Are webinars a key part of your business but you’re tired of doing them live?
If you didn’t know, webinars are used by some of the most successful online business owners to generate both leads and sales but, doing them often can get tiring.
We have clients that run webinars multiple times a week to once a week.
They build up some amazing momentum but start to get worn out at some point.
At that point it will feel right to record your first evergreen webinar.
But where do you start?
While it’s easy to think that evergreen webinars are just like live webinars, but recorded, there are some things you should know in order to create a successful evergreen webinar.
After building out hundreds of webinar funnels, both live and evergreen, we wanted to share 7 tips for recording your first evergreen webinar.
1. Don’t Use A Recording Of A Live Event – Record On Your Own
Hands down, the number one question I get when it comes to recording your first evergreen webinar is:
“Can I use a recording of a previous webinar that converted well or do I have to record a new one from scratch”?
My honest recommendation is to record a new webinar from scratch so that you can create the perfect event and timing for your soon to be evergreen webinar.
If you map out your “perfect webinar” it will most likely best be accomplished if you can control all aspects of the event. The only guaranteed way to achieve that is to record your presentation as if it were in front of an audience using a tool like Screenflow if you’re on a Mac or Camtasia if you’re on a PC.
The only time I suggest leveraging a previously recorded webinar that had high conversion is if you simply cannot replicate the energy you had while recording live.
The biggest obstacle of recording from scratch for many is that they can’t replicate that same level of energy when they know nobody is listening.
I get it but, if you can overcome that, you’ll be putting yourself in the best position to record your “perfect” webinar.
2. Don’t Reference Time, Date Specific Events or the Weather
One of the benefits of leveraging evergreen webinars is that you can create an on-demand experience in the viewer’s own timezone. Heck, you can even offer webinars multiple times a day and week.
That means some people will be watching at night, while others may be watching in the morning or afternoon.
So, you probably don’t want to say “Good morning”, “Good afternoon” or “Happy Friday” in your webinar recording. (The only exception is you only broadcast your webinars in the morning or on a specific day which, then it makes a bit more sense)
In addition to time, you also don’t want to mention date specific events.
With people being able to watch often and frequently, saying something like “Happy Thanksgiving” won’t make sense when someone is watching in March.
Lastly, you won’t want to mention the weather. YOu may also want to be careful showing yourself on camera if you’re near a window as that may be alluding to a specific time of day that is not relevant to the viewer.
Overall, you shouldn’t be pretending to be live and or misleading people but we’ll talk about that in a bit.
When recording your evergreen webinar, you’ll want to avoid time, date specific events and weather…that’s another reason why recording from scratch typically is to your advantage.
3. Continue To Take Questions
An important part of your webinar (both live and evergreen) is your opportunity to answer questions.
The Q&A portion of your webinar gives you the chance to engage with your audience and handle objections some might have to your offer and possibly even clarify confusions that we’re preventing people from buying.
So, continue to take questions.
You may be asking, “Should I act like people asked questions and just answer random questions?”
Well, if you set yourself up properly you can leverage this as an opportunity.
In the beginning of the webinar (as you probably do already) mention that you’ll be taking questions at the end and will hopefully have enough time to get to all of them. By doing this you’re mentioning that they can ask but setting the expectation that you may not get to all of them.
Now, this is where I’m hoping that you’ve done a live webinar before and have received questions on your topic before. If that’s the case your’e in luck, because those are the questions you’re going to answer.
Identify 5-10 questions that you frequently get and be sure to answer those.
I’d also consider including a few of your own seeded questions of things you wish your audience would ask about so you can provide answers and add more clarity on your offering which should help in their buying decision.
For example, you may want to explain the modules in the course or how long the course would take to finish.
You’ll obviously want to mention the person’s name that asked the question to make it more personable so if you don’t know the name of people that asked questions previously on your live webinars, then you’ll want to pick from some common names.
4. Leverage Scarcity and Give A Reason To Buy (Even though it’s recorded)
One of the most effective tactics to drive sales on a webinar is to incorporate scarcity in an effort to create urgency.
The common challenge question is:
How can I create urgency if people can be watching this webinar whenever they want?
While a common approach is to incorporate a coupon code or promo code for those watching on the webinar…that’s not personally my favorite approach as you create the expectation that you’ll be offering discounts if people show up live.
Using tools like Infusionsoft can help you direct non-buyers on the webinar to different URLs so they can’t access that promo pricing following the conclusion of the webinar.
So, while you can do offer a discount and it will work for the most part, I like to encourage clients to add additional value and only those that buy while on the webinar. Think, Fast Action Bonus.
You could incorporate something of additional value like a one-on-one call or special access to you etc. You’d leverage this fast action bonus as a way to get people to buy while on the webinar.
Then leverage your marketing automation tool like Infusionsoft to send the regular offer to anyone that didn’t buy live.
5. Leverage Timed CTA’s
Depending on the webinar software you’re using you have the ability to setup timed events throughout the duration of the webinar.
The one timed call-to-action (CTA) you should most definitely be using is that of your offer.
With tools like EasyWebinar and EverWebinar you can have your product offer pop up on the screen at a specific time in the webinar.This CTA can last till the end of the webinar or even disappear at a certain point when the offer is no longer available (think fast action bonus).
Outside of your product offer, you can use timed CTA’s to prompt viewers to:
- Ask questions
- Download resources
- Share the webinar with their communities
- Request a consultation
Try using timed CTA’s to engage your viewers throughout the webinar and reveal your price at the most opportune moment.
6. Integrate With A Marketing Automation Tool To Follow Up Based On Behavior
While you’ll get a lot of automation from within your evergreen webinar software you’ll want to be sure to integrate it with a marketing automation tool like Infusionsoft.
By connecting a tool like EasyWebinar or EverWebinar to Infusionsoft, you can pass the webinar registrant data to Infusionsoft and tag each registrant based on their behavior during the webinar.
After the webinar you’ll be able to segment your registrants based on:
- If they attended
- If they showed up
- If they left early (before you made your offer)
- If they purchased
- If they clicked your call-to-action
- If they joined late
Depending on how you want to segment your follow-up, you can create pretty targeted communications to contacts based on they interacted with your webinar.
7. Don’t Say It’s Live
Now, the most important tip, that applies to tips 1-6 above is this….Don’t say it’s live. Don’t mislead people into thinking the webinar is a live event.
Now, I’m not saying you need to go and say it’s recorded either. Just be authentic and don’t try to fake people.
You’d be surprised at how many people try to do this.
As long as you’re not sketchy and are generally a good person, this shouldn’t even be a challenge for you.
But if you have someone in your corner telling you to say it’s live and it’s not. I’d highly reconsider.
Take a note from one of our clients and call it an “On-Demand Streaming Webinar”.
That sets the perception that it’s not live but doesn’t sound cheesy like Recorded Webinar either.
At the end of the day, this decision is up to you but we find that most evergreen (recorded webinars) that actually convert aren’t misleading people.
You’re Ready To Record
You’re ready to go!
Leveraging live webinars can become an instrumental part of your business allowing you to generate leads and sales on auto-pilot….assuming your webinar is converting. 🙂
While we didn’t mention it earlier, it’s probably safe to mention that you’ll need a webinar tool that enables you to do evergreen webinars.
Our favorites at System.ly are EverWebinar, EasyWebinar and WebinarNinja. Pick the tool that works best for your business and integrates with your marketing automation tool and get recording!
So, are you ready to record your first evergreen webinar?
