If you’re like most people, you probably think webinars are just a medium to help you sell your offer. But I’m here to tell you it’s not all about selling on a webinar. In fact, when I started out selling my YouTube course years ago, I ran free no-pitch webinars just to build my list and test my offer.  

I can say hands down it was one of the best things I could have done to grow my online business. Not only did running free webinars help me build my list and learn my audiences’ pain points, it’s helped me get so much better at running webinars. 

Because when I first started running webinars years ago, I was terrible at them. I would overshare with the audience which made them run way too long and people jumped off before they heard my offer. 

I had a stutter that made me feel like I wasn’t worthy to share my expertise and knowledge which held me back for years. Not to mention, I hated selling on webinars. While I knew my offers could help people grow their YouTube business, I didn’t love the pivot from teaching to selling and my business suffered as a result. 

Now, I run a webinar company, speak on stage, and help other entrepreneurs share their message with the world – go figure! 

So what changed?

I faced my fears head on and started running free webinars; it was one of the best decisions of my life. In my first year of doing this strategy, I built an email list of 14,000 loyal subscribers and sold $245,000 in sales, and mostly without hard selling. 

So if you’re ready to take your business to the next level, here’s why you should start running free webinars even during a global pandemic. 

Why You Should Run Free Webinars

Help With The Fear of Public Speaking

Did you know that studies have found people would rather die than speak publicly in front of others? I know it sounds drastic but it’s true! The fear of public speaking, also known as glossophobia, is a real issue for so many people. 

But this fear can hold you back from growing your online business as it left me paralyzed back in 2012. If I can overcome it, so can you! I knew I had to get over my fears, so what did I do?

I took all the pressure off myself and focused on serving my target market. I told myself doing nothing wouldn’t help my situation, so I adapted and went all in running webinars. I allowed myself to “fail” so I could improve my presentation skills.  

So if you’re scared of public speaking or speaking on webinars, start by taking the pressure off. Instead of worrying about your pitch, start running free webinars to build your confidence as a presenter first. Remember, mastery comes from practicing, not sitting around and hoping for the best.

Sometimes, you have to take action and put yourself out there. As long as you go into the webinar with the right mindset, you’ll instantly feel more relaxed. Remember, focus on serving your people and take the pressure off yourself. 

Click here to learn more about how webinars can help you overcome this fear.

Establish Trust With Your Audience

People buy from people they trust and live webinars are one of the best ways to build trust with complete strangers worldwide. When I first started, I ran free webinars that were solely intended to build a know, like a trust factor with my audience.

Not only did this help me build rapport, it allowed me to get more confident being in front of the camera, doing presentations, and getting more aligned with my offer and who it was perfect for.  

Because here’s the thing, anyone can create a blog post or YouTube video and hit publish. But a very small percentage of people will actually show up live to get to know their audience. This one 60-minute session can help you gain instant trust and get to know your audience at a deeper level. This is one of the many reasons I love webinars, you establish a huge amount of trust in a very short amount of time! 

Build Your Email List

Despite email open rates declining the past five years, email marketing is still the best way to sell stuff to your audience. But growing an email list with the right audience is challenging for a lot of people. You really have two options to grow your list; paid ads or organic traffic.

While organic traffic is technically “free” it takes a long time to see results and there are no guarantees that people will opt-in from a blog post, podcast episode, or YouTube video. But with paid traffic, like Facebook or Instagram ads, you can target the exact type of people you want to work with. And running paid ads to a webinar is a win-win scenario. 

Not only do you get their email address but you also get to make an awesome first impression with your webinar. Instead of sending them to a piece of free content (blog post, podcast episode or YouTube video), you get to interact with them live. This way you can learn more about their problems and show that you’re an expert in your field from the start of your relationship.

As I mentioned in the intro, I grew my email list to 14,000 using this strategy in only one year! 

I’m not the only one either, one of our top clients Amy Porterfield has grown her list to over 250,000 people using webinars!

Future Sales

If you’ve ever done a live webinar launch or run an evergreen webinar funnel, you know that not everyone will buy their first time through. Sometimes, attendees aren’t in the right place yet, they might not have the money for your program or something else is going on in their life.  

But it’s important to understand that even if they don’t buy now, they can still buy in the future. 

When you run free webinars, you are building up more trust and goodwill for future promotions. Even if they aren’t ready now, you are warming them up for future offers and also gaining experience at hosting the best webinars possible.  

Running Free Webinars 

Now that you’ve seen all the benefits of running free webinars, let’s talk about some ways to make the most of your free events.

• Create a buzz. Whether you’re running free webinars with or without a pitch, you want to promote your event so more people show up. You can do this organically or use paid ads as it will help you build your list. 

• Grab their attention. As soon as people log on to the webinar, introduce yourself and preview what they’ll be learning throughout the live event. Suggest for them to turn off phones and eliminate distractions, so they can focus on the content. You can also have people introduce themselves via the chat box to increase engagement early on in the webinar. 

• Get personal! You want to share your story early on to build up the know, like, and trust factor. While this might feel uncomfortable at first, sharing your story will help people relate to you and build rapport. Remember, vulnerability is a superpower!

• Provide valuable information. You want attendees to learn something new from their time with you. So after sharing more about your story, provide them with epic content and value that will help them solve some of their biggest challenges. Click here to learn more about creating an awesome slide deck.

• Do a question and answer section toward the end. The Q & A section should normally last 10-15 minutes and is a great way to engage with your attendees. This is helpful for attendees as you can provide instant feedback and great for you as you can learn more about the target market. With EasyWebinar, you can download the chat after the webinar is over so you can learn more about the people who came to the live webinar.

• Automate your webinar. The final thing you can do with free webinars is automate them so you can build trust on autopilot. You can repurpose these events in so many ways and with any EasyWebinar plan, you can run unlimited automated webinars. 

Remember, whether you’re pitching or not, running live webinars can have so many positive side effects in your business. Focus on serving your attendees, provide valuable content, and build trust with them for a long-term relationship. 

Final Thoughts 

As you can see, there are so many benefits to running free webinars. You can gain experience running them, build rapport with your audience, grow your list, and nail your offer. This is the exact strategy I used to grow my business to over $250,000 in one year!

And during these chaotic times, building trust with your audience is more important than ever. One benefit of so many working remotely is that you will likely see higher registration and attendance rates. Plus, a lot of businesses are dropping Facebook ad spend to save money, so you can possibly get lower ad costs than ever as well. 

Remember, free webinars can help you become an expert in your niche and build trust with total strangers faster than any other medium. Then, once you do have an offer or start doing sales webinars in the future, you’re much more likely to get people to enroll.

Next Steps

If you want to begin running free webinars quickly, start using EasyWebinar today. 

We take the hard work and confusion out of running live webinars so you can focus on serving your tribe. With all of our plans you can run live and automated webinars, get support from our team, and so much more.

>>Get started using EasyWebinar with our 14-day FREE trial here.