subject: Information Marketing: Using Webinars To Generate Business [print this page] Here is a question from Olessia in Silver Spring about managing webinars. Since this is a common question, I decided to prepare an article about this challenge to help you.
Now the high margin and the real revenue you're generating, you're generating from the on site training program specifically for the corporation. What I would do is use webinars and on site training to bring in more clientele. Say your clients think they're coming to a presentation where they're going to learn A to Z. As you talk you may discover you need to rethink how much time you spend on each item. You start the webinar and you talk in a lot of detail about two or three things. And then you skip a few things saying, "Well, you know, I'm not able to get into D, E, F, or G in as much detail as I would like to. We're just running out of time. I can't get to everything we normally do in the full day on site sessions, but let me go ahead and get into F and G, because that was one of the bullet items that I gave you within the marketing."
And so, about every 20 minutes you put in these, "Well, I'd like to go into this in a lot more detail, that of course is covered in the on site full day training extensively, but let me move on to this next thing." So, that even if there are people fighting through this program, then this plants a seed in their mind that there's more you can show then and they need to bring you in because there is more. There is a much more expensive and much more extensive even training program. Let's look at Microsoft's latest version of their operating system, Vista, as kind of a guide. For Vista you have like the Vista Enterprise version, which has all the features. Then there's Vista Home version, which doesn't do any networking. And then there's Vista X, which pulls out different pieces. Microsoft has created a mind numbing number of variants, but all it is are discounted software with some of the features shut off. And all you got to do is -- and if you buy the upgrade, all the upgrade does is turn on those features. It doesn't really necessarily load much different software.
Although that was just an example, the same basic principles apply to marketing. Microsoft did too many different things, but you would not give them the entire thing as part of a webinar series. You give the webinar and you show them the manual and I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to be able to say, "These are 8 of the 30 that are in this comprehensive manual. In the comprehensive manual we give you these 15 details. Of course, in this context, I don't have time to give you all that, but let me give you this part." And as long as your webinars always over deliver you will continue to improve. You should always give them more than they paid for, but you shouldn't give them everything you know or everything you have.
Be careful not to cram too much information in or make the webinar too long. Frankly if you did in eight hours, you're going to overwhelm them anyway. You keep your lengthiest time or juiciest information either for yourself, or for the highest level pricing that you have. I would go ahead and roll it out, because in this economy you never know when things could change and you don't want it to become obsolete. But to make it clear, you are under no obligation to give them something they didn't buy. If you're doing $700 webinars and you are doing $10,000 in-person trainings, selling the manual of the course for $3,700 doesn't seem out of line. And the trick is, you have to be able to leverage that
When there are multiple people from multiple companies, or a webinar where there are multiple people from multiple companies, even if they've paid for that opportunity to be in the room and learn from you, you need to use that opportunity as an opportunity to sell them into the next thing. If it were me, I would spend a lot of time with you going over the exact pitch and the exact way you need to position this manual during your webinars, in order to make it very easy for people to buy them. That gives you an example. I'm just kind of telling you that if I was that would be what I would be doing. But that's the kind of thing that you need to be doing. "Oh, that's a very good question. And in fact we go through that in a lot of detail in chapter 7 within that operations manual that is available on the web site you know if you're interested. But let me give you kind of a synopsis of it, so that it gives you a little bit of direction that you can follow."
And so, you have four or five pre-determined places an hour where you talk about the in-person seminar. Or you talk about the product, so that the people who are serious will go ahead and invest in that next thing.
There have never been greater, more diverse, more lucrative opportunities for everyone--experienced, successful entrepreneurs to rank beginners--in the field of information marketing. If you can name a topic, there is a market for providing information about it. People buy information about almost everything--from hobbyist topics like dog training, to business topics like how to sell over the telephone, to self-improvement topics like fitness walking. The key is to find a responsive market and then package information that customers want in convenient forms such as DVD's, books, e-books, CD's, magazines, websites, teleseminars, webinars, coaching programs, seminars, and conferences.
