Webinar Formats – What is the Best Type For Your Business?

Did you know there are tons of webinar formats that can help your business outside of just sales webinars? If you’re like most people, you probably think webinars are just for selling online courses or products

Think again. Webinars can do so much more for your business than just sell your stuff. 

Don’t forget, webinars provide the highest engagement rates of any channel out there and can be used in so many different ways. While they do work incredible for selling digital products, they can be used to build your email list and better relationships with your clients as well. 

Watch this video and read the rest of this blog post to learn additional webinar formats to scale your business:

Webinar Formats – 8 Ways to Use Them To Build Your Business

1. Q&A Interview Webinars

Another great way to use webinars is a Q&A format. In the past, I used to run four hours of Q&A webinars without any specific theme. Instead, I just answered questions about my offer and coaching program with a live audience. A lot of them were on the fence or weren’t sure if the course was right for them, so I did my best to answer all of their objections live.

What’s great about a live Q&A webinar is that you are engaging your audience. They drive the discussion and your role is to make them feel more comfortable about signing up. 

Q&A webinars are a good way to get to know your audience and begin building real relationships with them. This will set your business apart when driving new customers and keeping them.

You can host a live Q&A webinar a few ways. The first way is running an unscripted, live, Q&A webinar format. Just show up and answer live questions from your audience. For some of you, that may feel a bit overwhelming as you don’t know the types of questions they ask or don’t have two or three hours. But if you like being in front of the camera and know your product inside and out, I recommend this option. 

The other way you can use this webinar format is to have webinar attendees to come with their own questions and submit them beforehand. This will give you time to identify the top questions and prepare your responses accordingly.

If your first Q&A webinar is a big success, try to make them a more regular event. I’ve found that your audience enjoys asking their questions and it can really help improve your conversion rates as well. Even if you don’t get them to sign up for your offer, it will make them more likely to purchase from you in the future.

2. Sales Webinars 

Sales webinars, also known as a workshop webinar, is one of the most common webinar types. With a sales webinar, you teach, provide value, and then pitch your product on the webinar. 

This is a very common webinar format for course creators and membership site owners. Sales webinars can be live or automated webinars. Both work great in helping you scale your business, establish yourself as an expert in your niche, and grow your email list.

Even though 90% probably won’t buy on the webinar, it’s still a great way to build a relationship with someone new. As Amy Porterfield said, “No matter if they buy or not, they walk away today excited, inspired and ready to take action.”

When running sales webinars, make sure to focus on value more than hard selling. You don’t want to burn your bridge if the attendee isn’t ready to buy yet. Sometimes they need to wait until a better time, have more money or a variety of other reasons. But spending an hour teaching them a valuable skill will help increase your know-like-trust factor and increase the likelihood of buying in the future. 

3. Interview Webinars

The third type of webinar format is an interview webinar. This webinar format is different from other formats as it doesn’t always include a slide deck. All you need for the webinar format is you and your interviewee(s).

Interview webinars are similar to a podcast or a Youtube interview with a simple back and forth of questions and answers. Since you are using video, you can even repurpose the webinar for a podcast or Youtube if you have your own show as well. 

Before the interview, make sure you and your guest(s) interviewer are ready with talking points and responses as you probably won’t have any webinar slides. If possible, try to have a few questions ready and keep the interview under an hour for optimal engagement.   

4. Case Study Webinars

If you’ve ever sold anything online, you know the importance of social proof and testimonials. People want to know that others have had success with your product or service before they buy it as well.

Another webinar format you can use is a case study webinar. With this webinar format, you can invite prospects and customers so they can get an in-depth look at how your case study subject is driving great results with your product or service.

During the webinar, you can either interview the customer or let them talk about their experience. With these interviews, make sure they share exactly how they used your product and what results they experienced. You want them to show where they were beforehand and how your offer transformed their life or business. 

With Easy Webinar’s platform, you can easily save this video to use for future marketing material as well. 

6. High Ticket Strategy Call

As I mentioned in the video, a phone conversation is a currency at this point. If you’re selling a high-ticket offer, a conversation is usually needed.

If you are selling a high-ticket offer, webinars are a great way to fill up your calendar with appointments. Usually, a phone call is required if your offer is between $3,000 – $100,000 as it’s a much larger investment than an online course.

With strategy call webinars, the goal is to get people into your calendar by providing value. It’s a very similar format as a sales webinar but usually only 30-40 minutes. Your webinar will help educate your potential customers and also ensure you aren’t getting on the phone with people who aren’t qualified.

Once they schedule a time to speak, you or a high ticket salesperson on your team will go through the interview process and answer questions as needed.

7. List Building Webinars

Another awesome way to use webinars is for list building instead of selling your online course. With a list building webinar, the goal is simple – provide as much free value as possible.

During the webinar, all you are doing is providing free value on a specific topic (preferably around your offer). This will help build your email list where you can nurture them and sell to them later. 

If you are brand new to webinars, this is a great place to start. Since you aren’t selling anything and you are only providing value, there is no pressure on your end. Oftentimes, people might even reach out afterward to learn about working together as you gave so much awesome value as well.

Read how Amy Porterfield built a loyal email list of over 250,000 people with webinars. 

8. Online Summits or Online Virtual Houses 

An online summit is another cool way to use webinars. You could bring on 10-15 guests and interview them about a specific topic related to your niche. 

When running a virtual conference, you can run them as free or paid events. If you offer free ones, usually the guests can pitch their offer and attendees will get included in an email list for future use. 

I’ve even seen real estate agents use this webinar format to host open houses. As prospective buyers can’t always show up at a physical location, this is a way for realtors to show off an open house. Plus, they can even make it easy to fill out paperwork or submit an application if they are interested.

Webinar Formats Summary

If you are only using webinars for selling your products or courses, you are missing out. Since engagement rates are so high, webinars are an awesome way to teach, build your list, schedule calls, run an open house, and more. 

Don’t forget, webinars are still the best way to engage with your audience, so make sure you use several different types in your business. Remember, webinars are an experience. You don’t have to just do selling webinars, there are tons of other ways to engage with your audience. 

Webinars can help you build your email list, interview experts, run online summits and more. When it comes to the best webinar formats, you are only limited by your own imagination. Test out a few new formats and I bet you will be amazed by the results!