How to Earn Your First $1,000+ Using Webinars (step-by-step guide)
If you need some inspiration to finally start running webinars to grow your business, this post is for you. I’m Michael Leonard and I’ve been working with Casey Zeman and EasyWebinar for the past 18 months as a content creator.
In 2017, I quit my corporate career to monetize my passion for writing after earning $200 (not the best strategy) and build an online business. While it hasn’t been easy building an online business from thin air, it’s been worth it. Three years later, I’m a professional writer, freelance writing coach, and love all things digital marketing.
I’m also a webinar enthusiast as they have become an integral part of my revenue every month. While webinars were always on my radar, I didn’t actually run my first one until December 2019.
Now, only eight months after my first webinar, I’m running live and automated webinars to grow my business every single quarter. In this post, I want to share my experience running my first webinar as well as my biggest tips, common mistakes to avoid and the mindset you need to succeed.
My Business Before Webinars
When I first started writing for EasyWebinar I had been through tons of webinars as an attendee and loved the experience. As I invested in myself with online courses and coaching, I also saw the amazing potential of webinars for my own business. I was enamored by digital marketing legends like John Lee Dumas, Melyssa Griffin, and Amy Porterfield were able to effortlessly sell their products using webinars.
Prior to joining the EasyWebinar team, I developed my own online course, Freelance to 5K, to help others learn how to build online writing businesses. But there was a problem… I wasn’t selling very many of them despite putting my blood, sweat and tears into the program. I knew the program would help users hit their writing goals but I couldn’t seem to get people to enroll on a recurring basis.
Looking back, a few reasons were poor messaging, not being known as an “expert in my niche” and others. But the biggest reason was that I didn’t have a launch vehicle to consistently sell my offer – I didn’t have webinars in my business.
While I had a full-time writing business, selling my own product was more of a side hustle. But for months, I procrastinated on actually launching my own webinar.
I kept telling myself stories like “I’m too busy writing” or “I don’t know how to run Facebook ads.” These stories kept me stuck at my earning potential and also limited the amount of people I could impact with my program.
In full transparency, I was scared of running them – I had a major fear about all the behind the scenes details. Eventually, I knew it was time to overcome my fear. After a mastermind event in late 2019, I knew I needed to change it up in 2020 to finally start scaling my business and make writing the side hustle.
My First Webinars
In December 2019, I finally ran my first live webinar. I went through all the epic content on the blog and advice from my mentors (including Casey) and finally launched. I sent out a few emails to my small list and had 30 people register. I was so excited!
But I made my first mistake (of many) and forgot to send out any reminder emails, so only two people showed up and none stuck around to hear the offer. Instead of getting disappointed, I figured it was a great learning experience and glad I made the mistake now instead of in the future with 500 attendees registered.
To start 2020, I set some ambitious goals for the year and decided to make webinars my main focus. Fast-forward to March 2020, I was looking forward to my launch when the pandemic hit. Part of me felt like it was the worst time to run a webinar, while the entrepreneurial side of me saw a massive opportunity. Since my program is all about building online writing businesses, I figured people needed it now more than ever.
I ran my webinar, “3 Ways to Land Freelance Writing Clients in 2020” to my email list. I had 110 people hit the registration page, 66 register, 34 watch, and sold four courses ($497 each). My first four-figure launch was in the books!
A month later, I tweaked a few things in my presentation and follow-up sequence and launched again – strictly to my email list. I generated another two sales, plus landed a high-ticket 1:1 coaching client as well. This additional revenue allowed me to grow my team by hiring a virtual assistant and an integrator to help with Facebook ads.
Since then, I’ve turned this funnel into an automated webinar that is consistently selling and running on autopilot with Facebook ads. The cool thing? You can do it too – EasyWebinar makes it simple once you finally get in the game and take action.
7 Biggest Lessons from Running Webinars
Here are some of my biggest takeaways from the past 18 months of learning endlessly about webinars and running my own successful campaigns.
1. Nail Your Registration Page
Your registration page is one of the biggest parts of your webinar.
While most people talk about the slides and the pitch, none of it works if you don’t get people to register and attend your event. Your registration page is the make or break moment where people decide to enter their email or not.
On my live webinars, I’ve averaged 65% registration and automated webinars have been around 50%. I’ve found that simple and straightforward registration pages convert the highest. Plus, EasyWebinar has pre-made templates, so you just tweak a few things without hiring a designer.
Click here to read our full guide on creating a registration page that converts like crazy.
2. Send Reminder Emails
Once you get people to register for your event, make sure you remind them to show up! As I mentioned, I forgot this step during my first webinar and because of it, only a couple attendees showed up live.
Instead, make sure to send 2-3 emails before the webinar. Personally, I do three at these time increments; 24 hours, 1 hour, 15 minutes before the webinar begins. This is easy to do with EasyWebinar and will help increase your attendance rate greatly!
3. Keep Running Webinars
Running webinars is just like anything else, the more you do them, the better you get at the presentation and understanding your numbers. Plus, I bet your conversion rates will increase with more webinars as you’ll likely speak with more confidence and have a better transition to your pitch as well.
4. Record Your Webinars
Another webinar tip is to make sure to record every webinar that you host. This is very easy to do with EasyWebinar but is important for several reasons.
First, you can repurpose your webinars into more content (a la Gary Vee model). This way you can use one piece of content for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.
Second, you can watch your webinars afterward from an attendee point of view and give yourself some good old honest feedback. You can see if you talked too fast, skipped a slide, or did something else that impacted the outcome.
Finally, you can turn recorded webinars into automated evergreen funnels as well (more on that coming up).
5. Follow Up With a Deadline
Newsflash: most people won’t buy on the webinar!
Sure, some people might be eager to pull the trigger if you have a fast action bonus, but a lot of webinar attendees need some time to decide (especially with high-ticket offers). Since a lot of people invest afterward, it’s crucial that you have a solid followup sequence and deadline to create urgency and make them choose.
After studying webinar legends, I’ve found the money is in the followup. With my webinars, I send five emails to attendees after they attend a webinar:
- Email 1 (two hours after the webinar): The first email is sent post webinar and includes a replay and overview of the presentation.
- Email 2 (one day later): The second email is addressing the common fears people have about investing and the seven biggest questions (and answers) about my program.
- Email 3 (final day): The third email comes out on the final day and has testimonials from past students plus more details about the program.
- Email 4 (12 hours later): Email number four is all about the bonuses.
- Email 5 (6 hours later): Final reminder email to join the program.
The second part of your follow up is having a strict deadline to help attendees make a decision. When I run live webinars for quarterly launches, I give them a 72-hour window before closing the doors to my program. With my automated webinar, I’ve incorporated Deadline Funnel to add urgency.
Remember, humans need deadlines, don’t keep your course open 24/7/365 without a deadline like I did.
6. Know Your Numbers
Business is just a numbers game and webinars are no different. For the first few webinars, I didn’t study my results enough and clung to the belief of “I’m not a numbers’ person.” Let me say, good luck scaling your offers without knowing your numbers.
Of all the success stories of EasyWebinar users and entrepreneurs in my mastermind running six figure launches, they know their metrics!
Make sure you do the same by studying things like:
- Referral source
- Cost per lead
- Earnings per lead
- Registration page rate
- Attendance rates
- Total webinar conversion rate
- Times of webinar when people leave
- Email open rates
This is just a sample of metrics that you can look at but the more you run webinars, the better you can analyze them for future promotion. Once you know what’s working (and what’s not), you can scale your webinar and not feel like you’re gambling with paid ads.
7. Have Fun
I know it sounds simple but seriously, have fun with it all. I made webinars out to be such a big deal I was paralyzed by fear and procrastinated six months. Don’t wait like I did – give yourself permission to fail and figure it out along the way. Procrastinating cost me tens of thousands of dollars in revenue.
Related: 25 Webinar Best Practices
3 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid
While those seven tips will help you get started with webinars, make sure to avoid these three common pitfalls as well.
1. Waiting For the “Right Time”
There is no right time to start running webinars. You don’t have to wait until you have X number of followers or X number of email subscribers before starting. If you have a product or service that can help people in some way or another, you need to get your offer out in the world.
Instead, just take action, set a deadline to run your first event, allow yourself to make some mistakes, and enjoy the process. Action will help you find clarity and beat fear.
As Dale Carnegie said, “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
2. Not Launching Enough
Another big mistake I made was waiting months between launches. Here’s the thing, sometimes people need to go through your webinar several times before becoming a customer. Maybe it’s not the right time for them or they’re not in the right space to join your program.
But if you only launch once a quarter or a few times per year, you are potentially missing out on a lot of opportunities. I launched the exact same offer to my list 30 days apart and nearly generated revenue both times despite launching four weeks apart. Also, if you don’t want to do the exact same webinar each time, you can mix it up and still pitch the same offer at the end.
For example, I’ve done different topics that relate to my course but at the end, the pitch is still for the same offer. Sometimes, you just need a different angle to entice your audience with and figure out which one performs the best.
3. Only Doing Live Webinars
The final mistake I made (and a lot of other entrepreneurs) is only doing live webinars. Evergreen webinars are a game changer!
I did four live events before I started running automated webinars and am so excited with the results. While live webinars are great, they also require you to be in front of your computer teaching at all times of the day.
Now I have an automated webinar funnel that is running 24/7/365 with paid ads. People can sign up for one of three times or use the “Just in time” option as well. This makes it easier to get people to sign up and take action sooner rather than later.
Evergreen webinars are great for attendees and entrepreneurs alike. Plus, EasyWebinar makes it very easy to convert previous live webinars to an automated one with a few clicks.
While live webinars tend to convert higher than automated ones, that doesn’t mean that automated webinars aren’t worth your time. Quite the opposite in fact. Don’t forget, Casey used evergreens to scale his course to $250,000/year when he first started!
Click here to read our full guide to start using automated webinars in your business.
Final Thoughts
If I can successfully run webinars as a newbie entrepreneur, you can too.
I just keep learning as I go, tweaking my presentation, and most importantly, impacting my students who enroll in the program. Without webinars, I wouldn’t have been able to keep growing my business to the level I had.
Now is the time for you to take action and get your offer in front of your audience. Make sure to use these seven tips and avoid those three common mistakes to finally grow your business using webinars.
Next Steps
Here are some more resources to help you take action and start using webinars for more leads and sales.
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