The Webinar Minute – 4 Keys to Creating Your Webinar Title

The Webinar Minute – “Select The Right Webinar Provider”

There are numerous webinar providers … and no two are exactly alike. Watch this episode of The Webinar Minute to learn how to select the right webinar provider for your campaign.

The Webinar Minute – “The Marketing Hot Zone for Your Webinars”

When do people buy seats in virtual training courses? What’s the right time to engage my prospective registrants? Watch this episode of “The Webinar Minute” to learn when people buy seats in webinars and how you should align your marketing campaigns to maximize your registrations.

The Webinar Minute – “If Your Webinar Is For EVERYONE, It’s For NO ONE”

 Your content may be applicable to a broad audience. Beware! If you create an attendee-funded webinar that is designed for everyone, you are about to become acutely aware of the sound of crickets chirping. Watch this episode of the Webinar Minute to learn how to avoid this webinar strategy blunder.

The Webinar Minute – Why Your Fans Won’t Pay for Your Webinars

Your Fans represent the best qualified prospects for your attendee-funded webinars. Rather than attracting them, you may be pushing them away.

The Webinar Minute – “How to Select Your Most Saleable Content”

In this episode of the Webinar Minute, webinar expert, Lee Salz, shares the keys to selecting your most saleable content for your attendee-funded webinars.

The Webinar Minute – “Webinars Are Free… Wanna Bet?

Not all webinars are free, but not all are saleable. Watch this episode to learn what makes people willing to pay for your webinars. Intrigued by webinars? Visit StopSpeakingforFree.com to learn more. And, save 20% on my book “Stop Speaking for Free! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with Webinars” with this: 497f0391

The Critical Decision You Must Make When Offering Attendee-Funded Webinars

There is a critical decision you must make once you’ve determined that you want to deliver attendee-funded webinars. What content will you deliver “for free” versus “for-fee.” This business decision should not be taken lightly as it will affect the brand perception of your business.

Many speakers go back and forth between free and for-fee with the same (or similar) content while promoting both types to their email database and clients. Today, the webinar is free… Tomorrow, it’s $100… And the day after, it’s free again… The result of this approach is resentment from your database.

Thus, speakers need to define the content that they will use for marketing purposes (i.e., to build their email database) versus when they are providing pure training. If it’s a marketing event, it’s expected to be free. If it’s training, people will readily pay to participate. Thus, not all content is saleable in a webinar environment. Below is a table which contrasts free and for-fee.

Copyright 2010 - "Stop Speaking for Free! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with Webinars"

This is just one of the concepts that are fleshed-out in my soon-to-be-published book “Stop Speaking for Free! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with Webinars.” Stay tuned!

What Content Should I Deliver TODAY In My Attendee-Funded Webinars?

This is a very common question among speakers. A speaker’s repetoire allows them to deliver so many different topics that it becomes difficult to select the right few. Here’s an approach that will help you identify what to teach and when.

Think about the last 3 – 6 months. When prospects/clients have called you requesting assistance, what were they asking of you? Can you identify a theme (or themes) in the problems they were experiencing? If so, those themes can help direct you in the ecourses to design as it tells you two things.

1. There is a current problem for which people are seeking a solution.

2. Prospects and clients recognize you as someone who has a way to resolve it. (credibility) 

Two of the key factors to driving registrations in your webinars…

1. The issue that you resolve must be both urgent AND important. (a page from Dr. Stephen Covey)

2. You have to be recognized as having the experience and expertise in solving that issue for countless others over the years.

Business Expert Webinars’ Speakers Collaborate to Help Small Businesses Thrive

MINNEAPOLIS – December 11, 2009 — Business Expert Webinars (BEW), the leading provider of business eLearning training courses, announced that its speakers have teamed up to develop a book focused on small business. Business Expert Publishing, the book publishing arm of Business Expert Webinars, is publishing this collaborative work which is titled The Business Expert Guide to Small Business Success. Twenty-two leading business experts are contributing to the development of this book that addresses the critical areas for small businesses.

“It is said that knowledge is power. If you subscribe to that philosophy, small business owners are about to have Superman strength. The Business Expert Webinars’ speaker team shares their keen insight for small businesses providing them with the knowledge they need to thrive,” said Lee B. Salz, President and CEO of Business Expert Webinars.

The collaboration authors and topics addressed in this book include:
• Cindy Cohen – face to face networking
• Drew Stevens – lead generation strategy
• Sam Richter – web search secrets
• Richard Norris – business development  tactics
• Harlan Goerger – buying process facilitation and leadership
• Bill Guertin – sales
• Andy Miller – negotiation
• Roger Courville – delivering virtual presentations
• Lynne Jarman-Johnson –communication touch points
• Danita Bye – sales hiring
• Lee Salz – sales compensation
• John Myrna – business plan design and implementation
• Sarah Day – pricing for profitability
• Paul Pershes – managing cash flow
• Joseph Riggio – strategic decision making
• Hillary Feder – employee engagement
• Tim Hagen – employee development
• Mic Pucklich – keeping your company out of court – employee litigation
• Gary Gack – Six Sigma practices
• Peg Jackson – Sarbanes-Oxley/compliance
• Jeb Blount – investing in yourself
• Dave Hubbard – health/stress management for peak performance

The book will be published in Spring 2010.

About Business Expert Webinars
Business Expert Webinars (BEW) is the leading provider of skill-based, business eLearning training programs. BEW helps speakers, consultants, and trainers monetize their expertise through eLearning. The BEW speakers are international business experts including best-selling authors, award-winning speakers, and business gurus. With over 750 webinars delivered by over 150 speakers, BEW can help any business professional improve their skills. For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.

Contact:
Lee B. Salz
Business Expert Webinars
Chief Executive Officer
9784 Troy Lane, Minneapolis, MN 55311
763.416.4321
lsalz@BusinessExpertWebinars.com

# # #

The Forgotten Prospect Source For Attendee-Funded Webinars

There is only so far that your database will take you in driving registrations for your attendee-funded webinars. Yet, there is another great marketing source right in your back pocket. It is a source that has some familiarity with you and your teachings … associations.

Associations are always on the lookout for two things… more services for their members and non-dues revenue. Your attendee-funded webinars satisfy both of these objectives.

Think of the associations where you have spoken … maybe even for free. The members have had a taste of you. They are a great potential source for registrations for your attendee-funded webinars. Offer the association a commission for the registrations they generate.

Another way to approach the association opportunity is to consider those in which you are already a member. As one who has paid dues, you may find them willing to promote your webinar to the other members.

Using LinkedIn To Drive Registrations in Attendee-Funded Webinars (part 2)

Recommendations. A synonym for recommendations is references. One of the most powerful conversion tools for attendee-funded webinars is testimonials from those who have experienced you on the subject matter you are teaching. Yet, an endless listing of how great you are is not going to get the job done.

Put yourself in the prospect’s seat for a moment. If you were considering investing in a webinar training course, what would be the most critical due diligence step? You would want to hear from others how great the presenter is, but you want specifics. You are looking for what was taught, why it was beneficial, and the results that the attendee received from putting the teachings into practice.

An example of an effective recommendation…

I had the opportunity to participate in John’s webinar on building a database and found the session to be tremendously informative. John presented a number of strategies and techniques that I was able to quickly put into practice. And, I was able to triple the size of my database in four weeks. He made learning online fund and engaging…I look forward to taking more courses with him.
-Bill Wilson, Executive Director, ABC Foundation

What made this an effective recommendation? First, the recommendation was very specific about the course that was taken. It summarized the information that was learned. Most importantly, it provided the results that the attendee received from participating in the session. In essence, it has everything that you would be looking for when evaluating a speaker and their webinar on LinkedIn.

Leverage Groups. One of the great benefits of social media platforms is the groups function. LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups as a free member. Joining is very easy…click a request to join and await the group owner’s approval. Getting results out of the group requires some sophistication in the approach.

The first step is to join groups that have the right people for what you teach. If you are delivering a webinar for small business owners, join groups that have small business owners as members. Using the search groups function, located at the top right of the web page, enter keywords that will help you identify groups to join. Once you enter the keywords, you will be provided with a list of groups presented by size with the largest ones showing first. Fifty groups may seem like a lot, but you will be surprised how quickly you use your slots.

The first temptation is to join the largest groups from the keywords that you’ve entered. The flaw with that approach is that you will quickly get lost. With 25,000 members in a group, it will be impossible to create an impact. Ideally, join groups that have between 1,000 and 5,000 members. At that size, the group has enough mass to justify your time investment, but is not so large that you can’t make yourself visible.

Having selected the group, the first temptation is to create a discussion and tell the group that you have a webinar coming up that they should attend. Do that and the group will blast you! First, the discussion area in a group is considered to be sacred. You will get blasted for creating a discussion to promote anything you do. Typically, people make that mistake once…just once. It is much more readily accepted if you use the news function in the group to link to the webinar registration page. This doesn’t mean that the discussion section should be ignored. There is a tremendous opportunity to creatively use discussions to send prospective attendees your way.

The big picture reason to join a group is to position you as an expert with your target audience. How do you do that? First, participate in discussions related to your expertise. Share your pearls with the group on subjects that help to position your expertise. Since LinkedIn does not have a spell or grammar check function, compose your responses in Microsoft Word and proof them there. You can then copy and paste the response into LinkedIn.

Second, create discussions that position you as an expert. If you are in a sales management group and you are teaching a webinar on designing sales compensation programs, create a discussion that asks the group to share their sales compensation secrets. When group members respond to your discussion, you can do two things…invite them to join your network and invite them to your webinar.

The goal is to use discussions to get your target audience to be impressed and intrigued with your philosophy… Guess where they go when that happens? They click your name and visit your profile page to learn more about you. Now, you can see why your bio, photo, and recommendations are so important.

Another component of your strategy may be to create your own group…very easy to do as a free member on LinkedIn. However, it is much more challenging to get your target audience to join and return frequently. Remember, they only have 50 groups that they can join too… It is recommended that you implement the aforementioned strategy before considering creating a group so you can develop a following. Creating a group solely to drive attendance in your webinars is not the best use of your time.

Another tool to use is the news function of the group. The news section is populated by copying and pasting a URL to a newsworthy item. It is used for articles, but it is also used to promote events. When you paste a URL when creating a news entry, you have the ability to enter a title, brief description, and source of the news. After clicking submit, the entry appears in the news section of the group…and is available for comment.

Part of your social media strategy to drive webinar registrants should be publishing articles you’ve written on related subject matter in the news section of your LinkedIn groups. This is also the place to appropriately link to your upcoming webinar events. Considering what was shared earlier about the timeline people buy webinar seats, wait until the week of the webinar to create the news item. Another faux pas made in LinkedIn groups is adding an entry in the news group more than once. Enter the event once, but at the best time to convert registrants.

Using LinkedIn To Drive Registrations in Attendee-Funded Webinars (part 1)

It wasn’t long ago that promoting your events was limited to the reach of your email database. If you wanted to reach people outside of your list, it meant you had to invest significant dollars for your campaign. With the explosion of social media, you now have the ability to reach prospective registrants without spending a nickel to do it. Social media has become one of the most widespread marketing tools for individuals and major corporations.
 
Like any marketing campaign, a strategy is needed. Social media is a constantly evolving medium. Many think you can just enter a URL into LinkedIn, kick-back, and watch registrants come in droves. And, anyone who has tried that strategy has found it to be flawed. If you are going to use social media to promote your attendee-funded webinar, you need a game plan to reach your targeted audience.

The first step is to select a primary platform for your campaign. Two of the largest players are Facebook and LinkedIn. However, they are not competitors in the traditional sense of the word. These two social networking platforms have evolved into having two very different audiences. LinkedIn has become the leader in business networking while Facebook is much more recognized for social communication. For example, it is rare that someone shares family information on LinkedIn and Facebook members become angered by the promotion of business-related functions.

With attendee-funded webinars that are focused on business training, your best time investment is LinkedIn which offers a number of opportunities to reach potential registrants. The campaign that we share with you will not only help drive registrants, but it will help you build your brand in the marketplace. While the focus of this chapter is LinkedIn, the concepts are applicable with other social media platforms as well.

Your Bio.  As a LinkedIn member, you are provided with a profile page. The core of your LinkedIn profile is your bio. While the overall page is a credibility tool, the prospective registrant evaluation process focuses first on the bio of the presenter.

When someone comes across your webinar on LinkedIn, they are immediately going to visit your LinkedIn profile. They will be looking at your expertise on the subject matter that you are teaching with the question in mind of why they should learn from you. What makes you a leading expert on this subject?

One of the challenges with developing your bio is that you may have multiple areas of expertise. This makes weaving a coherent story together for your bio challenging. The key is to make sure your bio clearly positions your expertise for the business prospects you desire. It is very common that a bio becomes an information buffet with no clear message. Bottom-line, if your bio does not clearly position you as an expert, you will not be successful generating registrants through this medium.

Along with your bio, visitors will see your photo, if you have provided one. Give careful consideration for the photo that you use on your profile page. If you want people to take you seriously as an expert, make sure your photo comes across that way. Don’t use a personal webcam picture; spend the $50 to get a professional business photo taken, if you don’t already have one. Consider this, you want people to invest in your webinar, but if you haven’t made that small investment, what message do you think is conveyed?

Webinar Consulting Services

It is with great excitement that I share with you the launch of my Webinar Consulting Practice. I’ve assembled the true thoughtleaders in the webinar space to help you monetize your expertise, perfect your craft, and deliver a stellar event. Each member of our team is delivering a 60-minute, one-on-one consultation that is focused on developing a successful for-fee webinar program.

My practice area, BusinessExpertWebinars.com,  focuses on the global strategy in developing a for-fee webinar training program.

Jenny Hamby, SeminarMarketingPro.com, provides marketing strategies to successfully promote your webinar program.

Dan Janal, PRLeads.com, provides insight on how to get PR for your webinars.

Ed Taylor, EdTaylor.com, shares how to leverage the search engines for your webinars (SEO).

Sue Stoen, TheClarityQuotient.com, ensures your presentation is webinar friendly.

Ken Molay, TheWebinarBlog.com, teaches you effective speaking techniques for a webinar environment.

You can learn more about this practice at BusinessExpertWebinars.com/consulting.