Anyone Else Hate Webinars

I thought this was a discussion forum not a snide comment forum.

I'd prefer a short video seminar, but the longer ones seem more like selling the sizzle so you buy an expensive steak to get the rest of the information. After 10 or 15 minutes, I lose interest and I really prefer a pdf I can read.

Oh, and the video form of seminar I can't stop for a while or fast forward make me livid!

I'd suppose that if you have enough charisma it would be pretty high percent of people you could actually entice to watch the whole thing. Probably could become astronomical if you can get them to come back for a few sequels. Face it - it's TV (for all psychological purposes anyhow). You're either a freakin' star or you're not.

I forgot to add the smiley icon so that you knew I was just joking around.
I have a dry, sarcastic sense of humor ...

It depends on the relationship the host(s) have with the viewers.
I have seen them convert as high as 80%

From my experience the average is around 35-45%.

Those are of course the ones that provide real content for at least the first half
and tie that content into the pitch for the second half.

Maybe so with a selling webinar...

...but I've run live online training sessions for nearly four years now and they are a paid service so the people who are joining the webinar are there to interact learn and discuss the topics being covered.

They are live and the questions are answered live to camera.

I don't type answers because we film our broadcasts with three cameras, pro-lighting and a few good microphones and the people watching appreciate the interaction.

Not just the interaction with me but with the group who are members and enjoy engaging with each other much like people do here on the forum.

It might be different if I was pitching products all the time.

Occasionally there are product placements but these are usually clearly identified and only supplemental to the core of the presentation.

I also run a combination live seminar with usually about 40 attendees physically at my client's location combined with anywhere up to 20-30 online attendees who are remotely located and cannot make the physical seminar.

We have people managing the chat live with the online audience and also relaying questions to the seven or so presenters we have on the events.

These run usually for up to 2 hours and there is no pitching although my clients do sell a $31K product and the seminar/webinar is a vital part of the equation when it comes to generating and attracting leads, educating those leads and providing value to the attendees.

In the above example the seminars are part of a large and complex funnel that is aimed at keeping prospects engaged with the business until they are ready to convert and keeping them away from the competition.

The "average" lead time from first contact to final conversion is usually around 8 months.

In some circumstances the attendees are coming the the seminar or watching the webinar at either the beginning of their investigation into my client's services or they are at the end and now attend to take the final step and commit to the solution being offered.

The feedback from attendees and from the statistical data we get from the analytics from the webinars is that there is high engagement.

The chat logs also provide invaluable information and feedback that gets integrated into future presentations.

Because the product my client delivers includes annual support we fully utilise both offline seminar and online webinars as a key component of the support program.

Even so far as having people who are all at the same stage in their process meeting in groups of 6 with qualified medical advisors every six weeks throughout their contract.

The company has a high number of referrals from active and past clients and when we invite past clients to present as guests in the seminars they all tend to say the same thing.

"Once I was just like you...I watched a webinar and then I came to a seminar"

This usually followed with "These people are like family"

The reason that particular business gets these types of comments in there is no pitching only valuable information in their presentations that their competitors are too afraid to tell the prospects.

For someone looking for a solution to their problems a webinar or seminar may provide those answers.

If they then choose to support the presenter through purchasing their offers whether they are made during the presentation or later then I don't see any issue with that.

There is a far wider application to webinars and seminars than to the "over-exposed" IM crowd.

Best regards,

Ozi

First up ...Kay...I normally check dates of posts before posting...sleep deprived when I started posting to this thread again.

As for "cookie cutter" Q & A.

Several times now I've run webinars that have combined up to 7 segments that have been pre-recorded with live interactive chat both live to camera and live via written chat messages.

The software for running these types of hybrid live and pre-recorded combos is readily available and it all depends on the presenters how they want to handle things.

Multiple times both myself and clients have had live attendees on pre-recorded webinars with live interactive chat.

In some circumstances we've switched out of a pre-recorded to a live Q&A or we've switched to topics that we've pre-recorded that live attendees have requested.

It does take a bit of creative thinking how you can blend live and pre-recorded.

Often we'll do a live intro with cut to pre-recorded and cut back to live for Q&A.

You can even do pre-recorded questions edited in with live questions and the viewers have no clue that the "whole" experience isn't live.

I'll often run hybrids when I've got to do a demonstration of a piece of equipment that has a computer interface.

We shoot the software component and mix with the live machinery demo and so on.

The more you get into the whole presentation options that are available to provide value to either paying members or prospects you start to push the envelope in relation to delivering your message.

I have people in all time zones in my memberships.

Every now and then I'll run live events in the middle of the night (MY TIME), the break of dawn, odd times just to keep all my members engaged.

This is when the pre-recorded plus live comes into it's own.

It may not be the same in IM now but I do remember once (4 years ago) when I was on a webinar with Chris Munch and we started having a conversation so not all IM webinars are cookie cut.

Best regards,

Ozi

This reminds me of the "Wadsworth Constant" concerning Youtube videos. Basically, it's a tongue-in-cheek bit of advice that says you can skip the first 30% of any video on Youtube and not miss anything of value.

Adjusting this advice for webinars, maybe we can call it the "McCabe Constant"?

What I think is hilarious....

They say, "Grab a pen and paper. We're going to cover a lot of ground."

You look down after two hours.... You have one bullet point... Not because you missed anything.... There was nothing else said worth writing down! The rest was a reacharou..... I mean BS. :-)

I put mayonnaise on my cheeseburgers and will eat them while watching a webinar.

That depends on what kind of webinars you look for. F'rinstance, I attended an extremely useful AWeber webinar today. Learned a thing or two and was reminded of something I'd forgotten to add to my checklist.

Training webinars are good, some better than others, and if I'm getting ready to deal with a certain phase of my business plan, I want all the training I can get because I have no desire to spend the next 2 years learning everything the hard way. There's an awful lot of damned fine free stuff out there.

- Annie