How to Turn Your Live Webinar Into An Automated Funnel

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’re always looking for ways to get more time back in your day. While the caffeine filled late nights and all day hustle are fun in the beginning, they’re not very sustainable for the long run. 

To really scale your business and get your precious time back, you need to create automated systems that work while you aren’t.

At EasyWebinar, we love helping entrepreneurs get more time back by running automated webinars instead of just running live webinars. While live webinars literally changed my life, it’s hard to run them every single day at specific times. Plus, a worldwide audience makes it even more challenging to find a convenient time for attendees. 

The solution is to use a combination of live and webinar webinars to generate more leads and more consistent sales… without working more hours. Sound good?

So how do you switch from a live webinar to an automated webinar?

If you’ve already run live webinars, you might use a past recording and start inviting attendees to register for your event. Don’t get me wrong, this strategy could work, but I don’t think it will yield the highest conversion rates. 

Instead, you want to strategically convert your live webinar into an automated one so that you can get higher engagement and conversions. In this post, I’ll show you the five steps you need to take to convert your live webinar into an automated webinar funnel.  

Live Webinar to Automated Webinar – 5 Steps for Success

1. Record A New Webinar

You might be thinking, why do I need to record a new webinar? 

Well, the goal here is to create the perfect show. 

Yes, oftentimes there is a certain energy that comes from doing your webinars live; I know I feel it when I have hundreds or thousands of people signing on. It’s like an entertainer or athlete getting ready for the big game in front of a live crowd. It’s exciting, it’s fun, and you’re ready to wow your audience. 

However, you can’t control a live webinar nearly as much as a pre-recorded one. This is important because you need to create the best webinar possible. 

In general, automated webinars already have a lower conversion rate (roughly 5% is a good  conversion benchmark). Since conversions are lower than live webinars, you need to have an epic webinar to make sure it converts.

There are certain elements that you should map out in your automated webinar that you want to start from scratch. You can use something like Screenflow or Camtasia (depending on if you use Mac or PC user). Then, you can produce the mp4 which can be uploaded to your webinar software.  

Ideally, I would recommend creating a new webinar unless you create some epic, high-converting live webinar that you feel is non-replicatalbe. If you do choose to convert a live webinar to an automated event, make sure you don’t skip number two. 

2. Leave Out Any Reference of Time

One of the main reasons you want to create a new webinar is that you want to make sure to avoid any reference of time. 

PLEASE DON’T DUPE YOUR AUDIENCE. 

If you act like it’s a live event when it isn’t, you’re going to lose trust with your audience and it’s very hard to get it back. As you know, trust is key to building a brand and creating consistent sales. So please, do not say this is a live training when it isn’t.

Aside from not saying it’s live, you also want to avoid saying little things like “Good morning” or “Happy Saturday” when you’re recording these events. Remember, one of the perks of automated webinars is that you can run them in the attendees’ time zone at multiple times during the day. 

But if you use the wrong language like “Good morning” and the attendee watches it at 8pm, it’ll be very confusing. Instead, say something like “Welcome to the event” and keep it a bit more generic to appeal to more attendees. 

3. Have a Q&A Section 

You might be thinking, should I (or how can I) do a Q&A session for an automated event? 

My answer is YES… I think it is imperative that you include an FAQs but I think there is a way to represent it correctly.

For instance, mention that you are going to take questions at the end of the webinar and if you don’t answer all of them, you or your moderator will get back with during or afterward. Our platform allows you to receive questions that happen during an automated webinar directly to your email. Then you can 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. By being transparent, they won’t likely be concerned about questions during the live webinar when their questions aren’t answered immediately. 

The best way to do this is to prepare FAQs and SAQs (Should Ask Questions). I like to have a list of 7-10 questions based on feedback from past webinars, your Facebook group, helpdesk, etc. 

You’ll probably find that some questions are specific to the offer and others might be more general around pricing, guarantees, etc. Also, if you already have a sales page for your product, you can reuse some FAQs that you have on there as well. 

Here’s how you can set up the Q&A session:

“Thanks everyone who left a question. We are going to answer some of them now. We probably won’t get everyone’s questions on this event but our moderators will at least try and get an email out to you.”

Don’t skip the Q&A just because it’s an automated event!

4. Encourage Sales and Scarcity

Live webinars are great because they allow you to create urgency and scarcity to your offer. If you just leave your offer open 24/7/365, chances are you won’t make too many sales. 

Remember, people need deadlines to make decisions! 

The most successful 6 and 7-figure entrepreneurs that I work with all have firm deadlines to help buyers make a choice. The cool thing is that with automated webinars, you can still create scarcity and urgency even though it’s not live. 

You can do this a few different ways.

First off, you can use a coupon or promo code that is specific to your automated webinar. During the webinar and post-webinar emails, mention the code to your audience, so they can use it at checkout. When you announce the code, you want to make sure it’s only valid for a certain amount of time so they’re more likely to invest now. 

The other way to do this is to create a launch window for your automated event just like you would with live launches. 

For example, a lot of people who run automated webinars with EasyWebinar use a countdown software like Deadline Funnels. Using a software like this, you can make it so that every person who attends the webinar has their own deadline.

Here is how this could work:

• Someone attends the webinar and hears the pitch for your offer.
• Send them a link to the sales page with a countdown timer on it.
• Then, on the sales page for that person they’ll have a countdown timer based on their IP address. 
• Attendee has X amount of time (usually 3-4 days) to enroll before the offer expires or doors to your program close.

With so many tools like this, you can easily create scarcity and urgency even if you aren’t running live launches. 

5. Add in Timed CTA Events 

The final item you want to think about when going from live to automated events is adding in “CTA” events. Since you can’t converse and interact with attendees in an automated webinar, CTA events are the next best thing. 

You can keep the energy up during the event by offering up CTAs such as questions, buy now buttons, and downloads. 

For example, 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 them a question that is related to the topic of my webinar. 

It might read something like:

“Welcome to the event. Have you ever done webinars/events to promote your business before? Let us know if yes or no below.” 

Then, throughout the webinar have periodic questions or interactive points in the event to add levels of engagement to it.

Finally, once you reveal your offer, immediately show the “BUY NOW” button so attendees can start enrolling. Also, 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 and understand the video with a call to action message above it.

Here’s an example:

“Get EasyWebinar including this limited $1,900 bonus package and $100 dollar discount by clicking below now.” 

By using CTA events you can engage with your audience even though it’s not a live webinar. More engagement tends to lead to more sales so don’t skip this step either. 

Summary

These five strategies will help you easily turn your live webinar into an automated event. Remember, live and automated webinars are different and need to be treated as such. While you can simply convert your live event to automated, it’s not always the best solution.

Instead, you want to:

1. Record a new webinar so that it’s perfect. Remember, automated engagement tends to be less so you want to create an epic webinar that attendees will love.  

2. Leave out any reference of time. If you say things like “Good morning” it’s going to be really awkward when someone signs on in the afternoon or evening. Keep your language more general so that it can work 24/7.

3. Have a Q&A section. This is one of the most important parts of any webinar. You can’t skip it just because it’s not a live event. Remember, people have questions about your offer and it’s up to you to break down objections and help them feel confident in investing with you.

4. Encourage scarcity and urgency. Using either of the strategies mentioned, make sure to have a firm deadline to take action on your offer. 

5. Use CTA events to keep engagement high. Using polls, Q&A, and other features mentioned will help audiences stick around longer which will likely increase conversions as well. 

I’m confident that when you make these five switches, you’ll have higher engagement rates and conversions with your automated events.

Next Steps

Make sure that you take advantage of our 14-day FREE demo of EasyWebinar. When you join, you can test out all the features of live and automated webinars today free for the next two weeks.

Click here to sign up for our FREE 14-day demo.