One Clever Hack to Boost Your Webinar Attendance 18-23%
We all know that webinars just plain work. Sure, maybe not quite as well today as they have in the past, but they still convert very well. This is especially true if you have a product that produces a sizable amount of income from a small number of sales – something in the $500 to $2k range.
Lately, however, the same trends of past are repeating themselves. What I mean is that Webinars have become more popular and Facebook advertising has also become more popular. So what happens with that popularity? Well, unfortunately, it means that the average cost per lead has probably doubled or in some cases even tripled in the past 18 months or so.
That doesn't mean that Webinars are not effective anymore, but it does mean that you can't afford to be sloppy with your lead gen and that you need to get every possible person you can to be on that webinar. The popularity of webinars has also caused the attendance rate to drop over the last 18 months or so as well – yet another factor in the rising cost of Webinar-based marketing.
Today's tip will you boost your webinar attendance rate and it's super easy to do. It requires no additional costs in your marketing funnel, but it simply an “efficiency” tip that very few do (although our best clients are using this practice).
We all know that using SMS or Text Messaging to remind your attendees of the webinar is very important. But it can be difficult to get your prospects to part with their cell phone. Our results, however, show that attendance from those that provide their cell number for text messages is about 2x those that don't. That means getting that cell number is very important to your webinar's success.
How to Get More Text Optins
So what do you do to encourage people to part ways with their cell phone number? Simple. You encourage them by giving them something extra of value. Here's the exact funnel we use and recommend in order to just that.
- Add the Cell Number for Text Reminders to the webinar registration form, but make it optional. You don't want to make it mandatory or you'll get far fewer registrations.
- [The Secret Sauce] After someone registers, use our Route It Helper to dynamically check if they filled in their phone number or left it blank. 98% of people using the Route It Helper use it's tag based routing features. But the Helper also allows you to dynamically redirect someone based upon field conditions as well. One of those conditions is if a field is blank.
- If they provide a cell number, then send them to the normal thank you page and proceed as normal.
- If they don't provide a cell number, via our Route It Helper and conditional field value check, send them to a different page. On this intermediary landing page, offer them a bonus to enter their cell number and text it to them IMMEDIATELY after doing so.
Now the trick with #4 above to get max results is to word things properly. You want to put them at ease about the intended use of their cell phone number. The reason they don't want to give it up is simple – they don't want to be called by a pushy salesman or saleswoman. So simply take that off the table. I'm certainly no copywriter, but you can use something like this…
“Hmm… we saw you didn't provide your cell number for text reminders. Please know that we only use this number for simple text alerts to remind you of the upcoming webinar – no sales person will ever call you.
We know your time is very important to you and clearly you don't want to miss this powerful webinar on xyz, so please take a moment and provide your cell number below so we can help make sure you don't miss this event.
Oh… one more thing… If you go ahead and fill in your cell number below now, we'll send you a special thank you bonus of our special report on ‘How to Boost Your Webinar Attendance by 18-23% with One Clever Hack' for free. In fact, we'll just text it to you right now…”
Now, I'm sure if you're a good copywriter you can improve that messaging, but it does have a couple of key elements in it that are important. It takes away their fear of being called by a sales person. Do NOT make this promise, however, if you intend on breaking it. I strongly advise against using this number for anything other than the stated purpose or you'll break the trust you're building with your list.
As my father always said, “trust can take a lifetime to build but can be lost in a single moment of stupidity” – very true. Resist the urge and simply use it as stated, just for text reminders.
Quote from Troy...
The other thing we do is talk about the pain of not attending the event and also reinforce their commitment to attend thru their act of registration. This makes it seem logical to them to continue their commitment by providing their cell number now.
Lastly, we provide an incentive – a thank you for doing so. We simply give them some sort of bonus or free report AND we text it to them, to once again anchor their need to give up their cell number.
Summary
Okay, so give this a shot in your business for your next webinar and let us know the results. We've used it with all of our top clients and seen an average increase of 18% to 23%. Now, we obviously can't promise you'll see that – you may not see any benefit at all – but what can it hurt to try?
Enjoy! and see you next week with another tip…
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