Updated: Jul 26, 2021
Your Webinar failed because it was all about you.
Please don’t invite me to your next webinar. Why? Because your webinar is all about you. And, quite frankly, I don’t care about you. I care about me. So unless your webinar is going to make me healthy, successful or better-looking, I’m not interested.
And to all of you who in the past have invited me to various webinars that were all about you, now you know why I was a no-show. And now you know why no one else showed up either.
You’re not alone. Webinar registrations are way down, and actual attendance is even worse. Companies everywhere and of every size are struggling to gain interest in this overused outreach vehicle. Worse yet, constant webinar invitations have become a major annoyance to everyone that receives them, hurting your chances of ever connecting to your prospective customers.
This is where I think the idea of the webinar went wrong. The truth is that sales and marketing people got lazy. They simply used the webinar as a way to deliver their standard sales pitch to many people at once. The promise was just too tempting to resist. A venue where dozens of prospects can be reached in just under an hour seemed like a dream come true. And this dream turned into a nightmare for sales and marketing teams who tried desperately to explain why attendance numbers were so low. The reason is simple. It shouldn’t be about you. It should be about your attendees.
A webinar should never be a sales presentation. An impactful sales presentation is more intimate. It is a one-to-one conversation with a prospective customer whose needs are directly addressed during the presentation. A sales presentation disguised as a webinar doesn’t address each attendee’s individual needs. And when a presentation isn’t focused on the needs of the prospect, that’s when the prospects lose interest. And keep in mind that a Q & A session won’t save your sales focused webinar either because most attendees will already be tuned out long before the end.
Successful webinars are informational. Not commercial. In other words, a good webinar provides attendees with valuable information that can be implemented with or without the presenter’s product. This way, the webinar is about the attendees. You may choose a topic on how attendees can achieve a goal so that they can stay ahead of their competitors. If your webinar focuses on the attendees’ goals, you’ll maintain their interest throughout the webinar. Only after providing this valuable information, you will have earned the right to explain how your product can help attendees achieve this goal. This way, the webinar is still about them, not about you.
For more information on how to craft a successful webinar, click here.
Updated: Jul 26, 2021
val·ue prop·o·si·tion
noun
1. (in marketing) an innovation, service, or feature intended to make a company or product attractive to customers.
If you Google “Value Proposition,” you'll soon discover that there are a lot of people who have attempted to define exactly what it is. And after reading through various examples on how to write an effective value proposition, you may also conclude that most writers have spent more time thinking about how to define it and not enough time developing actual value propositions.
I have a running list of the most egregious examples of academic-minded people running amok, but the hands-down winner goes to the Harvard Business Review. A recent article from that publication suggests using a mathematical concept called Combinatorics to determine your product’s value. I am serious. Even though it sounds like a curse from Harry Potter, it is a math concept that can be applied to marketing.
Math plus Marketing? Galloping Gargoyles! If you don’t believe it, see this link: https://hbr.org/2020/04/identify-your-value-proposition-with-this-mathematical-concept
In any case, my experience tells me that most business owners looking for a solid value proposition don’t need to apply a mathematical equation to produce good one. Business owners simply need to answer questions that they absolutely know the answers to. The questions are as follows:
1. What is your company selling?
2. What is the benefit of using your product?
3. Who is the target customer for your product or service?
4. What makes your offering different (or better) from competitors?
Once these questions are answered, you have a solid basis to begin writing out your unique value proposition. The only tricky part is that your value proposition must be succinct and thorough enough to capture the interest of the prospective customer in about ten seconds.
I was thinking about including examples, but there are many resources available to get the basic information (some good, some bad and sometimes down-right wacky). So I decided it would be better to walk through this exercise instead.
For the example, let’s answer these questions first.
1. What is your company selling?
A phone app that prompts healthcare workers to wash their hands when they enter a room
2. What is the benefit of using your product?
Healthcare providers can reduce number of preventable transmissions of disease
3. Who is the target customer for your product or service?
Healthcare facilities
4. What makes your offering different (or better) from competitors?
App can be installed on any smart phone
A quick result:
Wash-App
Reduce the number of infections in your hospital with your smartphone and the Wash-App
Not too bad for a Muggle, eh?
I grew up in sales, and loving trade shows. When I was a kid my father would work at major broadcasting conventions, with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show at the top of the heap. I would listen intently as he talked about the glitz and glamour, the wining and dining, people he met, and how he was going to use his new contacts to have a great sales year. Invariably, contacts from the NAB would turn into a big portion of the sales he made for the rest of the year.
I finally got to tag along with him at one of his shows. What that really meant was sitting inconspicuously at the back of the booth for hours on end watching him practice his craft, and eating room service meals as he entertained prospective clients. Frustrated, I challenged him... “I thought trade shows were supposed to be fun.” That’s when he gave me my first, and by far most important lesson about event marketing. He said, “There’s time for fun, but when we’re here, it’s all about sales.”
Later on, as a sales-rep-turned-manager at a software company, I was tasked with showing one of our product lines at major computer industry shows.
It wasn’t very challenging to get a great booth designed; vendors were practically knocking down our doors to get our business. Likewise, there were plenty of people to walk us through the logistics of getting the display to the venue and setting it up. In fact, after a few shipping disasters that left us without our beautiful display, it became obvious that the booth was only a small part of putting on a successful show.
Going back to my father’s little pearl of wisdom, I was able to put on successful shows and events, with or without the booth.
It’s not about pretty architecture and brightly colored signs...
It’s not about the latest, greatest product announcement...
It’s not about how many people come to your booth...
It’s not about how many ‘leads’ you collect...
It’s not about just saying the right thing...
It’s all about sales.
Flash forward to today. Most events have gone virtual, with a wide variety of platforms available to deliver an engaging customer experience. There are new challenges in deploying event marketing technology, engaging prospects, qualifying leads, and generating revenue. I'm pleased to be working with a team of experienced event marketing professionals who are laser-focused on the one thing that matters in producing a successful event... It’s all about sales.
If you're planning a virtual event or physical trade show, click here to register for one of our event marketing bootcamps.
