How on earth can you have 3 different kinds of webinars; isn't a webinar just a webinar?
What's up guys?
Jason here and welcome to episode 16 of Building An Online Business From Scratch.
I'n today's episode, I'm going to be talking about the 3 different types of webinars and
which ones might work best for you; so if you're just joining me, I'm going from A-Z
on building an online consulting practice from scratch; that's what I personally decided
will be the quickest path to cash; and in this first season, if you will, I'm going
over how to build a webinar sales funnel.
Be sure to subscribe and check out the channel for other videos, leading up to this one.
In today's episode, I'm going to talk about the 3 different types of webinars; so I've
already gone over pretty much everything you need up until the point of actually writing
a webinar; but before we dive into the webinar script that I promised in the last video,
I realised, we needed to do a couple of episodes, kind of just going through my thought process;
and talking about all the things you need to consider before you actually start writing
your webinar; so in this episode, I'm going to talk about the 3 different types, the key
to producing the best kind of webinar and which type I think is the best.
In future episodes, I'm going to talk about the logistics of recording, which webinar
software to use and then finally we'll culminate in a really long video, where I'm going to
go through my entire webinar script; so make sure you subscribe to that because that's
going to be super valuable in helping you write your own webinar.
Today, what are the 3 different types?
Now that I've talked about all the stuff we're going to do in the future, let's get down
to business right now.
The 3 different types: we have live, we have evergreen or automated, and then we
have hybrid; so we'll go through the definitions of each and then we'll go through the pros-and-cons
and then in the end, I'll talk about which one I think is the best just across the board.
Number 1 is live.
Live is pretty straightforward, you show up to the webinar, you present it live whether
it's a video like this, where you're talking straight into your camera; or preferably it's
a screen-capture where you're going through a PowerPoint presentation or Keynote
presentation or Google Slides, if you're doing that; whatever the presentation is that you're
going through it, you're talking through everything live right then and there; people are asking
you questions, you're able to engage with people.
Automated is when you record a video.
If you can think of YouTube videos like any YouTube video, would technically be automated
evergreen because, I'm recording this for you and then it's going up on YouTube and
you're playing it pretty much at your leisure, whenever you want; and so you're not necessarily
there live, you just put the webinar video up there and the software automatically plays
it at certain times, depending on when people sign-up.
Next we have the Hybrid webinar, that's the third one; so that's a combination of the
first two and I'll get into that in the pros-and-cons; so we'll start with number one: Live webinars,
what are the Pros?
Number one is, you're actually there live; so you're able to interact with the audience
and you have the ability, which is number two, to distinguish yourself from other individuals
who are running webinars because, as we'll get into it in a second, most people actually
don't host live webinars and for good reason; but it's a great way to differentiate yourself.
What are the Cons?
Technical difficulties are bound; so with a Evergreen webinar, the software is pretty
good at taking the video and auto-playing it as it sees fit as opposed to when you're
live, you're trying to make sure your webcam is right, you're making sure your lighting
is correct, you're making sure your internet of power doesn't go out or there's no lag
with the webinar software, depending on what webinar software you're using; and so there
can be some technical difficulties.
From what I've seen with Live webinars, especially for example, a couple of weeks ago, I was
just on the Neo Patel 2017 Growth Hacking Summit; and these are guys who've been doing
webinars for probably longer than all of us have been thinking about starting our own
businesses; and even they had issues with the software switching between their camera
and the slides, and that's not to hop on any of them, that's just the reality of trying
to do things live, it's never going to be smooth as if it was Automated or a YouTube
video like this one; and then that leads me to number two, the number two Con
the polished nature of the content.
When you're doing things live, there are going to be an inevitably, a lot of 'hmms' and 'ahhs',
or 'Oh wait' or pauses as you're speaking as opposed to an Automated webinar, where
you're able to cut out all of those little things as you go through editing your webinar,
making sure that you have the most polished content ready; and that kind of leads me to
another aspect of polished content, and that is: unless you're really experienced with
doing live webinars, of course you gain experience by just doing them, there's just really no
other way; but unless you're really experienced, it's going to be hard for you to take advantage
of that live aspect because, you're going to be focused on delivering your content and
then you're going to pause and say, "Okay, what do you guys think about this?", or "Are
people getting it?", or "Are people understanding it?"; and then you kind of wait for that 15
- 20 second delay of the responses coming in the chat, and then you have to physically
try read the chat.
Now when you're just starting out, that's not going to be a big deal because there's
not going to be thousands of people on your webinar; but as you grow, there's a potential
to where you're going to be overwhelmed with the number of responses that you get; so it
will be hard to pick out and actually interact with the audience; and stay on top of the
presentation that you have.
That just goes back to it not being as polished and it not being as smooth; of course there
is a tremendous amount of value in being able to interact with people live on the webinar,
just realize that if you decide to do that, you're going to be giving up some of your
polish; so those are live webinars.
Next we have Automated webinars, now automated webinars are great for two reasons:
1.
It's always your best take.
2.
There's no technical issues, it's just nice and smooth.
That's pretty much why most people do it, if you wanted to add a third Pro, I would
say in terms of the number of software available out there, we'll get into this in a future
episode, it's a lot easier to set those up when you're running your ads, because you
don't have to constantly and try update your landing pages with the latest webinar date
or registration; and you can offer more times so you're more likely to get more leads showing
up to your webinars.
With that being said, there are some real Cons to this, number one: there is no ability
to actually interact with users; so if you actually wanted to show up and answer questions
live, or answer questions in the chat, you're not going to be able to; and the number two
Con: this probably biased; but I think we should just be honest with each other, an
Automated webinar is kind of fake, because the whole premise of a webinar is that there
are some live aspects to it.
The difference between a webinar and a VSL (Video Sales Letter) is, one is you're showing
up to an event and the other is just a video on a page.
Now sure I'm dumbing them down a lot, but that's the real..At the end of the day that's
the real distinction between the two; one is supposed to be an event, where you're showing
up with other people, you're showing up to see a presentation and the other is just some
cool video that you're watching, similar to this YouTube video.
I would put YouTube videos on the VSL-side because you watch it at your leisure, I don't
tell you that I'm only going to be showing this video at 7 o'clock Pacific Standard Time,
on Tuesdays and Fridays, or something like that; so I think that as people become more
aware of the webinar software that's out there, and as they become more comfortable with the
idea of webinars; and as more and more marketers go the extra mile to produce webinars, the
value of Automated webinars is definitely going to decrease.
On your landing pages, you can't say that the webinar is live.
I have seen people do this, but you're going to p**s off a lot of your customers and I
say that nicely, they're definitely more expletives I could use for how people feel, but when
you show up to a webinar; and if you've showed up to a webinar and this has happened to you,
I can almost virtually guarantee, you feel the same way I do.
I show up to a webinar, I set aside a specific amount of time and say, "Okay, 7 o'clock I'm
going to show up and I'm going to see your webinar because that's when you're showing
it".
If I make the commitment as a prospect to show up, you should make the commitment as
the presenter, to show up even if you're just answering comments in the background while
the presentation is playing, there ought to be someone there to interact with otherwise;
you're just forcing me to watch a VSL or some video presentation at a specific time and
I've just cut out this 2 of 3 hour block for no good reason other than for some psychology
thing to force people to show up; so there's definitely a lot of power in Automated webinars,
they still work but I don't think they're going to work for very much longer because
I think people are catching on and personally when I show up to webinars now, I'm looking
to see if it's live, if it's automated, or hybrid.
If it's live or hybrid, which I'll get to in a second, I'm okay but if it's completely
automated, I get p**sed off because you're just showing me a video!
Why did I need to show up at 7 o'clock when there are plenty of other people who have
VSL's that I can watch in my own time?
Now obviously, from a marketing perspective, if I were to switch it as business owners,
there's a tremendous amount of value in getting people to commit to and focus on the time
period at the same time, we want to be thinking long-term, in terms of our branding and how
people who don't buy, think about us; because most people aren't going to buy on a webinar,
they're going to buy in future.
We need to think about fostering that relationship now even though they're not going to buy on
this webinar because we want them to be happy with us and buy in the future.
We want them to go to other people's automated webinars, get upset and be like, "Oh well,
at least Jason's webinar was somewhat Hybrid and he was there answering questions as opposed
to this guy who just had an Automated webinar, it was total B.S.
I could've just watched the replay anytime!"; that's automated webinars and the only other
thing I want to say about those before I move onto more and I think it's really important,
is: 'Please if you do Automated webinars, please stop with the fake chats, just please
stop".
It's just a humble request as a fellow business online marketer; so please stop with the chats,
because you're not only hurting your business, you're hurting my business, and you're hurting
everybody else's business, who are doing webinars, because prospects will come on to your webinar
and see the fake chats; and realize that they're fake chats; don't want to show up to my webinar,
don't want to show up to other people's webinars because they begin to assume that we're all
doing that B.S when we're not; so please just stop or don't do it.
Now we're ready for what I think is the best form of webinar, and that is Hybrid webinar
because it gives you best of both worlds.
With Hybrid webinars, you have the ability, depending on the software; I'll get into this
at a later video, not going to talk about software yet; you have two options.
Number one, you have the option of having a live component and a video component; or
number two, you have the option of just having a video go and then you can do live chats
in the background.
What I like about this particular model so much, is that you get to have your polished
presentation but you don't get to lose the right, and I say this sincerely, you get to
lose the right to say that you're running a webinar and that the webinar is live, because
if you're not showing up to the webinar, personally, I don't think it's a webinar, but that's just
me.
When you have a Hybrid webinar, you get to pre-record that essential element, that teaching
element, that rapport building, that pitch, and then you have two options; you can come
on in the beginning and say, "Hey guys, what's up?
I'm going to get another presentation, I'll be answering questions as we go.
Let's get started"; or you can have the entire first part of the webinar pre-recorded.
It can start automatically, depending on the software, and then you come-on on the end
and answer questions; or depending on your software, you might have the entire thing
video, and you're just in the background, feverishly typing, answering everyone's questions
as they come up.
The advantage of this is, you get to present all the information that you want to present
and you need to present, then you don't have to worry about paying and training a virtual
assistant to answer people's questions as the presentation goes on.
You can have the presentation playing, you can answer questions and then you can have
an FAQ play at the end and keep answering questions, or you can come online and start
answering questions, live as well.
What are the Cons?
Well, there are two cons, number one is, you're not going to be interacting with people as
your presentation goes; so that's definitely a con.
Number two, you still run the risk of people getting p**sed off, I don't think you'll have
as many people upset as with an Automated webinar, where it's completely like 'I'm not
even here, I disabled the chat.
You're just watching a VSL'; as opposed to the chats enabled and you can talk back-and-forth
with me.
Some people will still get mildly upset, but I think that's infinitely better than trying
to do a live webinar, and do 2 or 3 things at once or just have a completely automated
webinar, where you're throwing up a video and saying, "Yeah go watch it'; and then having
people drop off and fail to be able to build that rapport and trust, when you're just starting
out with your audience.
That's it, that's what does it for the 3 different types of webinars; so you can do live, where
you're multiple hats, where you're interacting with people; and you're going to inevitably,
deal with some technical difficulties; but hopefully that is outweighed by
the value you have in interacting with people as you go through your presentation, definitely
something you want to practice, before you get on the webinar.
Then you have Automated webinars, where you don't even show up, it's pretty much just
a VSL that's set to play at a specific time.
It works really well for business-automation, marketing, and lead generation automation
purposes; but I think in the long run, it's going to hurt your brand and your ability
to convert people later on, down the road with additional products and services that
you offer.
Finally we have Hybrid webinars, which I think are the best out of all of them, where you
pre-record the core elements of your presentation; so you run through your entire presentation
and then you show up at the end, you do a live Q&A, or if your software doesn't allow
for that, then at least you're in the background, answering questions as the presentation plays
out and you have a frequently asked questions part at the end of the presentation, where
you combine everything that you've heard from previous webinars, and just kind of add it
on as time goes on.
In that way you get this wonderful hybrid webinar, where you're answering the most frequently
asked questions at the end, even though you're not on; but you're sitting there in the background,
typing away, answering people's questions.
I think from a ethical standpoint, you can still say that's live because you're showing
up; but if you're not showing up, please don't call it live and please stop doing the fake
chats, whether you're doing it live or not.
Thank-you for watching.
I hope you found that informative and factual.
If you got some value out of this video, go and hit that like-button and if you're on
YouTube, subscribe for more business building tactics and marketing strategies, just like
the ones we discussed in this video; because like I said in the beginning, I'm going from
A-Z, building an online business as a solopreneur from scratch.
Putting together a webinar sales formal and then showing you how I turn that into a full-time
consulting practice online.
If you're interested in breaking out and having your own online income stream, this is definitely
the place you want to be, make sure you like and subscribe and leave a comment below, if
you know what of webinar you think would work best for your business; and if your not quite
sure, go and ask about it and we'll figure out what type of webinar I think would work
best for you and your situation, because I truly believe, webinars are the future of
lead generation; so webinars are here to stay.
It's something we all need to be paying attention to and figuring out for our own businesses
or starting and launching our businesses; so until next week, keep building that business
that you love and I'll see you in the next episode.
Take care.