcome to another episode of Marketing School. I'm Eric Siu.

Neil Patel: I'm Neil Patel.

Eric Siu: Today we're going to talk about if webinars still work or not because I've heard from other people who are saying, "Oh," especially in the marketing industry, "Webinars are dying. I don't have the time to dedicate to it." To be honest, I don't remember the last time I watched a webinar. Neil, when's the last time you watched a webinar?

Neil Patel: I don't know, but I always watch YouTube Ads that promote webinars and same with Facebook Ads that promote webinars.

Eric Siu: There you go. Do webinars still work? Neil, you actually run a lot of webinars. Do they still work?

Neil Patel: Yes. They do. They don't convert as well as they used to and you have to get more clever with how you're doing the webinars and how you're pitching within the webinars, but they work extremely well. I would say compared to when I first started doing them, the conversion rate is close to ... When no one else was doing them has just decreased a bit. The big reason it decreased isn't the webinar itself. It's the cost to get the webinar attendee has drastically gone up and that's why they don't work as well as they used to, but the webinars themselves convert just as well. If you have a ton of organic traffic, you're good to go. The reason they don't convert well for most people is because the information that they provide on the webinar is bullshit.
It's like most people do like, "Oh cool. This is why I'm successful. I lived in my parent's basement and now I have my own car and I'm rich. Don't you want this life? Buy my shit." Yeah, I know it still works for some of those guys, but it's working less and less because that's all sleazy shit. With Kissmetrics, my past startup, we would showcase our product, show people how to increase their LTVs and maximize their revenue and sales and their marketing. Using Kiss, we would generate a boat load of leads from it and salespeople would sell people on our product and generate revenue. Webinars work extremely well as long as you're educating and give people tactical solid advice that they can use.

Eric Siu: It's funny. The people that are running webinars right now are the people that are like, "Oh, I'm going to show you how to start a marketing agency and make seven figures in the first year or whatever," right? The thing is you see them shooting the videos from like their basement or like their ... I don't know where they're shooting it from, but it's just kind of insane to me that people are kind of preying on other people right now kind of trying to sell them the dream. Like Neil said, you just have to make sure that you're adding value at the end of the day. You can't keep trying to push people the same thing over and over. People get exhausted, right? It's the same thing as kind of list fatigue.
When you ran your webinars, what are you doing around that? What kind of tools are you using?

Neil Patel: I just use WebinarJam or EverWebinar. That's mainly it. You can use email sequences from Drip, Infusionsoft, ConvertKit, whatever you want to end up using there, but I don't do much more than that. The key to a successful webinar isn't really the software. It's more so just the information you're providing and educating and then asking for the lead at the right ...

Eric Siu: Got it. How often are you adding to your or changing your webinars?

Neil Patel: Once every three to six months.

Eric Siu: Got it. Well, there you go. I mean here's a template to get started with this stuff. I've seen other people that just start their business with just running a webinar and running Facebook traffic directly to it. It works out. I would caution you on that because when you look at webinars, you have to look at all your conversion rates, right, what are your registration rates, attendee rates, attendance rates, conversion rates, and things like that. Because if one number changes drastically, it can screw up everything that you have. You need to be tracking everything pretty closely. I remember, Neil, you showed me a screenshot of kind of your Excel sheet where you're looking at it every single day and you were doing it all manually. I think that's what it takes, right?

Neil Patel: Yeah. I still do that too. I don't know the name of the ad, but like there is this dude on YouTube where he would always be like, "Hey, hey, hey. I just paid a lot of money for you to watch this YouTube ad, so don't close it," and then he goes on why you should register for his webinar.

Eric Siu: Billy Gene Is Marketing.

Neil Patel: There you go.

Eric Siu: That's the guy. He has like an agency I think in San Diego. He's got some pretty funny ads in there. I think there's one where ...

Neil Patel: Super creative. I googled his name though and it says, "Billy Gene Is Marketing," and the versions that come up is scam, inc, cam, glass star. I'm not saying he's a scammer or anything like that. I'm just saying what comes up, but interesting ads. I would say one of the most creative marketers that I've seen when it comes to their advertising.

Eric Siu: I think the most interesting thing is he had an ad where he was like walking into a Bentley dealership.

Neil Patel: Yeah, with his parents.

Eric Siu: Yeah. No, he went with his family. He got the Bentley. I thought he was going to buy it for his parents, but he drives it in his dad's face. He was like, "Dad, look at this. Look at it." It's not even like I got this for you. It's like look at it. I was like damn. Anyway, I digress. That's it for today. Before we go, we have a special giveaway for you. This is a one year annual subscription of Crazy Egg. It's worth close to $1,200. Before I give you details, I'm going to let Neil tell you a little bit about what Crazy Egg is.

Neil Patel: Well, on a side note, if you ever watch those YouTube Ads of people selling you on how they can teach you how to make money through consulting, don't sign up for it. It's a big scam. On a side note, well, they're going to lose money. You know what I mean? The ads are cool, but it's a ripoff. They're making their money by selling that shit to you. All right. What Crazy Egg is is a visual analytics tool. It'll teach you how to get more of your visitors to convert into customers. It really is that simple. You use it. It'll show you where people click, where they don't, where they're dropping off in your funnel. You can then make changes within Crazy Egg using the WYSIWYG and even run A/B test to ensure that your changes are maximizing your revenue.

Eric Siu: Great. If you actually want to get in on this, just go to singlegrain.com/giveaway. We're giving away one of these every single week. The cool thing is you can actually get multiple entries. To learn more, just go to singlegrain.com/giveaway and we will see you tomorrow.

Voiceover: This session of Marketing School has come to a close. Be sure to subscribe for more daily marketing strategies and tactics to help you find the success you've always dreamed of. Don't forget to rate and review, so we can continue to bring you the best daily content possible. We'll see you in class tomorrow right here on Marketing School.

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