Why You Shouldn’t Use Webinars To Sell
Webinars are getting a bad rap these days. It has nothing to do with the actual concept of a webinar. Set free from stereotypes and preconceived notions, at their purest form, webinars are a great way to teach skills, perform demonstrations and give presentations in a live space regardless of the group’s geographic location.
The problem with webinars is the motives behind the webinar.
I’m tired of the same old thing happening over and over again. I sign up for a webinar that sounds like a great learning opportunity, but in the end the “teaching” (and I do mean that in the broadest, most non-educational way) is something only mildly helpful and then they ask me to buy something. As it turns out the whole reason for the webinar wasn’t to help me out at all — they just wanted to get in my face to sell something.
The whole thing feels self-serving to the webinar host and gives no real benefit to the customer at all. They use all their scare tactics to back me and the other viewers into a corner. “If you don’t buy X, you’ll never increase revenue.” “We don’t know when this will come around again.” “This kind of deal only happens once a year.” ….
I think scare tactics are stupid. Not only is it a dirty scam, it’s playing on people’s good nature and trust. So many people these days are trying to better themselves whether it’s in the personal lives or their professional lives. Sadly, they are just being preyed upon.
I’m over people tricking people. I have a friend who got scammed into a trial for a product. It was one of those “$1-one-click” upgrades that ended up costing him $75 a month! They didn’t do a good job of explaining the rate increase and he didn’t even realize he was being charged until a few months later.
That obviously left a bad taste in his mouth for that company. He will NEVER suggest them to a friend or speak well of their practices, let alone consider them for any other purchases in the future.
I never want to leave people feeling that way.
I don’t want to create a tactic to get a dollar today when I could create a mutually beneficial relationship over the next 10 years.
I Want to Think Long-Term
As a business, short-term thinking is only going to keep you in the weeds of daily tasks and frantic sales pitches just to keep your head above water. That kind of day-to-day living will never set the stage for a solid future. That’s why I think so many companies use webinars to lure potential customers into a pitch. They need quick money. They need to show an increase in sales and they will do whatever it takes to get there. It doesn’t matter to them how they come off to their audience or if they can keep them as a customer long-term as long as they make that $1 today.
At ConvertKit, we’re playing for keeps.
We believe that’s what sets us apart from other companies that offer webinars. We don’t want to scam somebody or create a tactic to get them to use our product. We actually want to give it away for free. And we do.
How ConvertKit Operates
At ConvertKit we give away almost $300 worth of stuff for free with our webinars. Along with the free entrance to the webinar itself, we give our audience a course to help them grow their revenue, an ebook, and a month’s trial of our service. To be exact and transparent (because that’s what we’re about), that’s $287 worth of our work that we give each person for FREE.
We don’t want them to pay for anything until they know for sure that the product is what is best for them and their business.
I know how it feels when someone is pitching me something with ulterior motives behind it. There’s such a slimy quality to it. We never want to recreate that feeling when pitching ConvertKit. We want to think of pitching as more of a human-to-human connection than human-to-revenue possibility.
We don’t want to tactic our way into getting people’s money. We want to communicate our way into relationship with customers.
During our webinars, you will never hear us create false scarcity or any of those other tactics you’ve heard people use to get you to buy something. In fact, we’ll be super transparent (there’s that word again).
Before I set up a pitch, I will always say, “Hey, just so you know — I’m going to talk about ConvertKit now and I’m going to make you an offer. BUT what I’m going to do differently is I’m not going to ask you to spend any money today. I just want you to try our product. If you end up trying it out and don’t like, that’s totally fine. You can still keep the course and ebook we’re giving you for free. I just want you to try ConvertKit because I believe it will actually help your business.”
Believing in the Product Makes It Easy to Give It Away
No matter how good a product is, if you give it away for free, people will try it. Even if it’s terrible, people will try it if you give it away. Just walk around Costco on Saturday — everyone is hitting up the end-isles for a bites of pre-packaged sausage biscuits and low-fat fruit spreads. The trick is with giving things away for free is actually having a good product that brings them back. The product has to 1. Give new value to it’s user and/or 2. Be better than what they already have.
You see, we believe our tools are going to be so helpful for our audience that once they give it a go, they’ll come back for more.
That’s why we’re not afraid to give ConvertKit away for free.
And if for whatever reason it doesn’t work for them, that’s ok. If someone doesn’t like our product, I don’t want them to give us money just to get money. But because we didn’t try to scam them into giving us hundreds of dollars for some course they don’t want, we at least now have context for a relationship with them in the future if our product ever does make sense to them.
Maybe ConvertKit wasn’t right for them at the time of our webinar, but who’s to say it wouldn’t be six months later. We’d rather have that context of a relationship set up with a customer so that one, three, five or 10 years from now, they will remember the good experience they had with us and get back in touch. Instead of falling into a scam and never being refunded for a product they didn’t even use, they’ll remember how we gave our knowledge, taught them what we know and gave our product to them for free and asked for nothing in return.
And that’s how we think long-term.
Feel the same?
If you’re like us and want to stay away from the gimmicks and tactics, you just might be ready to give all the things away too. Starting this new way of thinking can be a little daunting. I get it- it can be scary to just hand things over for free if you’re use to getting paid for them. So if you need a little guidance, a few examples, or a nudge to in the right direction, here’s a couple things to consider to help you on your way.
- Think about your audience. What are their needs? Your giveaway should be something that can help them reach their goals.
- Think about your products, services, and business in general. What do you have to give away? It could be something you’re selling right now, something you need to create, or it could even be your own time. Just make sure it’s something your audience can’t help but want.
- What you giveaway should have a purpose. Coffee mugs, t-shirts, and posters are fun and can absolutely help spread your brand, but when you’re wanting to generate repeat customers, think about amping up what you give away so they can’t help but come back for more. Make sure it fits at least one of these guidelines:
- Something of value
- Teaches your core values
- Sets you up as an authority
- Creates trust with your audience
- Helps keep up communication with your audience
We’re always big on giving away webinars, courses, subscriptions, ebooks, and sometimes we even go old school and ship a real book. But don’t forget that the attitude behind the giving is just as important as the giving itself. So give with a big heart and teach everything you know. Now, have fun giving all the things away for free!
