Using Webinars and Podcasts to sell. Pros and Cons.

Using Webinars and Podcasts to sell. Pros and Cons.

When it comes to selling some high end information type products or online courses, you should be thinking of Webinars because they close a lot of deals.  Webinars are pretty cost affective because you really only have to invest into the equipment that it takes to film, maybe a nice location rental, and possibly a third party service to streamline everything if you aren't doing it on your own website.  Now with podcasts you can do basically the same thing, but there's no video, which could deter people from purchasing because mostly everyone is a visual learner and wants to see something in action rather than hear about it.  Podcasts are typically much cheaper to run since there isn't a need for any video equipment, and they're becoming more popular today than they were a few years ago, so I wouldn't pass them up

In this discussion I'm going to cover the pros and cons of both Webinars and Podcasts when it comes to selling something.  Some of these you may already know, but some you may be surprised about, so I guess you'll have to stick around and read this entire discussion


Podcast Pros and Cons
Roughly 1 in 4 US citizens who are at least 12 years old have listened to one podcast within 30 days.  Now that's a pretty big amount, roughly 25% of people in the US who are over the age of 12 have listened to a podcast.  With these numbers that means there are around 80 million US residents could be listening to your podcast channel.  And that's just in the US, how many do you think are outside of the US that have access to your channel?  If you're bad at math, it's a lot more

A con of running a podcast is that you will need to stay active.  You will need to be pushing out a weekly podcast in order to keep people coming back.  Now they might not listen to each one you push out, but they definitely don't want to go to your channel and listen to the same one over and over.  So by pushing out one podcast a week you will increase the chances of people hearing a new one the next time they come back.

Another con is that you don't have the live interaction, if any, when it comes to running a podcast.  You record what you're saying and then upload it for people to listen in on.  There's no real time interaction when it comes to this type of marketing, which isn't a great thing.

A pro is that podcasts are usually free and you can pitch a webinar service to get people to sign up and eventually pay you money.  You can use both types of promotion in order to funnel traffic to your services or products and increase your sales and sign ups.  People love that they can constantly listen to podcasts from their favorite channels and not have to pay a penny, usually.  So this mostly free marketing tactic is great when it comes to generating leads


Webinar Pros and Cons
When it comes to webinars, there isn't really another technique that can build an email list as successful.  People listening to webinars are already interested but want to hear a little more information about the products or services because they may be on the fence.  It just takes one successful webinar in order to get your business moving in the right direction because you can constantly sell your sign ups digital courses, physical products or even mentoring and consulting services for their own businesses or website.

A con when it comes to webinars is that the content within them can get old pretty quick.  Having one new webinar coming out each month will make sure that you don't become old news and will also help you get consistent sign ups.  You will also start to notice that people who have watched your previous webinars will usually come in and comment on your new advertisements to get people in and sign up to view.  I've seen plenty of webinar promotions on Facebook and in the comments there are dozens of people saying how well this one guy laid out the service and now they are starting out in a new industry (online stuff) to try and make a second income and blah blah blah lol.  Usually it's all good and positive but that's probably because you can delete negative comments on your ads if you want lol.  So if you want to keep getting leads, you will have to keep up to date with your webinars. 

Live webinars are interactive, meaning you can talk to whoever is viewing your show.  Usually it's a text based response just so that people aren't cutting you off mid sentence lol.  But even that is good enough to keep them coming back or signing up right there.  I've seen people mention at the beginning of the webinar that they will write down all the questions asked that comes through the chat system and they will answer them at the end so that nothing gets interrupted, which is smart.  You just have a guy monitoring the chat and writing down the questions so you can keep talking about what you want to cover without missing a beat.

Webinars tend to have a pretty good "attendance" rate because you will have set times, usually a few webinars for the same thing, and people can sign up for whatever one they think they can watch.  If you're going to use a third party webinar service, which I suggest you do, you can set up automated emails to go out a few hours before the show starts just so people are aware that they have to get online and start watching   You can send one out 5 hours prior, then 3 hours prior, then 1 hour prior and probably 20 minutes prior just to make sure people get online and go to the right page to start watching what you're offering

When you're running a webinar you can usually sell higher priced items through them.  This is due to the personal interaction with the potential clients, which is amazing if I do say so myself, and people love it.  It's nice to see someone responding to you in real time or at the end of the webinar they will mention your name and question.  It's like pulling your viewers right into the discussion and they feel like a part of it themselves.  This will always increase your sales because people will see you as real and not some random Guru selling crap online lol.  Selling high priced products or services through podcasts is almost impossible because there's no person to client interaction that can be performed live, which is what people want.


Should you use Webinars or Podcasts for your business?
Both podcasts and webinars are great tools to use if you want to build your business.  They will both make you stand out from the crowd since not many people are using them for marketing.  You can use both to help build your email lists and sell products to people and they are a cheap form of marketing which everyone loves lol

I guess it really depends on your level of comfort.  If you don't mind being in front of a camera, dressing for success and talking to people in real time then I would say that a webinar is for you.  If you prefer to sit on your couch in your pajamas and sell, then a podcast would likely be the route that is better for you unless you're the lazy couch marketer that does webinars haha (that's a good gimmick....)  A really devoted marketer will focus on both podcasts and webinars, which is like a 1-2 punch, in order to pull in as many leads and cross promote themselves.



In Conclusion:
There are many reasons why you should be focusing on podcasts and webinars, but using them is solely up to you and your free time.  You can't just start a webinar and think it's going to be the best on your first try, you need to practice in order to get good.  The same goes with podcasts, you will need to train how you speak so that it's clear and to the point.  You wouldn't want to publish a podcast where half of the time it sounds like you're mumbling lol.  You might go through a few takes before you get one that satisfies you, but you'll get there


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Thanks!

Razzy