Module 5, Lesson 1 Webinars That Convert Automated Planning Phase: The Automated Webinar Funnel Oh my goodness, get up and do a little happy dance right now because you have made it to Module 5, The Automated Webinar Funnel. For many of you, this is the holy grail. This is where you wanted to get to all along but you have trusted me. Thank you so very much for doing so because, as you know, I feel so very certain that you should do a few live webinars first, get them under your belt, find a perfect recording for your automated system and then move into tweaking everything you have done in Modules 1-4 to make it work seamlessly for an automated webinar funnel. I am so proud of you. Congratulations for getting this far. I don t know how you went through the program, maybe you went through Modules 1-4 and you haven t implemented yet but you are in Module 5 because you want to know the lay of the land and then you are going to go back and implement. That s cool. Maybe it s not time to totally celebrate just yet, but you are getting there. Maybe you have gone through Modules 1-4, totally implemented. You have your live webinar system all ready to go and now you want to know how to tweak it to make it automated. Where ever you are in the system, I am just glad you have gotten this far and you are going to reap the benefits of all of your hard work when you turn a live webinar promotion into an automated webinar funnel. So let s do this. The first lesson is The Automated Planning Phase. This is all about the big picture of the automated webinar funnel. What You Will Discover! The Big Picture: An Automated Webinar System Versus a Live Webinar System If you will remember, in Module 1, we flip flopped that and did the live Page 1
webinar versus the automated webinar. But now the focus is on the automated webinar so we will get really specific there.! The Platform is going to be your biggest decision in the planning phase.! I ll show you the small tweaks that make a big difference inside your webinar presentation. In terms of Module 5, I want to actually do a review of Modules 1-4. We are going to actually review Module 1, the Planning Phase but I am going to show you where the small tweaks are. So Module 5 is really cool because, not only does it review everything you have just learned, I will show you how it works inside automation. The Big Picture: An Automated Webinar System Versus a Live Webinar System You have already done the hard work. It is time to take what you have created and apply small tweaks for big results. I will show you just how to do it inside this lesson. The Profitable Webinars Rule I gave you this Profitable Webinars Rule on Day 1 of your program: If your LIVE webinar is not yet generating profits, it is not yet time to move into the automated phase. Remember, if it s not generating profits live, your results won t change when you put it on autopilot! You have more chances to make it more profitable when you are in the live phase but when you move to automation you are not really going to change the presentation or the pre-onboarding sequence, the follow-up sequence, and all of that. We do the creation and changing inside the live promo so that when you get here you already know it converts. If it s not converting yet, let s stay in the live phase until it does. Use the private Facebook group for help if you feel your live promos just aren t doing what they should be doing. We are all there to help you. Page 2
Lesson 01: Live Webinars Versus Automated Webinars In Lesson 1, Module 1 we went over live webinars versus automated webinars and I want to flip the script a little bit and focus on the automated now. The automated webinar sales funnel is a bit different from a live webinar funnel, which you have probably already guessed. The areas that different the most and will need your detailed attention include:! The Platform If you used GoToWebinar or Live Google Hangouts for live it is now time to choose a platform that is specifically for an automated webinar system.! Technology Integration There is a bit more technology when it comes to an automated system. It can be confusing and frustrating at times so I am just going to warn you in advance.! Timing Tweaking the timing of when emails go out and how the followup works and the scarcity of timing inside your webinar. That needs to be tweaked as well.! Audience Engagement The whole question of whether you want to tell people it is recorded or if you are going to pretend it is live. We have to talk about that.! Urgency and Scarcity Creating urgency when you are doing an automated funnel is sometimes tough. It is tricky. You have to navigate through that. We are now selling an evergreen program. You decided what you were going to sell in the very beginning of this course for your live promo but now whatever you are selling needs to be evergreen. It needs to be available at any time of the day on any day of the week because your webinars are running daily. You can take what you sold in terms of a one-time product and turn that into an evergreen system. You just need to make sure that you can sell your product daily and you don t have to manually change a million things during your automated system in order for you to deliver on your product. Let s talk about scarcity really briefly. Whatever you are selling needs to be ready right now when you are going to deliver an automated system. Suppose you have an online training course and it is five modules. You need to make sure it is inside a member s area and when people sign up from your automated webinar they get an email with login details to your member s area and from there all of the content is available immediately. Or, you can drip it once a week. Page 3
Systems such as WishList and ZippyCourses and CourseCats are three systems that you can use to create your membership site and then, again, once someone buys you send them a confirmation email that says, Welcome to my program, here are the login details, get started. All of that needs to be automated as well. Do you see why it is so important to start with the live phase to get all of that ironed out and figured out? Then, when you want to move into the automated phase you can then say you are going to tweak this or that to make it work or you will turn a one-time product into an evergreen program and once you get it up and running you can turn on the automation. There are some decisions you need to make just to make sure everything is working properly when somebody buys. Lesson 02: Getting Started: Key Decisions For Success I just want to run through the key decisions as they relate to your automated system.! Decision 01: What am I going to sell? We just talked about that.! Decision 02: One-time or evergreen? - What you are going to sell needs to be evergreen at this point. If you get stuck on this I want you to jump into the Facebook group and start a conversation around this because it is really important. There are no more one-time products because you aren t doing a live start and end date to a promo, it is all on evergreen.! Decision 03: Live promo start date? Ignore because there is no end date.! Decision 04: Live promo end date? Ignore because there is no end date.! Decision 05: How many live webinars? You can ignore that too because you will be doing several a day and we will talk about that in the pre-webinar phase.! Decision 06: Number of webinar registrants? I think it is important that you track these numbers and you will find that tracking inside whatever automated platform you choose.! Decision 07: Number of registrants on live? I think it is good to still keep a Google Doc of how many people registered and how many people were on the webinar.! Decision 08: Number of sales at the end of the promo? It is a good idea to know how many people bought each day. I think that is something to track. Page 4
! Decision 09: What s your webinar #GAMEON song? You obviously don t need a #GAMEON song because we are only using that when we go live so save that one for the next live promo. Lesson 03: How To Choose A Webinar Topic That Converts The great news is that you do not need to change anything in this section. If you chose a topic during your live promo you will use that exact topic in your automated promo as well. Lesson 04: Tech Made Easy *** Where You Might Get Stuck *** Remember, technology challenges can suck the life out of you. We have already gone over this. But you are stronger than most. There is more technology involved in automation. That is just the name of the game. Tech 01: Platforms We went over platforms when I first talked to you about live webinars. But I want to talk about platforms in terms of automated webinars. Remember, a platform is the technology you use to host your webinar. You have lots and lots of options for automated webinar platforms. You don t have that many options for live but for automated you do. The great thing is I think you should go with EasyWebinar. It s not because I am an affiliate but because they give you 40% off, which is a special deal they have given me. You do not find this kind of discount just out there for EasyWebinar. Casey Zeman, the founder of EasyWebinar, and I have been working together to create something special for you. You get a 40% off discount and, not only that, it is an amazing system. It is extremely reliable. They are constantly making it better. Casey lives, sleeps, breathes, eats this automated webinar system. The guy knows automation. I feel this is the best solution for you and it is very affordable. Go inside my Resources page in order to click the page and get sent to where you get that 40% off. You have to start at my resources page inside my member s area. Remember, you can check out the Tech tab in my member s area as well for more how-to help as it relates to EasyWebinar. I asked Casey to create a specific video all Page 5
about EasyWebinar so you can see how to navigate through it, how to get started, and feel really confident with your decision to use the platform. Casey has created a video specifically for us about EasyWebinar. It is underneath the Tech tab. One of the first things you will want to do is integrate your automated webinar platform with your email service provider. Whatever you choose, let s just pretend it is EasyWebinar, what you want to do is make sure that inside EasyWebinar you are linking it to your AWeber account or Infusionsoft account (whatever email service provider you use). There might be some restrictions if you use MailChimp. MailChimp might not be sophisticated enough for an automated webinar system. So I am going to explain some things and if you don t see that functionality inside MailChimp or some of the free email services providers, you may want to at least look into AWeber or GetResponse. They are a little more sophisticated but still very affordable. Let me give you an example: We use EasyWebinar in my business. We use Infusionsoft as my email service provider. We created a web form inside Infusionsoft for this funnel. We then dropped that web form code into EasyWebinar. When someone registers for the automated webinar their name and email goes to both EasyWebinar and Infusionsoft. This is important because we want to make sure we are constantly growing our email list. We don t want the emails just going to EasyWebinar because we will lose the ability to grow our email list while we are running automated webinars. Just like the live promos, you definitely need some integration so that anyone that signs up for an automated webinar will automatically be on your email list inside AWeber, Get Response, Infusionsoft, or any other provider. That is so very important. You want to definitely watch the training videos inside whatever automated platform you choose because they will show you how to do this. There are too many platforms for me to show you exactly how to do it but as long as you understand the process and strategy we are doing here that is the most important part at this point. Again, the strategy of adding your web form code to EasyWebinar pretty much works across all email service providers. It is not special to Infusionsoft. I try to stay away from anything special to Infusionsoft because I know most people don t have such a Page 6
robust system at this point. Just know that adding your web form to easy webinar should work across most email service providers. Tech 02: Software In Module 1 we also talked about software. Specifically, we talked about PowerPoint and Keynote. The great thing is that by now if you are implementing as you go through the program you should have one recording that you are really proud of that you are ready to turn on automation with. If you did a live recording and now you want to automate it you don t have to worry about PowerPoint and Keynote because it should already be recorded. Your presentation is locked in and good to go. Tech 03: Extra Tools & Resources There are some extra tools and resources, especially as we are talking technology. Remember, underneath the Extras tab there is a Resources page and you can go through there and find some extra tools for automation if you want to add some bells and whistles. I say to stay as simple as possible in the beginning. When you start getting going and you want to take things to the next level then dive into some extra resources. Again, this is where you will find your special link for 40% off to EasyWebinar. Lesson 05: The Golden Rules of High-Converting Presentations This lesson had to do with font, color, images, and all of that should stay the same whether it is live or automated. Lesson 06: The Webinar Content Creation Workshop This is my favorite lesson in the entire program. There are a few things I just want to make you aware of. If you already have the live recording that you want to use for the automated system then that is fantastic. I just want to point out a few quick things: Phase 01: The Promise Remember in Module 1 in the Workshop how I taught you to build your webinar presentation slide deck on three phases, the Promise, the Path, and the Promotion? Inside the Promise I wanted you to tease a bonus such as Wait until the end and I will tell you how to get your hands on a special bonus I have created. Page 7
When you are teasing a bonus inside an automated system and you are saying that at the end of the presentation you are going to tell them how to get their hands on something extra special and then when they get to the end of the presentation you say, If you buy while we are still live on this webinar you get this bonus. That is really hard to deliver on the back end. I want to talk to you about scarcity and the type of marketing you want to do during automation. Scarcity is going to be the toughest piece of the automation funnel. You have to decide if you want to be aggressive or more conservative with your funnel. By aggressive, I mean that you are treating the webinar as if it were a live experience. On the webinar you are saying, Hey everybody, thanks for showing up live, I am so glad you are here. You will answer questions in the chat and you will call out some people s names even though you aren t calling out the names of the people in the webinar because you aren t actually there. You are simulating a totally live webinar. There are many marketers that have done that. I have done it that way. It definitely works really well and that s the whole concept of an automated webinar funnel. However, it doesn t always sit well with me. Let s talk about that. You can be ultra conservative and take out all of the live mentions in your recorded webinar and market it as a recorded webinar. That is not ideal. I don t want you to tell people to sign up for a recorded webinar or recorded live or anything like that. When you start getting into that language I can promise you there is no need to do an automated webinar. People will not be excited about showing up to something that is recorded. We talked about this in the replay. It is just not a huge draw if people feel that you are not there. You have to decide what kind of marketer you want to be for an automated funnel. It has to feel good with you in terms of your integrity and how you want to present something that is recorded. I like to do a mix of both. I add some live elements to make them excited about the experience and make them feel a part of it and add that engagement. I think it is important that the chat box is there and they can engage. But also hold back from making people believe it is 100% live. Page 8
You really have to kind of figure out where you feel comfortable in this mix. For me, I feel comfortable with a mix of it because I know whatever I am delivering as a recorded webinar is literally just as good as the live experience. I make sure they get the bonuses I promise. They get to learn something spectacular whether they buy or not and I know I have given my best stuff. I also want them to feel excited about the date and time they show up. What I don t do is the pre-party experience. I feel that is pushing it a little bit too far in terms of making it feel live. So I don t actually jump on and say, Hey, who s here, give me your name. I actually take that out of my webinar recording. There are just little elements and you have to do what you feel right. I am not telling you what is right or wrong but there are some uncomfortable decisions you need to make to make yourself feel really good about how live you want it to be or how recorded you want it to be. I feel a mix is a really great place to land. I will say that there are some resources and software available to simulate a live experience with everyone who enters your automated funnel. There is something called Deadline Funnel. It is in my Resources page. It is complicated. We have used it inside our own systems. We have experimented with it. It is technically still in beta and you will need help with it for sure, unless you are really good at programming and coding. Deadline Funnel is a really cool tool. I know David Siteman Garland uses it. Everybody who enters your funnel has a timer that starts on a deadline. Everybody has their own deadline. If you enter a funnel to sign up for one of my webinars the clock starts ticking the minute you enter so that when you watch the webinar, the follow-up sequence gets emailed to you with a timer that you will see. You have 24 hours to make a decision after the webinar. When the links in your email hit the 24-hour mark they actually will only link to a page that says, Hey, you missed out. It is really cool because it adds a little more integrity in terms of truly having a deadline for your promotion and it is starting now. Deadline Funnel is awesome. We have started implementing it and playing around with it but it is complicated and I just want to throw it out there. If you are just starting out with automation I wouldn t start there. Page 9
Another tool that we use for only Infusionsoft, I doesn t work for any other platform, is PlusThis. It is a way to add that extra layer of automation and scarcity inside an Infusionsoft automated webinar funnel. Inside Infusionsoft when someone registers for one of my webinars we apply a tag to their name. In Infusionsoft you use tags, not lists. PlusThis helps us add that tag appropriately. It talks to both EasyWebinar and Infusionsoft. When someone enters into my funnel they get a tag and for X # of days they are in they own deadline. After a certain number of days that tag is removed. When the tag is removed their deadline has passed and PlusThis will actually change the link to go to a page that says, Hey this offer has expired. PlusThis determines what links go into your follow-up email sequence. Does it sound complicated? Oh yes, because it is. Remember, I am not super techy but I have been able to create a multi-million dollar business using live and automated webinars. It can be done so don t worry if the tech part throws you off. If the tech part doesn t scare you at all, I am really envious of you and I love that. Whatever you are feeling right now, just know I have always asked for help. I have found inexpensive programmers, I have been in mastermind groups where I have asked people about this and how they have used it, I have had a million conversations with people who have used the technology that I want to use. You ve got to be proactive at this point. If you are stuck in the process you can jump in our private Facebook group but I also want you to be even more resourceful than that. Get on the phone with your automated platform provider and ask questions. You will figure this out. I have no doubt but I just kind of wanted to throw out there what we have been doing so you can kind of see it in action. Phase 02: The Path Inside your webinar presentation, remember how we talked about the Path? With the Path, engagement was one of the slide themes. This is where you need to decide. I think you should keep the engagement in your slide presentation. Tell them to write something down or type something into the chat. You will want them to be fully engaged with your presentation whether you are there or not. That is to serve them. It is to keep their attention in. The more you can keep their Page 10
attention inside your webinar presentation, the more likely they are able to get actual value from what you are presenting. I think engagement is a great thing even on an automated webinar. Phase 03: The Promotion For the final phase of your webinar presentation I want you to be aware of a few things. Remember the slides What You Get? Just make sure that what they get is the same for the live promo as your automated promo if you are going to use that recording from your live promo. Do they still get everything that they would have gotten when you did the live promo? The answer is usually yes but I just want to make sure. You also want to look at what the product costs. Sometimes in a live promo you want to discount a certain way that you don t necessarily want to discount during an automated promo. For me that s not the case. Usually whatever I present live, it will also work in my automated funnel. I am going to guess that it will work for you as well but just be aware, if you are using a recording from a live promo you need to make sure the prices are what you want them to be. I just wanted you to be really aware of those specific slides so that everything works seamlessly. Cheat Sheet: The Perfect Slide Deck Blueprint I am most proud of the blueprint cheat sheet that I created. So if you haven t yet created your slide presentations make sure to get the cheat sheet. It is underneath this video as well. Do The Work Make It Real Your Action: Let s lock in your automated webinar platform, whatever it might be. I say go with EasyWebinar. You do what feels best for you. I ll see you in the next video. Page 11