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Monday, October 31, 2011

Got Webinar? Unleash The Power and Watch Your Sales Boom

By Dustin Mathews


You'd have to have been living under a rock or sipping too many double-decaf espressos at Starbucks not to have heard about how webinars can transform your business. Do you remember sitting next to that guy in a workshop last week who was foaming at the mouth about all the piles of money he's making through webinars? Or maybe you have tested the webinar waters but have only seen a few drips of income as a result. The truth is that webinars, done properly, are worthy of all the excitement. If you're like me, I used to ponder why I kept getting the same sales letter in my mailbox over and over again. Then I realized - it's because it works! Thousands of businesses and entrepreneurs are leveraging the power (and efficiency) of webinars to transform their businesses and send their sales into the stratosphere. I have personally seen hundreds of my clients achieve massive success through webinars. Want to be next?

I interrupt this article for a dj vu moment . . .

Rewind 2 years ago when I was selling business credit solutions. I was working eight-to-ten hour days, then I would run home and hop on a two-hour call. By then the adrenaline was pumping full force (even without the third mocha latte) so I'd be fortunate to wind down enough to hit the sack before midnight. Needless to say, seeing my picture on Facebook was about the only quality time I had with my family. Hello? Any of this sound familiar? I knew there must be a better system that'd give me much-desired time with my family without sacrificing the steady cash flow I'd learned to love. The answer came - webinars.

I'm just not that into webinars

So why are automated webinars working for so many people and not for you? Chances are it is one of two reasons.

Reason #1: Yeah, but . . .

Remember that crazy workshop guy? The first thing that ran through your mind as he was blabbering on about the wonders of automated webinars was, "But my business model is different. They won't work for my clients." Let me give you a reality check by sharing a few of my customer's experiences. We'll start with a recently divorced woman who bravely stepped out from the shadows and teamed up with her sister to follow her passion for Internet marketing. Her introduction to webinar marketing brought in 17 sales at $1,500 each (you do the math). Next there's the affiliate marketing expert who offered a $100 product and made 600 sales his very first time out of the gate. Not bad for 90 minutes. Then there is our client who sells high-ticket services that sell for $40,000-plus and sold more than $200,000. That's the real beauty of webinars-they work for affiliate marketing, Internet marketing, network marketing (MLM), speakers, authors-even brick and mortar or professional services businesses. Share the joy.

Reason #2: I tried it and I didn't like it...

Automated webinars, just like sales calls done poorly, can leave scars. Just like riding a bike, there are certain skills to learn, best practices to apply and you improve with practice. The good news is you don't have to re-invent the wheel and you can start beating your conversion percentage right now. Later in this article I'll share some insights and success tips based on studying what works and what doesn't with thousands of clients and presentations across hundreds of niches. Plus, there are proven systems out there that apply these insider secrets and make it easy - think of it as a paint-by-numbers for webinars.

5 reasons to stop doubting and start doing In today's immediate gratification, give me the magic pill society, we all want 10 times more results with a thousand times less work. Sure, webinars require some up-front planning and effort, but if you give useful information, engaging and worth-while content and are passionate in the delivery-you'll be practically irresistible. Notice all the steps involved from the time you get a lead, qualify it, build trust, teach your prospect what they need to know, present your solution and ask for the order. Webinars are designed to streamline all these energy-sucking tasks in your sales process leaving you with more customers, more profits and more free time. Plus, it's easy to repeat those steps consistently so you can multiply your success fast. Here are just a handful of the ways webinars put your sales process on autopilot and drive massive profits:

1. Webinar marketing creates a discussion to establish credibility - How many times have you clicked the 'Buy Now' button, then left? According to Coremetrics the typical shopping cart abandonment percentage is 65.61%, 21% due to security concerns. It's no secret that static web pages suffer from trust issues. Webinars engage your leads in conversation giving you 10 times the credibility and influence (translation-that means ten times the sales).

2. Webinar marketing helps you teach prospects - Even if you're selling duct tape, your prospects need to know what problems it solves, how much better life-with-duct-tape will be and why there's no duct tape like your special duct tape. Automated webinars provide a strong system for answering these questions consistently and with feeling to keep your sales funnel overflowing with qualified leads.

3. Webinar marketing cranks up your conversion ratio - There's no better sales strategy than letting your passion loose - in a systematic kind of way. Automated webinars make it easy to share the 'why' behind your product and services which creates an emotional connection with your ideal clients that other platforms can't match. Let's put this into real-world perspective. A well-executed direct mail or online marketing campaign that has a 1% conversion is considered a success. That's after all the long hours (and dollars) spent, hiring graphic designers, copywriters, paying for postage and waiting for responses to trickle in. After 3,000 presentations and fine-tuning a well-oiled webinar system our experience is a 20%-to-25% conversion rate. Which would you rather have?

4. Webinar marketing makes it very easy to upsell existing clients - Cool, you made a sale, now what? Do you have a plan for making the most of your lifetime customer value or do you just move on to the next new client? There's no better way to build steel-tight relationships with your customers than engage them in the innovation process. At the same time, you can let them know about related services you offer that they may not know of or give them first dibs on a new solution. Either way, you leverage the relationship you worked so hard to establish in the first place.

5. Webinar marketing connects you with marketing contacts - Affiliates, JV partners, MLM reps and industry experts (a.k.a. ideal speakers for your webinars) are looking for you right now. Webinars make it fast for them to get to know you and give them all the reasons they need to join forces with you. You'll be amazed at how fast the snowball (and cash) gets rolling with a few solid partnerships under your belt.




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