Webinars a Triple Bottom Line Win

Webinars versus in-person events

It starts with reducing carbon usage whenever a digital event or webinar is selected instead of an in-person event.

Economy-class airplane flights, and even more so business and first-class travel, use a fair bit of carbon. For example, a round-trip economy plane trip from San Francisco to an event in Dallas uses an estimated .857 metric tons of carbon per employee or contractor traveling to an event.

A conference with four employees would include four round-trip tickets, travel to and from the airport, any rental cars and local transportation, energy use for the hotel and booth, and any booth support and signage and shipping of these support materials.

At a minimum, a conference with four employees and their airfare uses 34 times the carbon of a webinar handled by two employees.

Business results: Webinars versus in-person events

There is some preparation for both webinars and in-person events.

Still, the typical in-person event supported by four people in preparation, travel time, set-up and breakdown of the booth, supporting the event, and return travel and follow-up will likely be about eight total weeks.

The proxy for efficiency is employee hours. The typical in-person event could take two weeks from four people or eight total weeks of employee time, or 320 hours. At an average compensation of $100 an hour, that’s an all-in cost of $32,000.

For a webinar (worst case), preparation, promotion, delivery, and follow-up would likely require two people for a week each or a total of 80 hours. At $100 an hour the cost is $8,000.

Thus, the employee cost is roughly four times the cost for the in-person show ($32,000 versus $8,000).

I know what you are thinking: The business results for a typical in-person show are much higher than for a webinar, right? Wrong.

The typical webinar would cost less when factoring in travel, booth costs, hotels, and sponsorships. However, let's be conservative and say each event costs $50,000 in advertising and sponsorship fees. The budget is the same for each event.

Let's say your company sponsors a talk and gets booth swipes for 250 interactions with individuals. With follow-up, 10% of those interactions, 25, become marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) and are turned over to sales.

Webinar videos extend the life of your event

The typical webinar with a moderate promotion budget could gain 200 leads per broadcast over two webinars/broadcasts. The webinar video lives on the website behind a gated web form. Over the subsequent 12 months, you may generate an additional 100 downloads for 500 total leads from one webinar.

We compare apples to apples, and assuming a 10% yield to MQLs, we have 50 qualified leads from the webinar versus 25 from the in-person show.

Thus, the typical in-person show uses more carbon, takes more employee time, and yields fewer business results than the typical webinar.

Webinars are a triple win relative to a marketing seminar

Let's say a financial advisor wants to generate two new clients a month through events.

We'll assume both an in-person seminar and a webinar use similar invitations and the same content on the topic of retirement income strategies. The events target couples in their late 50s and early 60s with $750,000 to $1,000,000 in retirement savings, excluding equity in the home.

The traditional dinner seminar model requires a lot of time and heavy lifting to spend $10,000 total on direct mail promotion and two nights of dinners with 50 registrants.

Advisors likely need a three-meeting close and conversion process to deal with many "plate lickers" to yield two new clients.

Webinar metrics

The retirement income webinars, in contrast, use email marketing and likely only $2,500 in digital and social promotion.

The webinar metrics could be 30 registrants with a total of 20 attendees and viewers of your video if the video is promoted to non-attendees right away. Then four prospects go through a two-meeting process generating two new clients.

On average, marketing webinars produce the same two clients at one fourth of the cost. For the typical advisor, $1,250 to acquire a new client is much more palatable cash flow-wise versus $5,000 per client from the in-person events.

This example provides a different way to get to the same triple win for the digital channel.

Of course, many advisors or those in financial services have a regional or national niche.

Hence, webinars are the only way to use digital marketing events to reach their target audience effectively.

Debunking the myth that webinars don’t work for advisors

You may have read in other industry publications that webinars don't work for advisors.

Any marketing tactic can work for advisors if the strategy is right for the business and done well.

Let's say you want to be conscious of the environment and access this “triple business win” strategy for your financial services business or advisory practice.

Six ways to supercharge webinars for more prospects and cost-effective leads

Here are six ways to supercharge your webinars for 2024 and beyond.

A webinar program leveraging the following tips will likely engage key prospects and drive ROI.

1. Attract lkey prospects like a magnet with a webinar topic

The topic of your webinar is the #1 way to draw a crowd to your next event. These critical words should stop your key prospects from scrolling on their iPhones.

Your title could be timely and promote the significant benefit of your webinar. For example, December brings budgeting for business and year-end tax moves for individuals, both topical for each audience.

2. Create compelling, engaging content

Make an excellent first impression with a compelling introduction. Having multiple speakers like an outside expert or customer can help engage the audience.

Use the 60-second rule of content to keep your audience engaged and interested.

Offer something of interest every minute, like a story or case study, a new fact or insight, ask a question, change a slide, switch presenters, leverage a webinar interaction such as a poll, and show a new image or visual.

3. More than social media – Don't skip the marketing plan and include email marketing

Many webinar hosts promote the event exclusively on social media.

While social media can extend your reach, studies show email invitations drive 80% of attendance.

Well-crafted email invites get attention through webinar topics and subject lines. They drive interest with an event summary, build desire by presenting the benefits of attending, and call to action to register urgently.

4. Promotion, project management, and production are the 3 Ps of winning webinars

There are over 101 potential pitfalls to webinar success.

Actively manage the project by scheduling multiple emails and ads during the prime promotion window 14 days pre-event.

Sending out last-chance emails 48 hours before the event can increase attendance by 40% or more.

Hiring or designating a producer to manage the webinar and edit the video is always a good idea.

5. Webinar technologies, an important piece of the puzzle

The webinar broadcast tech is but a piece of the puzzle.

Key technologies include digital promotion, webinar recording, video editing, marketing automation/email marketing, and sales conversion/sales opportunity management.

Registration pages are designed to convert traffic to registrants, and three reminders - confirmation, 24 hours, and three hours pre-event – all help turn clicks/traffic into high-value attendees.

6. Multi-step, multi-media follow-up

People are busy, so often will not attend or will attend and put off taking action or buying.

Be sure to make an offer with urgency on the webinar and repeat it in an email to all registrants with a link to the video as part of your follow-up sequence.

An example is “My Wednesday Webinar offers a Free Consultation Call That Friday Morning.”

Thus, webinars done right can be a triple business win for advisors and those in financial services.

Bob Hanson is a fractional marketer and author of Marketing Power for Financial Advisors. Click here to get his checklist, Nine Questions Financial Services Marketers Must Ask Before Scheduling Their Next Webinar.

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