Hey everyone!
Jason here, digital marketing consultant.
And in this webinar fight, we are gonna be pinning, live webinars, against automated
webinars.
We're gonna look at the pros and cons.
It definitively answer the question, which one is best for you and your business.
And when you stick around to the end, I'll be sharing with you, which one I've chosen
to move forward with, with our businesses and why I've chosen to do that, for myself
and clients.
Make sure you check out the links in the description to a timestamp table of contents to skip around,
as well as some review videos of webinars softwares, along with a in-depth tutorial
on how to put together your own webinar funnels.
So here let's go ahead and dive right in, take a look at the pros and cons of each one
of these.
And we're gonna start by looking at what, defining what these are.
So we'll define an automated webinar as any video or piece of content, that have runs
without any of your involvement.
We're gonna define a live webinar as where you have to physically show up.
So even if your live webinar has some prerecorded elements, we're going to put that in the live
webinar camp.
The automated webinar, you don't have to show up at all.
You could be sleeping or on the beach for whatever you care, and the webinar would still
be going.
So first off, I want to talk about the pros and cons of each one, and we'll kick things
off with the top three reasons, automated webinars are really great.
And the first reason automated webinars are awesome, is the scheduling aspect.
I think this is the biggest con of live webinars.
And that is with automated webinars, it doesn't matter the time zone or the schedule of the
people you want to watch the webinar because the automated webinar can either be on demand
or you can run it as many times as you want during the day.
And people can watch it whenever they need, especially as the internet and entertainment
becomes more on demand and people are getting used to immediately being able to watch or
read or engage with whatever they want to, not having to wait for a specific event or
time.
I think automated webinars really shine there, because you're not gonna be missing out on
a potential audience or sale, simply because your webinar time doesn't match up with their
schedule or time zone.
The second reason automated webinars rock is list size.
One of the big downsides of live webinars, is that you actually need to have a list.
You actually need to have an audience.
You actually need to know that people are gonna show up, so that you don't look like
a loser, right?
When you're trying to do your live webinars.
I know I've had that personal experience, where I've done live events in the past, and
I've had all of two or three people show up, it's not a lot of fun.
And especially if you're trying to sell something, that's not gonna install a lot confidence
on those two or three people, because they're gonna be in the chat, looking around going,
where is everyone, why am I the only one of two people here?
Right?
And then the third reason automated webinars are great is they are scalable, right?
The downside with a live webinar, is you have to be physically there.
There are only so many you can run into in a day.
Whereas with an automated webinar, you can run as many as you want.
And depending upon the software you're using, you could have pretty much unlimited people
showing up, to each one of them.
So, there are a lot of big advantages to automated webinars, but we're not gonna count live webinars
out yet.
So let's go ahead and look at the top three reasons live webinars are awesome.
And the biggest reason to use live webinars is engagement.
I think engagement is something, that it's going to be completely missed with an automated
webinar, because unless you're trying to be scummy or scammy, people are gonna know that
you're running an automated webinar.
They're gonna know that it's not live.
They're gonna know that they can't ask questions or engage with the presenter.
Whereas with the live webinar, you're physically there.
Even if you're doing some sort of hybrid, you're still there in the chat and you're
able to actively engage with people.
And it creates the sense of an event.
It's not just another video or training on the web.
This is an actual event.
And it means something to show up and be there in real time and actually be a part of something.
And to that, that reason number two live webinars are awesome is, audience insights.
You're actually gonna learn just as much as your attendees.
So, your attendees are there to ask you questions and learn from your knowledge and experience.
Or maybe just hang out with you because they like you that much, right?
Well, the same is true for you.
You're there to learn from your audience.
You're there to see what questions they have.
You're there to see what parts of the presentation don't make sense.
So that you can improve your message in the future.
And reason number three live webinars are awesome, is you have a replay, right?
You record it.
And all of a sudden you have something that can be turned into a automated webinar.
So if you already have a list and you're looking for that engagement and you're comfortable
doing things live and you don't need 20 takes to get something, right, well then doing a
live webinar, even if only a couple of people show up and then turning it into an automated
webinar, is a pretty great way to go.
Now we've gone through the pros and cons of each one of them.
So let's break down where these two shine, because I think they're good for different
things.
I think live webinars are great for branding and engagement.
Whereas automated webinars are great for training and sales.
You see with live webinars, it's all about the interaction between the viewer and yourself,
where automated webinars, you want to have a nice polished presentation, whether you're
trying to sell something or whether you're doing training, like it's a paid webinar,
that someone is had paid for training.
If someone's paid for training, where you're trying to do a sales pitch, you want it to
be as polished as possible.
You want to take out the UMs and the AHs and the pauses, because if it's a pay training,
someone doesn't want to sit there for two hours while you kind of fumble through things.
And if it's a pitch, you want it to be nice and tight.
So, you give your best foot forward.
With a live webinar on the other hand, there's not as much of an expectation of it being
polished.
And so you can gain a lot of insight into, what your audience or customers have questions
about or what they care about.
And they're gonna be able to feel like they got more valuable because you physically showed
up.
So with that, I want to talk about the three keys to success, with live webinars and automated
webinars, before I finally reveal which one personally chosen to stick with.
Number one is making sure that you have enough audience size, for it to warrant you doing
some more, putting more work into having live webinar.
Number two is trying to [unintelligible 00:06:09] thing.
If you haven't done anything live yet, the first thing you want to do, is just get an
experience of being live with an audience.
Personally, what I did, is I went and did a five-day [unintelligible 00:06:22] here,
on YouTube.
That's the example that I had, where only a couple people showed up, but I got the experience
of having to continue to talk for 30 to 45 minutes.
I think the longest they went was like an hour for one of them.
Anyway, the point is, you get used to having to continue to talk and understand when to
pause and ask questions.
Number three would be making sure that during this live event, during this live test, every
five to 10 minutes, you make sure that you pause and ask for questions, and that you're
constantly reading that question box, the comments section, so that you can really get
a better understanding of your audience.
It's all about learning and getting comfortable, being in front of camera on real time, as
opposed to a video like this one, where it's really easy to pause, and actually cut, when
a mistake is made.
Now the three keys to success for an automated webinar is, to actually skip the fancy software.
I know, and just put a--, use Vimeo and put a video on your WordPress site and direct
people to that video.
After they enter their name and email or whatever information you want to collect, on the registration
page.
And the reason you want to do this, is you just want to get your funnel working, right?
Before you add the fancy software, before you start trying to split test, different
parts of your webinar, you've prerecorded your webinar.
You don't know how it's gonna do.
Let's just go ahead and use a page already on your WordPress site.
I recommend using ThriveThemes.
And then what you can do, is add a countdown timer to that page.
And that creates a sense of urgency and lets people know they need to watch it now.
And it's not gonna be the same as a live event, right?
There's not gonna be that same fear of missing out, but it is going to add enough, where
you're gonna get some pretty good data, on how people respond to your webinar.
And key to success number two, once you have that simple system set up, is to actually
focus on your ads and your landing page.
You wanna make sure, that you're getting anywhere from a 25 to 35, maybe even 40% of your knocking
out of the park, opt-in rate, before you do anything else with your funnel.
Once your landing page is converting at that rate, you're focusing on your ad, you're testing
your messaging, you're testing, split testing your landing pages.
That process takes a lot more time than most people appreciate.
And so once you're at 25% to 35%, conversions on your life page, guess what?
You've got a ton of information, on what your audience or what customers actually care about
and respond to.
And you can take all that information and edit your automated webinar.
Now it's not gonna be as great, if you did a live webinar because on a live webinar,
you're gonna see in real time how people interact with the content you're presenting.
But this is a distant second, in terms of modifying your messages, based upon what your
audience actually cares about.
Because as you change your ad copy, as you change your landing pages, you're actually
gonna get insights on how you should change the content in your webinar and maybe how
you should change the pitch in your automated webinar, based upon the information you learn,
getting your landing page to the 25% to 35% mark.
I know we went through that relatively fast, but I didn't want this to turn into, you know,
full-blown video on how to put together a automated webinar sales funnel.
There is a link and playlist in the description, for exactly how to do that, using ThriveThemes
or other solutions like StealthSeminar, and EverWebinar.
Now, if you're still watching this video, go ahead and hit that like button.
This is where I'm going to tell you, the one that I've chosen to stick with.
And the one I always recommend the clients and that is actually automated webinars.
I think in the grand scheme of things.
When you look at how much time it takes to put together a live webinar and how much time
commitment, when it comes to creating that type of content, I think you're much better
off, focusing on other content mediums, making more YouTube videos, making more podcasts
or making more blog posts, as opposed to trying to do a bunch of live webinars, set up an
automated webinar simply, and then focus on split testing your landing pages and dialing
that lead generation part, that front-end of your funneling, and then start getting
fancy and then started investing all of that time and energy it takes, to really put together
a full blown webinars.
So thank you so much for watching.
If you got some value out of this video, go ahead and hit that like button and subscribe.
Over on the channel, I'm documenting the entire process of what it takes to be successful
with your digital marketing.
And of course, webinars is, just one way to go in being successful with acquiring customers
on line.
So go ahead and hit that like button, subscribe.
Comment below, if you have any questions or insights into your experience with live and
automated webinars, to help others decide which way to go.
And until the next video, keep building the business you love.