5 Best Practices For Creating a Killer Automated Webinar

I’m just sitting here in a new boutique shop in the small town where I grew up in Michigan. Staring at the little bank I got my first checking account at when I was 12. Crazy to see all the new changes and development. There are more fitness places and health food stores now than ever before. Love seeing this change. Of course, as things change, things also stay the same. I just saw a dad pulling his 2 toddlers in an old school red Radio Flyer. (love it!) Anyway…this post has nothing to do with being here, so let’s jump in!

I often times get asked:

Casey, how should I run an automated webinar? Should I start with a LIVE event and then use that as the event video, or create a new pre-recorded video?

I get this asked of me quite often.

And with most things, it depends.

Automated webinars can either be encore/re-broadcasted events used in sequence after a live event…

Or you can create automated webinar funnels that are running consistently from paid traffic sources like Facebook ads.

I teach more about Automated Webinars here…CLICK HERE…

(Oh and the cool thing about EasyWebinar is that Facebook ad conversions
aren’t effected, unlike other software we’ve been hearing about with self-hosted solutions.)

When running an automated webinar directly with the look and feel of a LIVE webinar there are several things to consider. (I go into more detail in my coaching but let me break out some stuff right now!)

1. Consider recording your automated webinar from scratch as opposed to using a recording of a live event.

Why? Well, the goal is to create your perfect show.  Now yes, oftentimes there is a certain energy that comes from doing your webinars live.  However, at the same time, you can’t control your event as much.  There are certain elements that you should map out in your automated webinar that you may want to start from scratch and record a new presentation using Screenflow or Camtasia. After recording your event, you can easily then produce the mp4 which can be added to EasyWebinar. (See this article for tips on where to upload your automated webinar: Uploading a Video For An Evergreen Webinar.)

2. Leave out any reference of time:

One killer way of doing an automated webinar is running it in your attendee’s own timezone, multiple times during the day. When streaming an event this way, having a reference of time will ruin the experience. So don’t say things like “Good Morning!” or “Good Evening!”…try to keep it more generic.  Such as “Hello and Welcome to This Event”.

The exception to the rule:  Sometimes an automated event can be streamed once a day at a specific time, and in that scenario, it may make sense to mention the time.

The idea of an automated webinar is not to trick anyone. In fact, I never suggest saying, “This is completely live” when it isn’t. Best to call it something like a live streaming workshop.

And as an FYI, the cool thing about EasyWebinar is that the events can stream in real-time. So they are in fact live…(just videos streamed in real-time.)

3. Have Q and A’s still mentioned in the webinar.

Many people ask me:

Casey should I still have a Q and A section in my webinar for an automated webinar, and if so, should I act like people are on the call asking questions?

Here is my answer.  I think that a Q and A is imperative in a webinar, but I think there is a way to represent it properly.

For instance, mention that you are going to take questions at the end of the webinar and if you don’t get to all of them, you or your moderator will get back with them either during the call or after. (With EasyWebinar, the questions coming from your webinar can automatically be sent to your email where you can then respond to the person watching the automated webinar in real-time…or later after the event is over.)

It is good to mention and set an expectation of when they will get a response, so they aren’t concerned during the live event when their questions aren’t immediately answered.

So HOW do you take or answer questions when it isn’t live?  

Well, you can’t.  However chances are, from your live events and being the expert, you already have common questions people have asked you regarding your program.  My suggestion is to find previous questions from people that were on live at some point for that same event and use those.

Remember:  The Q and A part should handle objections and questions.  So survey your 10 best FAQ questions that have either come from your previous webinars, your Facebook group, helpdesk, etc.

Also, you should have SAQ (Should asked questions). These are questions that your audience should know about your product that they might not be 100% familiar with. Such as certain features and benefits designed to help them.

As I said, I would suggest having about 10 FAQ’s and then 10 SAQ’s set up.

Also, I would suggest wording it as the following:

‘Ok!  Thanks to everyone who left a question! We are going to answer some of those now.  We probably won’t get to everyone’s questions on this event, but our moderators will at least try and get email responses out to you if we don’t answer your question verbally! ex.  Alright, so Jeremy asked, “Casey do you offer a split pay option?”…Thanks Jeremy, great question.’

4. Encourage Sales and Scarcity [Even in an automated webinar]

This is another question people ask me:

Casey, I want to still incentivize people to buy from an automated webinar.  Can I still offer a discount or special bonus package for only those on the call even though it is pre-recorded?

The answer is yes!  In fact, sometimes it is best to offer a discount using a coupon or promo code so that they see the original price but then can add a special code only available on that event.  (Infusionsoft is very flexible or even SAM cart for shopping carts)

Also…on an automated webinar the minimum I would charge for a product is $97. Webinars should normally promote high ticket products or services but because it is an automated webinar you tend to lose a little bit of the engagement, and as such many people lower their price to hedge against the lack of engagement.

5. Add in Timed CTA Events

You can keep the energy up during the event by offering up a timed event which can be in the form of questions, buy now buttons, or downloads.

When someone first comes to a webinar, show a question under or next to the video that asks them to answer a question. Normally I would ask a question as it relates to my topic of the webinar.  Such as: “Welcome to the event.  Have you ever done webinars/events to promote your business? Let us know if yes or no below!”

Then have periodic questions or interactive points in the event to add levels of engagement to it….and of course, have your buy now button show up at the moment you reveal your price.  What I tend to do is have my slides show the price and link to join the program, while also (at the same time), have the buy now button pop up underneath the video with a call to action message above it.

Such as:

“Get EasyWebinar including this limited-time $1900 bonus package and $100 dollar discount by clicking below now.”

Ok, that’s about it from me! There are other strategies that I don’t have time to go into…and please realize that this post doesn’t go into funnel strategies.  However, if you follow these 5 best practices for running your automated webinars, you’ll be able to sell consistently on auto-pilot!

If you want to join our streaming workshop that covers more tips on webinars, REGISTER HERE.

And if you want to become one of the newest members of EasyWebinar, we are excited to welcome you into our family!

Join EW Today!

Keep savvy EasyWebinar-er!

-Casey