#60 - All your webinar Qs answered - Part 1

We love automating, but not ever in a way that feels manipulative or fake.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your Host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd Kate McKibben, where every week we're here talking, nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online. But better, easier, and with a ton more profit too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Foreign.

Here from hellofunnels and welcome to the Doing It Online podcast, episode number 60 and today we're going to do it Q and A style and I'm actually going to answer a whole bunch of your questions about webinars. Yep, good old webinars, the thing we all love to hate, but that is such an important damn piece of our businesses. When you have an online business, they're not required, but they are super beneficial. But anyway, that's not what today's episode is about. I'm not here to vouch for webinars or how powerful they are, but I am here to answer all of your questions. So we've actually got so many questions about webinars that have been asked both in our community and via DMS that this is actually going to be a two parter. So this is part one, so you're going to have to hang on to part two if you don't hear the answer to your question. Sorry to make you wait, but I do try and keep these episodes to around 20 minutes if I can. Not always possible. So let's dive on in because I said we got, we got a bunch to get through. So let's answer all of your webinar questions. Part 1 okay. Okay. So first question up we have is how long should a webinar be? And look, to be honest, these days there is a lot of place to play with and to experiment with this stuff. However, what I would probably recommend, if you are like you may have seen some people have super long ones and some people have super short ones. What I normally recommend to people, particularly if doing a webinar is something that's new to you or you still feel like you're still in that process of still mastering it, is stick to the tried and true for now. Like prove the rule first. Find out how that converts for you. Get that baseline number that you can use and then go and try and break the rule. Then go and try and see if a longer one works better or a shorter one works better. But the sort of industry standard is usually between 45 minutes to an hour till you get to your Q and A session. So usually you guys would have seen the usual structure of a webinar is you introduce yourself a little bit of social proof just to kind of reiterating who you are, why it is, you know, what it is you're talking about. Then you're going to go through your webinar content. There's different ways of doing that. Then you're obviously going to have an invitation where you kind of explain what your offer is and how beneficial it is and all of that good stuff. And you want that to be finished by about the one hour mark. So usually like if I was going to literally write you down a timeframe, around about the 45 minute mark, you should be starting your invitation. And by the hour you don't want that to be any longer than 15 minutes. People will get bored. But you got to make sure you get all the information and then after that your Q and A, like the answering all the questions. That's Normally, you know, 10, 15, 20 minutes, however long that takes. Usually yeah, somewhere around the hour mark is probably what you should aim for to hit that, to hit the Q&As. The Q&As can go for as long as you like as well, depending on if you're doing it live or evergreen. There's a lot of different factors there. So next question that I get asked the most is what is the best software to use? So I'm going to break this into two parts into live and evergreen, because I actually recommend different things for each one. So for a live webinar, the software that we use is called Demio. The reason, look, and just going to put a caveat here. All WebGreen webigrain, all webinar software sucks in some way. Like none of them are perfect. They all have their issue. You're not the. What you need to do is find the one that works best for you and whose issues are going to annoy you the least, if that makes sense. We use Demio. As I said, for live webinars. The reason we like it is it's really, really simple to use. It's simple, it's straightforward, it looks great. I find a lot of the webinar software out there is just, I don't know, it looks like a science. Someone's, you know, graphic Design project or MySpace page from the 90s. I don't think there was MySpace in the 90s, but you know what I mean? Like, it's just doesn't look great. Demio is gorgeous. It looks really pro. It has the features that you need and you can get a webinar up and running in minutes, whereas other ones take like 20 minutes and they're super complicated. On the flip side of that, because it is so simple, it doesn't have as much functionality and as much sort of smarts as some of the other more complicated ones do. This is where you've got to weigh it up. Go. Do I need to be able to tag if people have watched it for a certain amount of time or if they've done this or if they've done that or am I happy to just know that they attended or didn't attend. It's that simple and easy versus complicated and takes a longer time. So you've got to weigh that up. The next the runner up, I guess for a live webinar would be Zoom. Particularly now that they've actually just released a bunch of apps and stuff you can add on Now Zoom again, the reason we recommend it to a lot of people is they're quite familiar with it. They use it particularly after Pandemic. Most people know how to use Zoom again, it is a bit more fiddly. It's not as straightforward as something like a Demio to connect it up to your email software and things like that. So if you are not comfortable with tech, I wouldn't recommend it. I'd go with Demio because that one is super easy. And then our runner up number three would be easy webinar. You know, I do like easy webinar. They have put a lot of time into trying to make something that can with has all the bells and whistles. It can do all of that, you know, more complicated stuff. It is a really solid platform. It's fairly reliable. They've got great tech support. The thing I don't love about it is it takes forever to set up webinar. There's too many options almost and yet the look and feel is not my favorite. But again, some people don't care about that. They care more about the functions and so it's about kind of weighing it up, seeing which one is best for you. They're all good in their own way and they also all suck a bit in their own way. There's none, I think that that really win out. Like I said, it's about picking whichever one works best for you. Then when it comes to Evergreen, we actually don't use any software anymore because these days we found and I think it's great actually after the Pandemic people And with Netflix and things like that. And people are just, they're a lot more savvy, they're a lot more aware of things going on. Like they don't fall for that, you know, fake live rubbish. Which is great because I don't like doing like we love automating but not ever in a way that feels manipulative or fake. It's just in a way that's like, hey, your time's valuable, our time's valuable. We're setting this up so you can watch it when you want to watch it and get the information you need when you need it and it works out for everybody. Like that's how we kind of look at automation rather than, you know, it's like, hey, it might be 3am where I am, but I'm definitely doing this live and I do it every hour on the hour. Like yeah, we don't like that kind of bs. So because you don't need a lot of those extra necessarily bells and whistles that used to come with these live like evergreen webinars. We've actually found that it works just as well for us to have the video embedded simply in a page on our website. So people obviously have to opt in to be able to watch. Then they're redirected after they opt in to the page where they can click play and you know, and watch and there's. Then we have, you know, we've got countdown timer so they can't, to give them some incentive was like this, you know, this recording expires out of X amount of time.

But yeah, that that means that we didn't actually need software for our Evergreen. However, if you do want software, if you still, still prefer that more structured kind of feel, which again for some markets it works better. Test it, see what works for you. Our favorite would be easy webinar for the Evergreen. So yes, it is a bit more complicated to set up but at least it's evergreen. So you don't need to be setting it up all the time. Right. You just need to kind of do it once and, and then let it go. So that's if you go into use a one of the Evergreen softwares. We've tried them all. A more cost effective option as well, which we sort of recommend to people is webinar kit. You can get that. It's crazy inexpensive at the moment. They do keep changing the prices so I won't say what it is but I think you can get like lifetime access. Last time I looked was like $70 or something crazy so again, it may not be that right now, but webinar kit would be the other one. If you're looking for more cost effective option for your evergreen and you want something that is that more structured feel to it. Okay, next question is how do webinars work best when you're launching? So great question. I mean, you guys know I love an evergreen anything, but you know, launches are also a fact of online life. And you know, I also believe that having funnels and things helps your launches to work better and having launches helps your funnels to work better. And they actually are really have really symbiotic relationship. So we're all about the, you know, doing things live as well as evergreen over here. So when it comes to webinars and launches, there's a thousand different ways you can do it, guys. And again, I'm going to give you now like some rough advice, but I would recommend as with everything is, you know, take it as take the advice, see how it goes, test it and feel free to feel, you know, to apply the filters of knowing your audience, of knowing your business is different and what feels right and what doesn't feel right for you. So usually what we find, and this is purely just from it, it's normally easier as a person to deliver. It is we when we're doing, if we have a live launch, a live open cart, we and we're going to do webinars, we like to kick off the open cart with a webinar. So that means that like you know, in the week or so before we're playing on opening cartoon, we are actually promoting our webinar, getting as many people as possible onto that webinar. And then on that webinar you can give a special off of people who are on that webinar because they're the very first people. Like the first people through the doors are open. No one else knows the doors are open yet. Like we don't send the emails to the rest of the list until that webinar is done. So it's a great way to really kick off your open cart. It also means you're more likely to get sales right up front, which I think again, just from a pure stress level management kind of thing is also really helpful because there's nothing worse than sending out that email, going doors are open and then sitting and it's crickets and waiting for that first sale to come through. So again, this is one of the reasons why we like to kick things off with a webinar because we know we get A certain X percent of people convert usually on our webinars. So it kind of gives us that, that nice knowing of yes, we should get a certain amount of sales on the first day. It helps us to start feeling that momentum and, and I feel like that energy kind of then translates through to the rest of the launch. It's also easier to be able to offer a special offer and have a reason for that special offer. If you are kicking things off with the webinar, it's like, hey, you guys, like the doors are opening in, you know, a couple of hours, but you guys get to come in first. If you're going to do something where it's limited number, it's so much easier to know that these people came from that and therefore be able to give them any bonuses or anything like that. Like, just like I said, it's just about making it easier and what works best for our mental health as well. If you're wanting to do a second webinar, there's two sort of different trains of thought of the best time to do that second one. One would be in the middle of the lull. And we all know this, right? Like there's always a lull in a launch. Normally most people find they get the bulk of their sales in the first couple of days and the bulk the rest of them in the last couple of days. And then it's just like trickle through a few in the middle and tumbleweeds and crickets and all that stuff then. So if you're wanting to again maybe to help increase the momentum, even if it's just for your own energy sake and your own mental health, to have a webinar in the middle can be a really useful thing to do. However we, our general preference is actually to, if we're going to have one, is to harness that energy and momentum that's going to be there anyway of the doors closing and actually have a live webinar running like right as the doors are about to shut. So there's actually like a really hard real deadline there as well as like this is last chance guys. If you want to get in and we're here, we can answer all of your questions before you join. And this is your last chance to join because in X number of hours the doors will be shut. So that's kind of my preference. Like that's what feels best for us. But you know, some people just want to have that little kick in the middle and if that works better for you, that's the best time for you to do It. All right, so next question. And again, I get asked this one a lot, guys, and I almost want to get T shirt printed with the answer. I get asked it that often. The question is, I want to create an evergreen webinar funnel. I don't want to do my webinar live, though. First to test it. Do I have to? And look, guys, as always, everything, your business, your rules, but whenever you do sort of decide to opt out of these things just because they feel a bit gross or icky or scary, which is usually just means that it's something that's new and you haven't done before. And so that that fear and that feeling is actually just the feeling of learning something. By the way, guys, it doesn't mean that it's actually something that you're. You should avoid forever, because once you've done it a few times, you'll know how to do it won't feel so scary. But, you know, that's another tangent for another day. The only time that I say to people, sure, prerecord your evergreen webinar. That's totally, you know, that's fine. Don't. There's no need to do it live is in two scenarios. One, if they are an absolute webinar pro, like, they have mastered webinars and delivery and they know like, when they, when they, even when they prerecord it, even without that feedback from the audience, they know that they've nailed it. They know how it should feel. They know how to present. They know how to speak in a way that's engaging and to create slides and the great present information the right way and all, it's like they know how to do it. They could do it in their sleep, right? They know that whenever they do a webinar, it converts it, like they have mastered it. And so for them, if it just makes more sense, if it's easier, if they don't have time to in their launch schedule or something like that, and they just want to prerecord it so they can get it up in Evergreen, go for it. They'll know that they've done a good job. So they don't need that feedback from the audience to test it, to tweak it, to see where it needs to be improved. The second time that I would say, yeah, okay, it's fine if you have to. Less enthusiastic, yes, guys, is if someone is like I, like I am. If they're living somewhere, their Internet is just terrible and that more than likely they're going to have horrendous issues while trying to deliver something live for that amount of time with people not being able to hear them or it dropping out or cutting out. And that's just going to mean it's that it's going to be very stressful for them, which usually comes across. It also means that it's not going to be a great experience for people watching because they're going to miss parts and, you know, they're going to spend, you know, a certain percentage of their actual presentation trying to troubleshoot and saying, people, can you hear me? Can you see me now refresh your browser. Like it's, that's not fun for anyone. So if your Internet sucks, then sure, go and you know, pre record the training portion and maybe the pitch of your webinar. However, I would actually encourage you to still run it live, ish. And do what we call a hybrid webinar. This is actually what I do whenever I run a webinar because I'm in Australia and it doesn't seem to matter which house I live in or what Internet plan we have. Our Internet is not great and it, I just don't think it ever will be. There's the problem with living in a country with not many people and, but it's very big. Our infrastructure isn't great. What you can do is what we call a hybrid webinar. So that means that you write out your, you know, you actually prerecord the bulk of it, but you deliver it, you still run it, like, you still test it live. So you still schedule a live session. You'll jump on at the start, say like, hey guys, introduce yourselves, welcome, have that bit of initial chat like, where's everyone from? Hi, hi, hi, hi, all that stuff. And then you'll explain to them, say, hey guys, just so you know, my Internet sucks. Like it's best to be upfront with these things. I want you guys to have a really good experience to not miss anything. So I have prerecorded for you the training portion. However, I'll be here in the comments answering your questions as we go along and then I'll come back at the end to do, you know, a further Q and A and you know, really dive into the meatier questions. So you know, it can be a win, win then. And it also allows you to see, you know, as it goes through, if it is recorded, where people are asking questions, where it maybe goes quiet, where people interacting a lot and get that feedback, which is the number one reason why we say to people, yes, please do it. Live. So like I said, those are the two instances where I would say, okay, no, it's all right to prerecord it. So firstly, if you're pro, prerecord it, whack it straight to Evergreen, you know it's gonna be fine. Your Internet sucks. Prerecord it, but test it as a hybrid first because you still need that feedback, guys. You still need that thing. And if you have good Internet and you're not a pro, it's all new, then I would recommend doing 100% would recommend doing it live every day of the week. And the reasons why. There's two main reasons why we will always recommend for you to do it live. Number one, like I said, it's really good way to get feedback. Like you will see as a presentation is going along where you're losing people and that might be okay. So that bit needs to be tightened up. I need to explain that better. Where people are getting confused, where people are getting excited and all that information will help you to improve on your presentation, make it better and better. Like as I said, if you're not a master at web at doing webinars yet, it can take a couple of goes to really nail it. And you need that sort of instant feedback you just can't get from looking at the stats of where people dropped off when on, you know, from watching a video. Like you kind of need to be in there and experiencing it. Okay. The other reason is it's just a faster way to test if it worked. So again, if you're going to pop it up, put it on as Evergreen and wait as handfuls of people go through each week. You know, like you're going at your data collection and seeing whether or not it works is maybe it's going to take you three, four weeks. Run it live once you'll have all the information you need in an hour and a half, which means that you are able to make faster decisions. You're able to then if it does work well, go great. Like the turning it Evergreen part, that's not hard. That's, you know, you've by doing it live first and particularly if you've done it in such a way that it's ready to go Evergreen, which is what we kind of COVID in our programs is, you know, that means that the flipping the switch over to Evergreen might be a couple of hours of connecting a few things up, setting up a couple of automations. It's not hard. The hard bit and the most important bit and the thing that's going to make the biggest difference to whether or not you're. If you're going to do an evergreen webinar funnel, which is what the question is about is successful, is that you nail that presentation, that that webinar works, that the offer works, that, you know, you keep people excited and interested and engaged and you're ticking all the things you need to tick. So when they get to the end, they're excited, they understand what they need to know, they've got all the information they need, they understand your offer, they understand the value of your offer, and if it's right for them, they're ready to buy. Long way of saying, yes, please, please, please. If you want it to do. Like, just ask yourself what is more important here actually having the outcome that you want? Like, if you're wanting to build an evergreen webinar, is it more important to have one that actually works really well, makes you more sales, converts well, or is it more important to be able to skip over that kind of uncomfortable thing that you don't want to have to do that one time? And that should give you your answer. Okay, guys, lucky last webinar question before. Well, in this part one anyway, we've got a bunch more in part two, which is coming next week. And that is, is it better to script your webinar or to just wing it? And again, my answer for this is it's really going to be up to you. I think there's nothing worse than watching someone reading a script and it's really dry. And yes, they might be saying all the right things, but like, you know it, right? Like when you read something, you have a reading voice when you're just speaking and sort of like in flow, you have a very different energy and a very different voice. And there's some really famous entrepreneurs, again, won't name they total type as they need the control of knowing that everything is going to be perfect. They need to know exactly how long it's going to go and they. So they have to script things. And some people respond better to that. I personally, I can hear that it's scripted and I'm like, shh, gone. Like, you know. However, the balance of that is if you know, you're not necessarily that practiced at just being able to talk for an hour or so and make sure that you're covering off all the things you need to cover off. And if you're likely to go off on tangents or miss really important pieces, then actually it might be better to script for you. So it's going to Come down to what is going to that balance, right of how can you deliver something that makes sure you cover all the points you need to cover that is going to still be engaging and still have a really good energy to it. It's going to help you to take away a bit of the fear. Again, I know a lot of people if you're doing something live, you might get nervous and forget something and then you get nervous that you're going to forget something, which makes you more nervous. So if it's going to make you feel feel better to have it scripted, then do that. Just when you're doing it scripted, just try and bring that energy to it. What I normally do is kind of somewhere in the middle. The more important pieces I will have scripted. Like if I know if there's certain pieces that need to be explained quite specifically, I might script that out. I always have dot points for each slide at least so that I know that I'm kind of at least keeping on track and I'm not going off on too much of a tangent. And then for key pieces in again in our invitation or pitch our script portions of that. Just because it is important to make sure people get all the, you know, there's a lot of information there that people need to have that specific like around price points and payment plans and any terms and conditions like things like that. Like I know that needs to be covered because I can't risk missing that I'll have those bits. So I do somewhere in between and then I give myself a bit of space to flow and ad lib and to add that bit more personality because I think that kind of comes through Again, it wasn't really hard, yes or no. But you know, it's weighing that up of what do you think is going to give the best delivery, is going to feel good for you, is still going to give good energy and maybe it's, you know, it's somewhere in the middle like finding that thing that works well and it. And if you are going to script it though guys, I would recommend that you practice it a few times at least because that is going to help it sound more natural so that you're not stumbling over words and going oh, what does that say? And things like that, like if you're going to script it out, make sure it's easy to read, make sure you've practiced it, make sure that you've got any notes of when you need to click onto the next slides, that kind of thing. That's all, that's all the questions for this part. One, guys, like I said, I hope it has been super useful. If you have any other questions about webinars, feel free to hit us up over in the DMs. We might be able to sneak them into next week's episode. Until then guys, I have one more quick thing I want to share with you guys as well. Is that actually our Ecourse Empire program, which I know you guys heard me talk about a thousand times. It's our amazing 12 month mentorship program for course creators and course creators to be where you get all the step by step plans, templates, trainings you need to create a six figure plus ecourse business. You've got how to create your different funnels, how you've got support for your launches, you've got an amazing community. We have two to three support calls every week with experts in different parts of online business. It's one of the best things I've ever created. The results people get in here are just amazing. I think we blow people's minds when they first join because they're like, I thought it would be good. I didn't realize it'd be this good. I can't say enough good things about it. Even though it's my program and I'm Australian and it's really difficult for me to say nice things about my stuff. But I'm so, so proud of this program. But anyway, the doors are currently open guys. We do have some spots available at the moment. We do keep numbers capped because like I said, this is a boutique little group we have. We like to be able to get in there, roll our sleeves, offer real support, useful support. We like to get to know everyone who's in there, know their businesses so we can give them the right answers and direct them in the right direction. So we do have a few spots available right now. It is application only. So if you want more details, if you're wanting help and support to either create your online program, get it out there, grow it as fast as possible, or if you have an online program and you're like, damn it, I just want to scale it. I've tried all the things, it's not working. I need a better plan. I need more support. That is exactly what EcoSysempire is designed to do, what it does do. And like I said, we have a few spaces available right now, so head on over to HelloFunnels Co click on programs, go to Ecourse Empire, pop in your application. I would do it ASAP because as of recording this, we have some spots available, but by the time this goes live we may not. So you definitely want to get in there asap. Come and join us. It's super fun and I can't wait to see you inside. Bye guys.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing it online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figure funnel, let Kate show you exactly how today@Stealmyfunnel.com.