Webinars + Email: How to Use This Dynamic Duo to Build KLT

If you’re here, you already know that we think webinars are the cat’s pajamas, the dog’s tuxedo, the bee’s knees. (Okay, so we’re a bit biased.)

Seriously, though, we’ve seen firsthand the power of webinars to build your Know, Like, and Trust Factor in no time flat. But if you really want a long-lasting, meaningful relationship with your audience, it’s time to get the dynamic duo – webinars and email – working together in harmony. 

When you combine an engaging webinar with a solid email marketing gameplan, you set yourself up for massive success. And the best part is, when one aspect of your strategy succeeds, the other one benefits from it, too. It’s a win-win. 

Today, we’re going to show you exactly how you can use this power-pairing to build your business.

Improving the Quality of Your Subscriber

One key to building a highly engaged audience is to start with a solid foundation. From the beginning, you want people who are interested in what you have to say and who like the way you say it. Webinars have a natural power to produce exactly that (and more).

See, webinars don’t just build your email list by giving you the ability to collect emails through registration. They naturally vet those subscribers, too. When attendees opt-in to your list, they are confirming that they have an interest in your brand. So much so that they’re willing to give their personal information to hear what you have to say. So when they show up––digitally in your inbox, or virtually at your event––they’re not completely cold leads.  

And then, those who do attend your event spend time getting to know you as you share your story, your experience, your education (book smarts and street smarts both convert, btw), and your methods. You’re sharing time and space, you’re answering questions, and you’re helping them solve a problem. You’re providing value first. 

This is how webinars can build the same amount of KLT in an hour and a half that social media alone would take months or years to create, and this ultimately results in a better-qualified subscriber.

The best part is, you can automate your webinar and gather these high-quality leads on autopilot, bringing more and more excited customers into your business’s ecosystem everyday.

Once you’ve laid a strong foundation of Know, Like, and Trust with your webinar, it’s time to use email marketing to nurture those leads and turn excited attendees into raving fans.

But don’t waste the space between the time someone registers for your webinar and the second you go “live.” Use pre-webinar emails to get this KLT party started off right.

Your Pre-Webinar Emails

As online business owners (and as customers of online businesses), you know how it goes. You plug in your email for a lead magnet or register for a free event, and then you promptly forget about it the second you close the tab. It’s not anyone’s fault, per se. So many things are competing for our attention these days, and it’s just too easy for something to be pushed to the back of our minds. But you don’t want your webinar to stay there. 

Pre-webinar reminder emails bring your event back to the front of the line. These are exactly what they sound like: an autoresponder sequence of reminders leading up to your event.

Here’s a suggested timeline for your pre-webinar sequence:

• Immediately after registration
• 2 days before the event
• 1 day before the event
• A day-of reminder in the morning
• A 15-minute reminder just before the event

Feel free to tweak this to suit your business’s needs and the type of webinar you’re hosting. 

For example, if your target audience is old enough to remember the days before DVRs, you might want to send an email 10 minutes into your live event. Something along the lines of, “Hey, the show’s back on! You’re missing it!” (If you know, you know.)

Don’t overthink these emails – it’s perfectly okay to keep them simple. The goal here is to start building rapport with your audience. And the best way to do that is to figure out exactly who you’re writing to.

Write For Your Customer

At its simplest, your Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA) is a fictional creation of a character who has all of the demographic and psychographic traits of your ideal customer. Once you’ve created your ICA, you can speak directly to them in all of your marketing and copy, especially your webinars and emails.

For example, here’s a generic 15-minute reminder email:

Now, let’s rewrite this with your ICA in mind. Let’s say your ICA is a female customer who has an idea for a book but no formal education. She wants to write, and thinks she’s a good writer, but has no idea how to start. She might wonder if she even has any business trying at all. She reads Gillian Flynn and loves Shondra Rhimes. But every time she sits down to write, what comes out is far from Gone Girl. So she stops. Now, her fear of not being good enough has resulted in relentless procrastination.

Here’s how that 15-minute reminder email might sound:

Both emails remind your registrant that the event is about to start. But the second one directly addresses your ICA’s issue with procrastination (and a writer’s propensity to absolutely run through hot beverages). Writing copy like this helps make your registrant feel seen, and as a result, they’re much more likely to let their guard down and trust you.

Include a Workbook

Help your attendees stay engaged with a simple workbook they can use as they move through your presentation. This adds value to their experience and helps you position yourself as the expert that you are. Plus, it’s hardcopy branded material that will stay with them IRL after your virtual presentation ends. Talk about a win-win. 

Send a link to this workbook in every reminder email you send, and include it on your registration thank you page. Speaking of which…

Optimize Your Registration Thank You Page

Thank you pages are an often underutilized step in online marketing. These can be a powerful tool to get social shares, build authority, and give your registrants additional options to receive event reminders, like via text. They can also be used strategically to make sure your emails get to that inbox. 

Because an important (but often overlooked) step in using email plus webinars to build powerful KLT is to make sure that your registrants are receiving your emails.

The spam bots are alive and well. You might feel like there’s nothing that you can do to avoid their shifty moods, but that’s not 100% true.  One of the first ways you can avoid their snare is via the messaging on your Thank You page.

Include language on your thank you page to let registrants know an email will be arriving from you with their webinar information and instructions. Explain that it may go to their spam, junk, or promotions folder, and if that happens, they should drag that email into their inbox so that future emails from you aren’t incorrectly marked as spam. 

Post-Webinar Emails

Don’t “ghost” your list once your event is over! Post-webinar emails are an important part of your marketing strategy. They’re a must for building and maintaining your relationship with your audience. Plus, as “they” say, the fortune is in the follow up. 

If you’ve neglected your post-webinar sequence in the past (it happens), here’s how to get back on track.

Use an Automated Email Sequence

One awesome way to make sure you don’t forget about your attendees after the webinar is with a thoughtfully written automated email sequence (aka “drip campaign”).

Your email sequence can be any length, with many seeming to hold at 3-5 emails.  However, some businesses have 6-month, 12-month, or even 18-month long nurture sequences running in the background, pitching and teaching as far as the eye can see.

And if you plan to teach more webinars in the future and have them scheduled in your calendar, you can include invitations in a set-it-and-forget-it nurture sequence. Even a quick one-liner like “hey, you’re the first to know that I’ll be teaching part two of the ‘Write your First Novel’ series next month! Be on the lookout for an invitation to register soon,” works. 

Note: you’ll need to make sure that your nurture sequence delivery aligns with your date. But once you get that squared away, you really will have a business that’s running, registering, nurturing, and selling on autopilot.  

Keep Out of the Spam Folder

Remember, an important factor of using webinars and emails to build your KLT is making sure those emails get into that inbox.  So one thing you want to watch out for is your use of “scarcity phrases” and their ability to trigger spam filters.

Scarcity phrases are sales phrases that induce a tone or feeling that time is running out, phrases like “for a limited time,” “only 5 left,” “sale ends soon,” and “buy now.”

Used sparingingly and authentically, these phrases may not cause alarm. But if every other email is loaded with phrases like “ACT NOW,” “URGENT,” or “TIME IS RUNNING OUT,” you may not be long for the inbox.  

Remember, the focus of your nurture sequence is to nurture. It’s to provide value. Of course, you’re in business to make money. You need to sell. But the strength of email marketing is the relationship between you and your subscriber. Focus on nurturing that relationship and providing value first, and you’ll be just fine.

And when it comes to continually and consistently nurturing your relationship with your customers it’s time to talk about your email campaigns.

Providing Value Through Ongoing Emails

Think of your emails as an ongoing conversation with your audience and remember to add value to their lives consistently. This is what really layers on that extra-gooey KLT goodness and supports your marketing efforts long after your webinar is over.

If your sole focus is on selling, selling, and more selling, a couple of things will happen. For one, you’ll probably find your emails getting rerouted to the spam folder. But more importantly, you’ll start to lose any trust you’ve generated up to that point. 

Now, it’s easy for us to say “nurture, nurture, nurture,” but at this point it seems like you’re writing a whole heck of a lot of emails. What on earth do you write about? What do you say? Sometimes, it feels like selling is the easiest way to create content.

We’ve been there, and we just want to remind you: value comes in many different forms. You don’t have to teach a deep, meaningful life lesson with every message. You can simply share something that inspired you or something that made you laugh. Share an awesome piece of content from another entrepreneur you admire. Offer encouragement. Your emails don’t have to be as long as a CVS receipt to be useful. Focus on the quality of your words over the quantity of them.

And just because your audience has already seen your webinar doesn’t mean you have to generate new content from scratch. Your webinar is a goldmine of ideas and content! Use it to help you write your emails. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Expand on concepts you taught during the webinar
• Revisit your key points from time to time
• Answer your audience’s questions in depth
• Share more of your personal story

You can really make your subscribers feel special by inviting them to exclusive events, like a live Ask Me Anything (AMA) webinar. Use these subscriber-only webinars as special perks for your list and gain insight about your audience at the same time. They’ll get the relevant content they want, and you’ll be able to serve them better.

Naturally, some of your emails will be sales-based. That’s totally fine! We’re not saying you should never sell via email. You just want to strike that balance of giving (providing value) and asking (selling). 

And when you strike that balance successfully, your customers will be excited for your ask and delighted to answer with a resounding, “Yes, please!” 

It all comes full circle. When you’ve put in the work to build that KLT, your customers want to hear from you, they want to learn from you, they want to support you. So don’t be surprised when your new product sells like hotcakes.

There you have it––we’ve shown you how you can use the dynamic duo of webinars and email to build your Know, Like, and Trust Factor.

Recap

Running webinars is a great way to improve the quality of your subscribers and set a strong foundation of Know, Like and Trust. And you can enhance that KLT with a few thoughtful email campaigns. Pre-webinar reminder emails make sure your event remains front of your registrant’s mind. Post-webinar sequences keep them in your business’s ecosystem and nurture KLT over time. And your ongoing email campaign can simultaneously provide value and generate sales – just make sure you focus on your customer’s wants and needs.

Now, it’s your turn. Start your EasyWebinar 14-day free trial now, and begin to use the one-two punch super-combination of webinars and emails to grow your KLT today.