WEBINARS: HOW TO CRAFT THE PERFECT WEBINAR

Morning!

The sun is out, it’s 28°, and I have an açai bowl by my side. The last 2 weeks have been crazy hectic, but as I slowly work my way through this açai bowl - it’s safe to say life is good.

Today is going to be a slightly different breakdown than usual. We’re not going to be analysing one of history’s greatest marketers. Instead, you’re stuck with me.

Because last week, we launched a marketing campaign that I spent months preparing for.

So I thought you’d find it interesting if I broke down everything I did + what worked + what went terribly wrong.

You can listen to the audio version of this breakdown HERE.

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION

BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY

A few weeks back, I read a line by Russel Brunson that felt like a knife to my heart:

I’d spent the last 12 months crafting different funnels every 6 weeks for prospects to go down.

We had:

• A webinar funnel.

• An assessment funnel.

• A guide download funnel.

Yet none of them had driven even close to $ 1 million in sales.

(Just to clarify here, when I say “funnel” I essentially mean any route a customer can take to buy from you. I.e. Promote webinar on LinkedIn → Run the webinar → Book a sales call)

I felt like I’d be sprinting in all directions when I should have been sitting and perfecting something I already had right in front of me.

For days after, that quote haunted me.

1 funnel. $ 1 million.

I needed to create the perfect funnel. I had to give it a shot. I didn’t want to work on a new idea, I wanted to make an old idea perfect.

So, I decided I’d go back to our old webinar funnel we ran at the start of the year and do my best to make it perfect.

• I invested £750 in new software.

• Spent 200+ hours studying webinar funnels.

• A/B tested absolutely everything I created.

And now, I’m 4 days post-webinar and I have all the data you could imagine.

It wasn’t perfect, it was far from it. But now I have a much better idea of what perfect looks like.

Here are 5 lessons I learned from trying to create the perfect webinar:

Lesson 1: People Hate Cluttered Landing Pages

On our first-ever webinar, we had 370 people sign up and about 140 show up on the day. It seemed like a massive success.

…then we signed 0 clients off the back of it.

We clearly got some things right, but there was also a lot to work on.

Last time, we used a really simple 1-page landing page (which seemed to convert well), but I knew we could do better - so that’s where I started.

Step 1: Paid for ClickFunnels

If I wanted the landing page to convert, I wanted to use software optimised to convert people - so I bought ClickFunnels.

I was super impressed, it’s super easy to use, plus it allows you to split-test different sites - exactly what I needed.

Step 2: Create 2 landing pages to test

I’ll talk about copy & positioning in the next step, for now, I’m going to cover the formatting and approach with the design of each landing page.

With landing page 1 my strategy was to simply stick to the basics.

• Explain who the webinar is for.

• Explain what the webinar will be on.

• Showcase some client testimonials.

With landing page 2 my strategy was to focus on showing the transformation we provide and our credibility.

• Included 3 client transformations

• Showed the value of everything talked about in the webinar.

• Emphasised that there were limited seats available.

I also used a photo of the entire UK team on this landing page Vs just a photo of myself & Morgan on landing page 1.

My prediction:

I thought landing page 2 would convert much higher than landing page 1. Mainly because of the focus on client transformations + the use of the entire UK team to add credibility.

Actual result:

Landing page 1’s conversion rate was 11% higher. Much more significant than I’d imagined.

I also got some feedback from Lara Acosta that was interesting…

“Too crowded” wasn’t the comment I was looking for, but it made me realise how prospects viewed it.

I was thinking the more the better, but clearly that hindered landing page 2.

I also think the image of the entire team didn’t help with that cluttered feel.

Lesson 2: Prioritise Repelling Over Attracting

The biggest risk with all of this was getting the positioning wrong, and we did… slightly.

Whenever I create a lead magnet or funnel like this I always like to center it around 1 simple outcome. For this webinar, I decided to go with “Get Your Company Noticed.” as the outcome.

I liked it for a few reasons:

1/ It was directed at companies.
2/ Pretty clear outcome.
3/ No confusion.

And I went for 2 similar headlines on both landing pages:

The only real difference is I positioned it as a “Secret System” for landing page 1.

We also decided to position the webinar as a “Masterclass” - in the hope that people would see it as more of a value-add than a sales pitch.

My whole aim with all of this positioning was to specifically target B2B companies, whilst also making it an exciting concept to come and listen to.

So I was tracking the success of this based on the quality of people who signed up.

My prediction:

I thought that by making this more targeted to companies we may not sell out our 100 seats. I was expecting high-quality sign-ups and was willing to sacrifice quantity for quality.

Actual result:

Almost the opposite happened. We sold out the masterclass in 23 hours, yet only 15-20% of sign-ups were great prospects.

When we were breaking down the results with Dom McGregor on Friday, Dom said we have a “Gmail problem” and he was right. Too many of our sign-ups were Gmails - meaning they weren’t there for work.

Next time, we’ll have to repel Gmails and make the messaging very clear that this is for B2B companies of a certain size.

I thought we’d already done that, but clearly not well enough.

Lesson 3: Urgency + Scarcity Really Do Work

There were 2 psychological triggers I leaned into with this webinar:

1/ Scarcity
2/ Urgency

With the last webinar, I felt like we really didn’t try hard enough to actually get people over the line. So with this one, I wanted to really get people’s natural instinct going and get them feeling pressure to sign up instantly.

Let’s start with the scarcity element - 2 things we did:

1/ We limited the masterclass to just 100 seats.

2/ We then had a live countdown of how many seats were left

3/ I also manually kept updating my launch post on LinkedIn with how many seats were taken

Then we had the urgency element too - 2 things we did:

1/ The seats remaining - as mentioned above, also added urgency as they reduced rapidly.

2/ Countdown timer actively ticking down while they were on the page.

All of these things were there just to add that extra pressure to go ahead and sign up.

My prediction:

I was pretty confident these would increase our sign-ups, but I wasn’t sure just how effective they’d be.

Actual result:

We had 70+ sign-ups in under 1 hour and the whole masterclass sold out in 23 hours - clearly they were effective.

Lesson 4: The Game Starts When The Webinar Is Finished

Now this is where I do have to admit something… 95% of the time I spent on this masterclass was focused on getting people onto the masterclass.

Converting people from the masterclass to booking a sales call with us? Yeah, didn’t really plan that out too well.

Obviously, I knew we would offer a chance to book a call at the end - but I had no plan on how to position or implement that.

So on the morning of the webinar, I decided that we’d stop before the Q&A and offer everyone a free Brand Accelerator Call (a 45-minute call 1-2-1 with myself or Morgan).

My prediction:

Our presentation would be good enough that people would run to book calls with us.

Actual result:

I butchered explaining the “offer” and only 2 companies booked calls directly off the back of the webinar. 2 more have filtered through since. But directly on the webinar - only 2.

A tad disappointing for the work we put in, but worth it if they all sign.

In hindsight, it was pretty stupid to not put more of a focus on how we were going to position our offer at the end of the webinar - lesson learned.

Lesson 5: Use A “Sold Out” Page

I’m conscious I’m over 1700 words deep at this stage, so I’ll keep this one short.

But one of the best aspects of this masterclass that I think a lot of people will overlook is our “Sold out” page.

(See it HERE.)

Because it did 2 things that have been massive for us:

1/ Showed we’d actually sold out

The second 100 seats were gone the URL switched to this page showing that there were 0 seats left. Instantly giving anyone who missed out FOMO and increasing the chances they’d sign up next time.

2/ It allowed them early access to the next masterclass

As I write this, 24 people have already signed up for our next masterclass through this page.

That’s before we’ve:

• Announced the topic.

• Given a date or time.

• Or promoted it.

Some pretty good going in my books.

Now, we’re already off to a flying start with our next masterclass without having to do any promotion - purely off the back of this one.

 🌱 THE GREENHOUSE

Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:

• My new favourite thing to watch. (See here)

• Diary Of A CEO with Boris Johnson. (See here)

• My last month in photos. (See here)

TL;DR

1/ People hate clutter
2/ Repelling > Attracting
3/ Urgency + Scarcity do work
4/ Plan for the end of the webinar
5/ Use a “Sold Out” page

While the hours I spent putting this webinar together didn’t result in my “perfect funnel,” I’m actually quite happy with everything.

We collected great data, learned a lot, and will attack next month’s 100x better.

Which is a great reminder, that sometimes the best marketing doesn’t start from some crazy creative idea. Instead, it starts with a bit of a failure and lots of data.

Let’s see how our November masterclass goes now!

Find this interesting or valuable? Why not forward this to a friend or colleague? 

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

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THAT’S ALL!

This has been a breakdown of Acquired’s podcast marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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