Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, saints and sinners, Republicans and

Democrats (yes, I went there… deal with it). Welcome to your one-stop-shop for
webinar-filling marketing strategies.

Because all of those amazing features that your webinar host provides are wasted if you
can’t get your audience into at least double figures.

Of course, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this report is just a thinly-veiled excuse to
talk up the amazing, stupendous, world-class, competition-thrashing WebinarJam.

You’d be forgiven… but you’d be wrong.

In fact, in this report, I manage to go an entire six “ways” before even mentioning the
seriously, seriously, impressive WebinarJam.

And it has to be this way, because the webinar marketing ideas that are going to fill your
brain over the next couple of hours of reading are too important to be obscured by me
banging on about how breathtakingly-wonderful WebinarJam is.

So, my goal, when producing this report, was to only mention WJ in this report if it’s
ABSOLUTELY necessary.

I think I’ve achieved for that…

More or less…

Enjoy!

Andy Jenkins 

CEO, Genesis Digital

p.2
1. Start a Thunderclap
Thunderclap (or as it’s also known, your new favorite website) lets you set up Kickstarter-
style campaigns, except instead of asking people to support you with dollars, you’re simply
asking them to agree to post your message to their social media account on a specific day. The
Thunderclap system cleverly posts on your network’s behalf, ensuring everyone’s social media
update hits at the same time for maximum visibility.

As long as you hit your target number of supporters, the service is free. Or, for $45, you can
ensure your message goes out regardless.

For promoting a webinar, you can either set the message to land on the day of your webinar or
on the day your webinar registration page opens.

Does this mean asking your customers to help you promote your business? Well… yes… but
they’ll probably be so pleased that you’ve written to them and, for once, HAVEN’T tried to sell
them something, they’ll be happy to oblige.

Or maybe you’re a smart marketer who is always giving away great free content, and your
readers will jump at the opportunity to show a little reciprocation.

Either way, the resistance-factor on this is seriously low. All a person has to do to support your
campaign is click a couple of buttons and agree to let Thunderclap make a one-time post on
their behalf. The process has less friction than a greased-up pig on a slip ‘n slide (don’t ask me
how I know this).

And if you’re worried about the stigma of using a crowd-based platform, you’ve been spending
too much time listening to the vocal minority. Brent Spiner once likened crowd-funding to
begging... which is, apparently, somehow more embarrassing than featuring in a half-baked sci-fi
sequel with his ass hanging out (j/k Brent, you know I love you – please return my calls).

2. Invite a Guest Speaker

Aside from making your event more enjoyable, inviting an industry-relevant guest to participate
in your webinar is a smart way to widen the pool of potential attendees, since most guests will
be only too willing to tell everyone about their PR coup.

For the sake of your audience, and the appeal of your webinar, the relevance of the guest should
be considered more important than the size of their network. But for the sake of your business,
try and find someone who has a network at least of equal size to your own.

And be bold. Don’t be afraid to send invitations to industry luminaries just because they’re
published authors with multiple appearances on the Fox Business Network.

p.3
Never underestimate the joy that successful entrepreneurs get from hearing the sound of their
own self-congratulatory voice.

I know what you’re thinking right now. So, stop it, okay?

3. Call in Favors
By all means use your first couple of webinars as practice, but by the time you get round to
your third or fourth event, you want as many eyeballs and eardrums as possible (why does that
sound creepy?).

It’s time to cash in every favor and loan you’ve dished out in your career and get your colleagues,
former business partners, mentors, and mentees to help you get the word out.

Grovel and plead if you have to, but do whatever it takes to get people to commit to supporting
your promotion. And if that means you have to remind them of that time you saved them from
making a disastrous, drunken marriage proposal (you know who you are), then so be it.

What do you mean, no-one owes you any favors? That’s basically the same as admitting that
you’ve never put yourself out for anyone.

But if that’s the case, then your only recourse is to try and turn it around and make it sound like
you’re doing THEM a favor by inviting them to promote your webinar. All you have to do is make
your webinar a paid event and offer it to their customers for free. Simple!

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4. Make Your Webinar Awesome
If this method sounds like another way of saying “make sure your webinar is really good,” you’re
only partially right.

Yes, the content needs to be good, and the delivery should always be well-practiced and
polished, but to take a webinar from “meh” to “Awesome” you need to think big.

Promise to reveal an industry secret that you’ve never publically shared before; offer a once-
in-a-lifetime discount on your most popular product; pledge to create an exclusive mastermind
group to which only live attendees will have access. Just do whatever it takes to add the “WOW”
factor to your webinar.

And I mean anything!

Did you know you can hire Jon Stewart for your event for as little as $500k? Sure, that isn’t
exactly free or low cost, but if you REALLY want to get attention, that would certainly do it. And if
that’s outside of your budget, how about Shatner for $75k? Although for that price you could get
Rachel McAdams…

Wait…

I can get Rachel McAdams to come to my pool party for only $75k? Excuse me, I need to make a
phone call.

5. Curate Industry Leaders

There’s an article-marketing technique that involves curating content and ideas from a variety
of experts and compiling them into one blog post or PDF. The purpose, aside from creating an
excellent piece of link bait (“17 ways to do X better than Y can do with Z”) is to be able to write
to each expert and say, “Hey, Mr. Kickass, I mentioned the tip you posted on your blog the other
day in an article and linked back to it. Hope you don’t mind. Have a look if you get a chance.”

And, of course, Mr. Kickass does check out the article (because it’s an ego boost – natch) and, if
he likes it, he tweets it out to his 100,000 followers.

Now take this technique and apply it to your webinar…

Let’s say you’re putting on a webinar about how to improve your golf swing, and you decide
you’re going to include a section on wearable devices that can enhance your performance
without making you look like a chump (this is just a fictitious example, obviously). Pick out the
five that you like, contact the creators of these products, and let them know that you intend to
feature them and give them a five-star rating.

p.5
It only takes one or two of those five to get all excited and post the webinar on their social media
networks to gift you a flurry of highly-targeted interest.

6. Offer an (Ethical) Bribe

You could argue that your webinar itself is a bribe since you’re providing free, valuable content
in exchange for them showing up. But you can push this a little further by offering a related gift
as a “thank you” for the person giving up some of their valuable time.

But remember, filling a webinar isn’t just about how many people register, it’s about how many
of those registrants actually remember/can be bothered to log-in at the scheduled date and
time.

So, whatever free gift you’re offering, make it crystal clear that they have to attend the webinar
AND watch to the end to find out how to receive it.

You’re right to be concerned about people registering and attending just for the freebie, without
any intention of ever becoming a customer, but you can limit this problem by ensuring your gift
is very specific and closely aligned with the content of your webinar.

For example, if you offer a $100 Amazon voucher to every attendee who attends your “How to
Grow Cabbages” workshop, you could end up with half of the country jumping onboard. But if
your promised gift is your secret recipe for cabbage fertilizer, you’re less likely to attract freebie
seekers and more likely to attract the weirdos you’re looking for.

p.6
7. Do a preview using Periscope
Periscope is a wonderful social media platform that allows you to stream live video to your list
of followers. Periscopes are short video broadcasts from your smartphone. Simply turn on the
Periscope app, and start broadcasting out to your users that you’re about to start a webinar.
Their app will send a notification to their phone and let you know they are live.

Use your Periscope broadcast to raise awareness about a webinar that’s starting in a few
minutes, and be sure to hold up a sign with a link to your webinar registration page. Use a
simple redirect like yourwebsite.com/webinar so it’s easy for viewers to pop over to your event
at the right time.

8. Use the Free “Jams On Demand” Network

Please can I get some recognition for going a full three pages without mentioning WebinarJam?
I genuinely want this PDF to be useful to every business using webinars, even if you’re using one
of the other… erm… I’m going to go with “lesser” webinar hosting platforms. Which is why most
of the methods on this list will help you to fill your webinar, even if you’re using/wrestling with,
one of our competitors.

But there are some webinar promotion strategies that are only accessible to WebinarJam clients,
and that are just too powerful to omit.

The “Jams On Demand” network is one of them.

When a webinar is created using WebinarJam, the host can choose to add the event to our
ongoing calendar of events, listing it in one of 19 different categories in one of 22 different
languages that our platform supports.

So, whether your audience is English-speaking people who want to learn how to eat nutritiously
on a budget, or Spanish women looking for the ideal man for a healthy, stable, and fun
relationship (these are both real webinars listed in our schedule, by the way), we have a niche
for your webinar.

All WebinarJam clients can list their events in our “On Demand” schedule, absolutely free of
charge, and we actively promote webinars to our unique mailing list.

We also list the replays of the webinars so you can pick up new viewers, even AFTER the event is
over.

How awesome is that!

I don’t want to go on about it, but since we’re on the subject, I really want to impress on you the
importance of using the right webinar platform. It’s not just about price, or even stability (both
areas in which WebinarJam excels), it’s about the available features that have been designed to
help you fill your webinar and grow your business.

p.7
I’ll probably get into trouble for saying this but some of the other platforms out there are a
complete crock of ...

9. Join Facebook Groups

Here’s a fun game. Think of something totally random, bang it into a Facebook search, and then
select “Groups.” It’s almost impossible to think up something that DOESN’T have at least one
group of really dedicated fans.

I’m not sure if I have more sympathy for Erica or her husband…

But I digress.

p.8
My point is that Facebook Groups are a great place to find people with very specific interests.
And no matter how niche you might consider your business to be, it’s highly unlikely that you
won’t be able to find an existing group containing the exact demographics and interests you’re
looking to reach.

However, don’t immediately jump into a group and start posting the details of your webinar. For
a start you need to check the rules of the group and make sure that self-promotion is allowed. If
it isn’t, that doesn’t mean you’re in the wrong place, you may just need to take a more long-term
view.

As with any public forum, take the time to make yourself a valued member of the group. Once
you’re a regular fixture, it’s easier to mention your webinars without being accused of being a
spammer. Especially if you position your webinar as something valuable you’re giving to the
group, rather than a sales pitch.

Another angle is to contact the owner of the group and suggest some kind of joint venture. Or
maybe even an exclusive webinar, just for members of the group.

This approach is even more effective if you can find your way into a “closed” group for which you
have to apply to join. These audiences have already defined themselves as committed to the
subject matter because they had to put at least some effort into joining the group.

And if you’re really struggling to find a suitable group, try creating one of your own. It takes a
little effort to get everything set up and a little time to promote the group to attract members,
but as the owner you won’t have to worry about restrictions on posting about your event.

10. Make Your Webinar a Joint Venture

Find someone with a business complimentary to your own without being in direct competition
and invite them to co-host your webinar. This is different to inviting a guest speaker because,
instead of acting as an interviewer, you’re effectively sharing a stage.

You each promote the webinar to your audience, you each present a portion of the webinar, and
you each present an offer (or, even better, a combined offer).

I love this strategy because not only are you enriching your webinar by expanding the range,
and hopefully perceived value, of the content, you’re also tapping into the audience of your joint
venture host.

Which isn’t to say you’re taking undue advantage of anyone. Your joint venture partner is also
tapping into your audience. That’s the way a joint venture is meant to work.

p.9
The only real challenge is identifying businesses that are related to your own without running
the risk of losing your customers to a competitor. But it’s not as hard as you think. Simply
imagine your ideal customer and think about some of the other needs that they’ll have as part of
the process.

If you design wedding dresses, find a business that creates customized wedding favors. If you
sell bicycles, find a business that sells Lycra clothing. If you sell wingsuit lessons, find a business
that provides funeral services.

Nothing to it!

11. Distribute Flyers

No, you didn’t misread that. I am indeed suggesting you print and distribute flyers like the
cavemen did.

Actually, it’s a curious quirk of marketing technology that as new, advanced techniques gain
popularity, older methods increase their efficacy. Online marketing should still take priority,
but offline marketing is still effective in its own right, not least because there are now fewer
businesses using this approach.

If your webinar has a local slant, you’ve probably already considered using flyers, but there’s
really no reason why everyone shouldn’t use this strategy. As long as there are people in your
community that have the potential to be your customer, this is a very cost-effective way to reach
them.

Try thinking laterally for maximum reach. Don’t just distribute flyers in locations that match
your business, think about other places where your potential customers are likely to be. If, for
example, your webinar is about exercising techniques, gymnasiums are an obvious location, but
what about joggers in your local park? Or how about asking health food stores if you can leave a
few leaflets on their counter?

Want to take this a step further? Search around on outsourcing sites and you’ll find people
willing to distribute your flyers in just about every place imaginable. Finally, your dream of
having a marketing presence in Pakistan can be realized!

p.10
12. Local Print Media
Number two in my trilogy of offline, webinar-filling strategies is local newspapers. Advertising
space is often available at a low cost or even for free, especially if you position your webinar as a
local event or as training.

It’s easy to dismiss local media as a somewhat low-rent medium for advertising, but
communities with a long history still take a lot of pride in their local press. Don’t forget, this is all
about free or low-cost promotional methods that can reach an appreciative audience. And local
media ticks all of these boxes.

Generally speaking, most local newspaper readers who read beyond the news items are either
looking for jobs or bargains. On the one hand, you might reach the conclusion that these people
don’t have buckets of cash to spend. But, on the other hand, you might also conclude that this
audience is interested in learning new skills, learning how to make more money, and learning
how to make savings. If any of those areas overlap with your webinar topic, this is too good a
venue to pass up.

p.11
And if your webinar subject matter relates to the interests of people that scour the personal
ads… I honestly, truly do NOT want to know what business you’re in. Seriously, just keep it to
yourself.

13. Local Networking Groups

One more offline strategy for filling your webinar, and arguably the one with the most potential,
is to find local networking events (or events that are at least within travelling distance).

This strategy is especially appropriate if your webinar subject is business-related, but even if it
isn’t you should still look for local events that are related either directly or indirectly because
there are groups for all manner of different interests and hobbies.

You can use some of the strategies we’ve already discussed, such as arranging a joint venture
with the organizer or distributing flyers (with the organizer’s permission, of course), or you can
scale things up by offering to deliver a free lecture (giving you license to make a soft-sell for your
webinar and get some live practice for your webinar material) or even sponsoring the event
(paying the hiring of the venue in exchange for permission to distribute advertising material).
Or you can use a little-known but highly powerful networking event strategy called…

Wait for it…

NETWORKING!

That’s right. All you have to do is attend the event, talk to people, and exchange some business
cards. You can then follow-up with them later and introduce them to your webinar or, even
better, put the details of your webinar on the back of your business card.

p.12
There is a certain etiquette to these events, so make sure you strike a balance between sharing
with people your purpose for attending (go head and say “I’m widening the audience for my
webinar” – there’s no reason to hide it), and showing genuine interest in the people you meet.
Get it right, and you’ll gain some great contacts and get a few more registrants for your event.

Don’t overthink it. Just prepare your elevator pitch in advance, attend the event with a “give and
take” mentality, and you’ll do just fine.

Just don’t make the mistake of trying to sell your cellular marketing technology to the guy
standing at the next urinal.

That WASN’T cool, Brian.

14. Free Bonus Webinar!

Value is very much in the eye of the beholder. And if you can convince your beholders that your
webinar is rare, prized, and worthy of their time and attention, people are more likely to register
and make time in their schedule to attend.

It’s all about positioning. Frame your hair loss regeneration webinar as something you’ve
cobbled together at the last minute and in which you’re going to talk about a bit of this and a bit
of that, and no one is going to assign your webinar with any real worth.

On the other hand, if you position your webinar as something with limited availability and
in which you’re going to share your never-before-revealed secrets to creating a convincing
comb-over, the follicly-challenged are going to race to your registration page as fast as their
aerodynamic noggins will allow.

Offering your webinar as a bonus for purchasing something else might seem counter-intuitive
to this effect, but only because there is a tendency among business amateurs to offer bonuses
that are tacked-on, throwaway extras. People KNOW the difference. And when a bonus has that
desirability factor, not only will it increase sales of the core product, it will also motivate people
to take full advantage of the bonus.

A secondary reason for the effectiveness of offering a high-quality webinar as a bonus is that it
naturally creates an “insider” mentality. People LOVE to feel part of a club, especially when it has
exclusivity, and since a bonus webinar is only available to your customers, the whole event will
feel like something that only the cool kids get access to.

And one final twist…

p.13
The webinar you’re promoting doesn’t have to be given away as a bonus to one of YOUR
products. Look for related, non-competing businesses (Professor Xavier cosplay kits, for
instance) and offer to present a webinar to their customers. Your business partner makes more
sales, and you get more webinar attendees. Win-win for everyone!

15. Webinar Swaps

If you know what an ad-swap is, you’ll already have a pretty good idea of what I’m about to
say. But stick around anyway, because I might throw in something you don’t already know Mr.
Smartypants.

A “webinar swap” is, as the name suggests, a strategy by which you make a joint venture
arrangement with another webinar presenter to swap promotions for each other’s events.
A basic version would simply involve an agreement in which each of you emails your list to
promote the other person’s events. A more advanced, and more effective, version would involve
each dedicating a couple of minutes during their respective webinars to mention their joint
venture partner’s next event.

This is another marketing method that involves finding complementary, non-competing business
partners and, in case you hadn’t figured it out by now, the more of these partnerships you put
together, the more effective your webinar promotions will be.

As long as your arrangement is perfectly equitable, most business owners will only be too happy
to get involved. The only real challenge is finding webinar partners in the first place. You could
spend a few hours googling, I suppose, but if only there was some kind of webinar on-demand
marketplace where you could find hundreds of webinar presenters, handily organized by
category and language.

Like… I don’t know… a website where business owners all over the world automatically…

Okay, I’m bored of this joke. Just go to https://app.webinarjam.com/ondemand

p.14
16. LinkedIn Ads
Ah, LinkedIn… the inexplicably popular social media site that forgot to bring the “social” or the
“media.”

But Microsoft has purchased the business now, so I guess things are looking up.
Ah, Microsoft… the world’s #1 reason to buy a Mac.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. Buying ads on LinkedIn to promote your webinar. Not the cheapest webinar promotion
platform, but one of the few to frequently give away $50 gift cards. If you’ve been a member
of the site for a while and have plenty of connections, you’ve probably already received one of
these offers. Otherwise, try contacting LinkedIn directly and asking for one to get you started.
That alone wouldn’t make using LinkedIn to promote your webinar worthwhile. What does
make it worthy, however, is the ability to create laser-targeted adverts that only appear before
LinkedIn users that precisely match your desired audience.

To make your advertising budget stretch a little further, make your advert a direct call-to-action,
rather than a tease to draw the click. Something along the lines of “Click Here to register for
the “XYZ” webinar (Date/Time).” This should drive your click-through-rate down and push your
conversion rate up.

p.15
17. LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Groups, unlike their Facebook cousins, are a little more po-faced, skewed as they are
more towards business interests. But they’re surprisingly liberal about self-promotion.
Don’t get me wrong, overt spam will win you no friends.

But posting links to relevant articles on external sites doesn’t seem to worry most group owners.
Even if the article is one that you wrote and features a promotion for your webinars in the bio.
Closed groups tend to be less noisy than the open variety, so it’s worth trying to work your way
in.

And if you don’t mind the extra management work, you can even start a group of your own –
allowing you plenty of opportunities to highlight your events.

p.16
18. Local Schools
Local schools and universities are filled with (anyone? anyone?) students.

Students are interested in (anyone? anyone?) learning about things.

Students tend to congregate in (anyone? anyone?) campuses and (anyone? anyone?) local bars.
Making your local campus, and bars in the vicinity, ideal places to (anyone? anyone?) promote
your webinar.

Of course, this presupposes that your webinar content is going to be of interest to (anyone? any…
okay, I’ll stop now. It’s not nearly as funny without Ben Stein’s monotonous drone) students, which it
will if it’s related to saving money, making money, spending money, and… well… beer, I guess.

Although, the range of interests among students is probably broader than most of us credit.
And their very presence at a school indicates at least some willingness to learn. Given their large
numbers, and the ease with which you can reach them via flyers and posters, it may be worth
actually tailoring your content and producing a version of your webinars that specifically targets
this demographic.

It’s a critical rule of marketing – it’s always easier to go where the people are, than to get the
people to go to you.

19. Prize Draw

I don’t want to discourage you by continually going back to the challenge of getting registrants to
actually show up on the day. But it’s a reality of webinar strategy that you need to face.

There will always be a certain percentage of people who get excited by the prospect of your
presentation but that, when it comes to the actual event, will decide it’s less important to them
than the game that’s just gone into overtime, or the plate of nachos that needs finishing, or the
fluff that they’re extracting from their navel.

Some people just have a skewed sense of priorities, I guess.

On the flipside, this means that the people who do attend your event are demonstrating, merely
by their presence, that they’re keenly interested in your subject matter and, hopefully, by
extension, your business.

But still…

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get a few more of those couch-surfers to get off their butt and
show up?

p.17
Because, once they’re onboard, as long as you’ve done your job of putting together a kick-ass
webinar, they’ll be thrilled that you cajoled them into logging on.

We’ve already discussed a couple of methods of turning more registrants into attendees, but
they generally depend on exclusive sales opportunities. If you’re not running a sales webinar,
how do you add exclusivity to your event that only benefits people who attend?

If you read the title of this section, you already know the answer… a prize draw.

Yes, it’s gimmicky. Yes, it smacks of a bribe. But it’s simple to setup, inexpensive to fund, and it
WILL give your numbers a bump.

Experiment and study your numbers to find the most effective setup, For example, is your
audience more attracted by the opportunity to win one of your products or a cash prize. If it’s
the latter, is the prospect of winning one $50 Amazon voucher or 5 x $10 Amazon vouchers
more appealing?

Either way, there are two rules you must stick to:

1. The prize draw pool is made up of those who attend the event; if you’re not on the live
webinar, you don’t get to play.

2. ONLY advertise the prize draw to your registrants and don’t reference it on your signup page
(otherwise you’ll get registrants who are only interested in your prize and not in your subject
matter).

p.18
20. Join a Mastermind Group
A Mastermind Group is a little bit like a forum or a Facebook Group, except that, if they’re worthy
of the name “mastermind,” they’re private and very choosy about their members.

Ideally, you’re looking for a Mastermind that charges for membership because this weeds out
the spammers and ensures that all members are genuinely committed to the topic of the group.
Some Masterminds charge thousands of dollars in fees (depending on the profitability of your
business, this could be money well spent), but really, a group that charges even a small fee is
going to be ten times more valuable than any open forum or social media group.

The basic principle of a Mastermind group is that everybody shares their success stories and
secrets openly with each other, almost to the point where people are vying to outdo each other
with the quality of their contributions and their ability to send each other business.

It’s a little bit like being a freemason except you don’t get to choose the next president (wake up,
sheeple).

The one thing you probably can’t do with a Mastermind is host a sales webinar, but any webinar
in which you give away exclusive, valuable information (and, in the process, build your authority
in your space) will most likely be welcomed. Check with the owner of the Mastermind if you’re
concerned about breaching protocol but as long as you’re not engaging in direct selling with the
other members, you should be fine.

And, of course, Masterminds are a great place to find authorities in your market who have the
potential to become power JV partners.

If you’re struggling to find a suitable Mastermind, you could always start your own. Create a
private space and then directly contact recognized authorities with invitations to join. Offer free
access to people who you know will add real value to the group and then whack on a price tag
for everyone else.

Restrict the number of members who can join to create a sense of exclusivity. There’s a sweet
spot to hunt for. Too few members and interactions will be low. Too many members and there’s
too much noise. Experiment to find the right number for your group, and once things are ticking
along nicely, start putting together some exclusive webinars for your group.

p.19
21. Make it Exclusive
“Exclusivity” is just another way of saying “scarcity.” And “scarcity” is just another way of saying…
Do what I say, or you’ll miss out forever and be cursed by your children, and your children’s children.

I really don’t know why some marketers get such a bad reputation…

There are lots of ways to add exclusivity to your event, and we’ve touched on concepts such as
prize draws, exclusive offers, and exclusive content. But the last word in webinar exclusivity is to
make the event itself a one-time deal.

It’s fairly typical to deliver a live webinar and then send the recording to every registrant who
couldn’t attend. With this strategy we remove the second half of the equation and make the
webinar a true one-shot deal.

Be at your computer for this live webinar or miss out forever and reap the shame of your progenitors.

Or words to that effect.

You still need to ensure there is something exclusive about the content. No one’s going to care if
they miss the webinar in which you share your Mt. Rushmore holiday snaps. But if you promise
to share something for the first and last time… that will make people sit up and take notice.

If you really can’t bear the thought of producing a one-time only event, you can create a similar
effect, by making the live event free and charging for access to the recording. It’s not quite as
powerful, but can still be effective in getting commitment from your registrants.

Attend this free, live webinar or pay $97 for the recording and endure the disdain of your wife/
husband/partner/parents/children/family/pets (delete as appropriate).

22. Invite Past Attendees

It’s easier to turn an existing customer into a repeat customer, than it is to find a new customer.
Equally, it’s easier to turn a previous webinar attendee into a repeat attendee, than it is to find a
new attendee.

But before you rush off to email your “past attendees” mailing list (or skip this section for being
too obvious), take a moment to think about how you’re going to approach these individuals to
come back for another event.

“Hi. You attended my last webinar. Thought you might like to come to my next one.”

You can do better than that.

p.20
The key to this strategy is to make your past attendees feel special by sharing your gratitude.
Hey, anyone that is willing to listen to me drone on for an hour or three should absolutely
receive my thanks.

Marketing is often looked down on because of its artifice. But the best marketers take what is
real and true and shape it into something motivational. You don’t have to suck up to your past
attendees with sycophantic praise. Far better to honestly thank them for their time, and express
your confidence that they’ll continue to support you by attending your next event.

Everyone is that little bit happier when they feel valued and appreciated. Make your past
attendees feel special, and they’ll be more likely to turn up to your next event because they want
to and not because they feel coerced.

And, by the way, it’s been a couple of pages since I mentioned WebinarJam, so I’m sure you
won’t object to me pointing out that our platform has the ability to send customized emails to
your registrants based on their activity. You can, for instance, send one email to people who
registered but didn’t attend, another email to people who attended but left before the end, and
yet another email to people who attended your webinar from start to finish.

Perfect for tailoring your appreciation to those who sat through your entire presentation.

23. Direct Mail

Let’s return, for a moment, to offline marketing tactics.

Direct mail, once the mainstay of all businesses, has been almost completely replaced by email.
But, as a result, if you send something through the post today, it’s less likely to be swallowed up
amongst a mass of other circulars.

And there are some really creative options available that just didn’t exist a few year ago. Did you
know, for example, that you can send your prospects a card that contains a small video screen,
pre-loaded with a video of your choice? It’s a little more costly than sending a postcard, but not
nearly as pricey as you’re probably imagining.

p.21
Another advantage of this approach is that it’s often far easier to find the name and mailing
address of a business owner than it is to get a hold of their direct email address (and even if you
do, good luck getting past their over-eager spam filters).

You can use a fulfillment company to send out large volumes of mail; alternatively pass the job
along to your intern. They’ll be delighted to help. Believe it or not, the word “intern” is actually
based on a Latin expression, meaning “envelope stuffer.”

24. Webinar Listing Sites

The “WebinarJam On Demand” marketplace is the obvious choice for WebinarJam users to
promote their webinar, free of charge.

But, if you’re using a different webinar platform (you should probably stop doing that), or if you
want additional places to promote your webinar, there are sites dedicated to promoting webinar
events.

Spend some time googling if you want to plumb the depths of what’s out there, but here’s a
couple to get you started:

http://www.webinarbase.com

http://www.tellonline.org/

And, look, I know I said I wouldn’t go on about it, but if you’re using a webinar platform other
than WebinarJam, you’re almost certainly overpaying for an inferior product. The fact is, most
other webinar platforms are a steaming pile of ...

p.22
25. Attention-Seeking
People love to mock, point, and roll their eyes whenever a business releases a corny or clichéd
advertisement. The implication being that if THEY were marketing king, they would be able to
produce something much more effective.

And they’re almost certainly wrong.

The reason businesses keep producing cringe-inducing adverts is because they’re usually
inexpensive to produce and highly effective. Often, the marketing techniques we deride as being
overly simplistic or idiotic, are still the most effective.

So, if you’ve got a thick skin, and you’re up for some good old-fashioned self-deprecation, you
can have a go at promoting your webinar with a theme and a title that invites mockery, but will
be hard to forget.

If you want a quick case study, check out this ultra-annoying British advert; the commercial
that once and for all destroyed any lingering belief that our distant cousins still had some class:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUyxIoitg_M

Annoying? Yes. Silly? Yes. Profitable? Hell, yes!

The Go Compare founder invented the company in her kitchen in 2006, and sold her 50% stake
in 2014 for a tidy £44 Million.

Not quite prepared to go to those lengths? You can take just a small shuffle in that direction by
using some brash, over the top, direct mail-style headlines that people will say they hate but will
result in their secretly being overwhelmingly tempted to sign-up.

“Watch as I unveil the X that can triple your Ys!”

“Discover the X that Y and Z said was impossible!”

“You won’t believe what this new X can do to your Ys, even if your Zs are completely blue!”

Obviously, these headlines are just “fill in the blank” examples; please don’t use these verbatim.
Unless your webinar is about Scrabble.

p.23
26. Build a List
Build your own mailing list and you can promote your webinar to your subscribers whenever
you like.

Is that too obvious a suggestion to be included in this list?

Maybe. But I know of businesses that have been seduced by the power and possibilities of
webinars, and jumped in with both feet without first building a suitable infrastructure. Producing
and delivering a webinar is exciting, building a mailing list less so.

But although it’s good business sense to build a list of prospects, using all the offline and online
lead-generation strategies you can afford, it is possible to use webinars to build a list as well.
Some webinar platforms (including WebinarJam) allow integration with a mailing list provider so
that registrants for your event are automatically tagged and added.

It’s a suggestion that’s a little bit backward for this list, but really it’s a circular approach. You can
use webinars to build your list, and then your list to fill your webinars.

So… yeah, probably too obvious a suggestion, but I’m willing to bet that one in a thousand
business owners will read this and think, “Oh, yeah, I should be building a list. That’s what I
forgot to do.”

And if that’s you, don’t feel bad. But maybe do a little more reading: https://amzn.
com/1118243773

27. Update Your Email Signature

I have a bit of an aversion to marketing that involves throwing digital mud on a cybernetic wall
and hoping that some of it virtually sticks.

The argument always goes that low-yield strategies are quick and cheap to employ and that, if
you do enough of it, you might get 1-2 extra sales.

Yeah… okay… and if I get a few more monkeys and a few more typewriters I might finally finish
that novel I’ve been working on (dammit, Koko, what have I told you about run-on sentences!).
Marketing should never be a case of dabble with everything and hope that something,
somewhere gains traction. You should always have a carefully thought-out plan and a clear
vision of how it will be implemented.

p.24
And I’m giving you all this preamble because, when I say you should promote your webinar in
your email signature, it’s not because it’s a quick job and that it might get you a handful of extra
clicks...

It’s because it’s a perfect opportunity to establish your authority.

We haven’t really talked about this yet, but presenting webinars, especially if you do it well and
do it regularly, elevates you in your niche. The very fact that you conduct webinars will have a
positive knock-on effect on how people view your expertise, even if they never attend an event.
Promoting your webinars in your email signature isn’t about getting people to click-through and
attend. It’s about consistency and perpetually reminding people that you’re a webinar presenter,
that you have an audience, and that you have expertise that people need.

28. Stream a “Real” Event

Webinars should never be boring.

I don’t care if your subject matter is pencil manufacturing, tortoise husbandry or European
wall tapestries, if your webinar has an audience you should work overtime to keep every single
person as engaged and interested as possible.

Admittedly, some subjects lend themselves to this more readily than others, but there’s no
reason why you can’t mix up your presentation to keep things fresh.

So, here’s a simple trick that works for all webinar types… put on a “real” event and stream it to
your webinar viewers.

By which I mean, put on a live seminar or workshop, with real audience members, and point
your webcam at the stage.

p.25
Straight away, this elevates you from a bedroom-hermit, mouth-breathing into a microphone, to
a professional speaker addressing a crowd. It lends a very different feel to your webinar and will
help to generate that special energy that real-world events can bring.

If you’re worried about your ability to find a live audience, relax; you don’t need hundreds of
people. A dozen people in a hotel conference room, made up of employees, family members,
and coerced friends is more than sufficient. Your webcam is going to be at the front of the room
anyway, so your online audience won’t be able to see how many people are in attendance.
Another subsidiary benefit of expanding a webinar into a live event is that you’re then free to
promote your presentation on training event websites, such as http://events.doattend.com/

29. Website Pops

Remember when every website had pop-ups exploding and sliding in from every conceivable
angle?

Remember when the death of this marketing strategy was widely predicted because everybody
hated them?

Remember when everyone got over it and realized that, when exercised judiciously, pop-ups
could be a perfectly acceptable lead-capture tool?

If you’re not already using a pop-up on your website to promote your webinar, you’re missing
out a marketing strategy that has been proven to be effective for literally decades. As long as
they’re employed sparingly so as not to annoy your visitors, and you monitor your analytics
carefully to ensure you’re not negatively impacting your bounce and conversion rates, you
shouldn’t feel even the slightest trepidation about using them.

p.26
Just keep it classy, okay? No one wants to see, “Congratulations on being our millionth customer!”
in a flashing pop-up. Unless, of course, it’s to win a MASSIVE YACHT!

30. Reddit Advertising

If you haven’t grown up with Reddit it can be a scary place to visit, straddling, as it does, a fine
line between entertainment and a complete lack of human decency. As long as you know where
you’re going and you know what you’re looking for, it’s fine. But you probably don’t want to click
around randomly, is all I’m saying.

But you don’t need to be Reddit fan to have a desire to tap into the 8,000,000,000+ monthly
page views they receive. As of the time of writing, it’s the 26th most visited website in the world,
beating out the likes of eBay, Pinterest, and Netflix.

At one time, you had to handle advertising on Reddit like forum promotions, covertly working
your way into the culture over a period of weeks and months, subtly positioning yourself as an
expert in your Subreddit, and surreptitiously dropping in hints about your business.

Now, however, you can sponsor posts, paying per 1,000 impressions, and you can get started
with as little as $5.

On the upside, you can get very targeted with your advertising, by sticking to Subreddits that
closely match your niche. On the downside, it’s not like buying PPC ads on Google – you need to
take the time to understand how the Reddit audience thinks and acts so you can tailor your offer
accordingly.

If you can find a Subreddit whose audience is a very close match to your ideal prospects, this
advertising avenue is well worth trying. Just make sure – and I really can’t stress this enough –
that you do your research. This article, although a couple of years old now, is a good place to
start: https://moz.com/blog/the-advertisers-guide-to-surviving-reddit

Oh, and don’t search Reddit for GamerGate. Just don’t do it. It’s depressing.

31. Contact Your Suppliers

Finding joint venture partners for ad swaps is something of a numbers game. When you reach
out to a person or business you think would be perfect for some mutual marketing some will
ignore you, some will kick the idea around for a while before losing interest, and some will
become creepily obsessed with you and follow you around on social media applauding the
universe for bringing you into their life (I wish I was making that up).

While others will land in that sweet spot. They’ll recognize the complementary nature of your
businesses and appreciate the reciprocal benefits on offer.

p.27
So, if you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince, it makes sense to try and locate as many
frogs as possible. And frogs, of course, can usually be found around water sources. Which
means…

I actually don’t know… that metaphor kind of got away from me. What I’m trying to say is that it
helps to know where to look for potential partnerships.

We’ve already covered ideas such as scouring webinar directories and looking for businesses
that sell complementary product or services, but have you considered talking to the suppliers
that directly power your business?

In all likelihood, your business depends on a range of product and software providers that will
be just as useful to your customers as they are to you. And you’ve probably overlooked them
as potential joint venture partners because of an assumption that, because you rely on them to
operate your business, they’re faceless, elite corporations, or that you’re in some way further
down the pecking order.

And yet you would be amazed at how many hugely popular online businesses and software
providers are managed by small nimble teams who are just as keen as you are to find new and
effective avenues of marketing.

Start with the suppliers you most value and drop them a line. Tell them how much you rely
upon their services, how much you believe your audience would benefit from their services, and
suggest having a telephone conversation to discuss some kind of mutually-beneficial promotion.
This could be in the form of them sponsoring your webinar – not for money but in exchange
for being promoted as a partner of their business. Or you could create a video case study,
applauding your joint venture partner, in exchange for a promotion for your webinar. Or it could
even be a guest appearance in which a member of their team appears on your webinar to share
something valuable and make an exclusive offer.

At the very least, if you can agree some kind of endorsement that you can plaster on your
registration page, this can provide a hefty dose of social proof that will boost your registration
and attendee conversions.

Not every invitation will be gratefully accepted, so don’t be discouraged if some of your
overtures generate nothing but a deafening silence. Just keep at it and, eventually, you’ll land
some wins.

And never forget that a lack of response, or even a curt “no, thank you,” is infinitely better than
an Internet stalker who pronounces you the answer to their cosmic prayers (again… really wish I
was making this up.)

p.28
32. A Webinar Promotion
Put on a webinar to promote a webinar! That’s about as meta as it gets.

It’s like the old “Porridge” joke about the prisoners who dig an escape tunnel but can’t think of a
way to hide the rubble. So, they dig another tunnel and hide the rubble in there.

This isn’t meant to be a facetious tip. It’s just something to put on a post-it note and stick
it somewhere as a reminder. Each time you conduct a webinar, make sure you include,
somewhere in your conclusion, a promotion for your next event. That way, the success of each
event feeds into the next.

It’s easy to become so consumed by the effort of putting on a webinar that you neglect to think
about what comes next. It’s never wasted effort to think about your next event and drop a teaser
for it into your current webinar. Ideally, you should already have your registration page ready to
go, so you can send your webinar attendees to sign up for the next event before the first one’s
ended.

Have I mentioned WebinarJam yet? I forget. Well, if you’re not familiar with it, WebinarJam gives
you, arguably, the most webinar hosting features for the lowest price, anywhere on the Net.
And one of those features is a webinar series setting that you can activate if you’re putting on a
sequence, or a regular series, of events. When your customer registers for your event, they can
check a box on the form that automatically registers them for every future event as well.

It has an unsubscribe option, just like an email list, but it’s a smart way to turn one webinar
promotion into many.

33. #YourWebinar
When you send email follow-ups to your registrants, invite them to send you questions that you
can answer on the webinar. But instead of emailing you the questions, ask them to send them
via Twitter, using a unique hashtag that you’ve dreamt up.

Then, simply look out for tweets coming your way.

What’s the best feed to give to an aging bird? #PigeonFancierWebinar

How can I tell if my friends are REALLY interested in hearing about my gluten-free diet?
#WheatFreeWebinar

Is it unusual that I’ve tweeted this question 18 times today? #TwitterAddictsWebinar

p.29
Make sure you send friendly replies to each tweeted question, including the hashtag, as well as a
link to the registration page.

This strategy is beneficial, not only for exposing your webinar to more people, but also for
encouraging your registrants to attend to ensure they get to see your wise response.

Of course, depending on when you read this, Twitter might already have gone under. So, you
may need to switch this strategy to a different social media venue. But at the time of writing,
Twitter probably has a good couple of years left in it. Maybe. You might as well milk it while you
can.

#ItWasTweetWhileItLasted

34. Social Media Avatars

Your existing customers and subscribers are your best prospects for registering for your
webinar, attending your webinar, and making a purchase on your webinar. It’s really important
that you don’t scrimp on your efforts to maximize your current audience base.

And if you’re thinking a few emails will suffice, you’re thinking too small.

For the days and weeks leading up to your event, your email and social media audience should
be able to see a constant, persistent, drum-beating, rallying cry that your spectacular webinar is
imminent.

In this first of three strategies aimed at grabbing the attention of your warm audience, your job
is simply to change your social media avatars to an image that promotes your webinar.

This is similar to the motivations for promoting your webinar in your email signature except
that this is a more passive approach. You can put a web address or a hashtag on your avatar,

p.30
but with limited space your main aim should be to display an image that shows the title of your
webinar and a color scheme that matches your registration page.

Some people might learn about your webinar, for the first time, via your social media avatar, but
this is primarily about reminding the people who already know about your event that it’s a big
deal they won’t want to miss.

It’s even effective for reminding the people that have ALREADY registered, that your webinar is
coming soon and that they should be excited about attending.

Yes, there is the obvious drawback that, for a little while at least, your social media audience
won’t be able to enjoy that beautiful studio picture you had taken fifteen years ago, back when
you still had hair. But it’s a small price to pay for filling your webinar.

35. Retargeting
Retargeting as a marketing strategy has really taken off over the last few years. It’s a mechanism
by which you can arrange for advertising to follow your prospects around from site to site. If
you’ve ever viewed a product on Amazon and then later seen an advert on Facebook for that
very same product… that’s not a coincidence.

Retargeting works by employing invisible elves to sneak into your house and watch over your
shoulder while you’re surfing the Net. When they see you take an interest in a product, they call
Lucifer and ask him to put adverts for the product on all the websites you visit over the next few
days.

Something like that.

You know what, the technology doesn’t really matter. Most advertising platforms offer some
kind of retargeting program, so give this a try. Set it to mark anyone who visits your registration
page and then show them ads for your webinar on various sites in that advertising network.
Facebook and Google Adwords both offer comprehensive programs if you’re not sure where to
start.

p.31
Retargeting is great for webinar promotions because it serves two purposes. It gives you
multiple chances to capture a lead, and it also acts as a visual reminder to the people who DID
register that your webinar is taking place very soon.

You could set the retargeting campaign to only follow people who visit your registration page
and don’t register, but to me this misses the point. Retargeting is not just about getting people to
click on your ads, it’s also about putting your brand, repeatedly, in view.

When someone registers for your webinar and then, for the next couple of days, sees adverts
for it everywhere, the effect is akin to seeing trailers and billboards for that new movie that’s
coming out on Friday. It gives the impression that you’ve spent a ton of money (an erroneous
impression – retargeting costs less than you think) on advertising your webinar EVERYWHERE
and, consequently, the association is made that your event must be pretty darn special.

Retargeting is a great advertising technique, full stop. But it’s power to amplify your brand is
equal to its ability to generate new sales.

Oh, and of course I wasn’t serious about the elves. Obviously, that’s an oversimplification of the
science for non-techy readers. If you’re up on Internet technology, you’ll already know that it’s
done with cookies. Invisible cookies. That sneak into your kitchen…

36. Social Sharing

It’s a quirk of marketing that if you can get someone to perform one action, however small, you
increase the likelihood of getting them to perform a more involved action. Robert Cialdini called
this influence principle, “Commitment.”

Get someone to commit to one action, and you’ve got a decent shot at getting them to perform
a second.

This is one of the reasons why we get people to register for webinars rather than just letting
them turn up on the day. Registration is a committed step towards the action you REALLY want
them to take… attending your webinar.

But if persuading someone to register for your webinar by sending you their name and email
address, is a fairly sizable commitment, why not take the opportunity, there and then, to
ask them to perform one or two ADDITIONAL steps that will increase the likelihood of them
attending your event.

On your “thank you” page, after the obligatory “thank you for registering for my webinar”
message, add a couple of action steps to reinforce the decision.

The obvious first step is to urge them to whitelist your email address (so you can notify them of

p.32
the webinar location), and the second is to add your event to their calendar. But now you’re also
going to add a third step in which you ask your registrant to share your event to their favorite
social media site.

Make sure the message you ask them to share is more than just a straight link to your
registration page. The message should be along the lines of “Hey everyone – I’m attending the
‘Greedo Shot First’ Webinar on May 4th. If you want to join me, go to <LINK>.”

As with the previous two entries in this list, this strategy is about getting your webinar in front
of, not just new leads, but in front of people who have already registered. When someone posts
to their own social media page that they’re attending your webinar, not only does this serve as a
reminder, it’s also a commitment in front of their social media connections that they’re going to
attend.

On a separate note, writing the above has reminded me of something I should have stated
from the start. None of these webinar-filling strategies will work if you don’t have a decent
webinar concept to begin with. I mean… “Greedo Shot First?” Come on… everyone knows
HanSoloShotFirst.com

37. Create an App

“But, Andy…” I pretend to hear you saying. “I thought WebinarJam worked on smartphones and
tablets, directly from the browser, without requiring the audience to go to the trouble of downloading
any software or apps.”

Correct, my imaginary audience. But this method has nothing to do with streaming your webinar
and everything to do with getting your registrants to turn up to your event on time.

The app, in this instance, is purely to display your webinar schedule and to allow you to push
notifications to people, reminding them to attend.

p.33
A simple HTML5-based app is inexpensive to produce, easy to look after, and essentially acts as
a fancy bookmark to maximize your attendee numbers.

“But, Andy…” I pretend to hear you persist. “WebinarJam lets you send SMS and voicemail messages to
registrants to ensure their attendance. Why do I need an app?”

An excellent point, my clever and unusually well-informed audience. You’re correct in that
WebinarJam customers don’t really need to make use of this strategy because a variety of
notification facilities are already built into the system.

But, of course, not every reader of this humble report will be a WebinarJam customer and may
instead be using the services of one of our more expensive, less feature-rich competitors. These
individuals may prefer to hire a developer to create an app, rather than speak to our friendly
customer support team about our excellent webinar-host switching service.

Such intelligent questions. Thank you for allowing me to make such blatantly self-aggrandizing
statements while maintaining an air of studied impartiality.

Would you like to ask anything else? Maybe you have some questions about our video-injection
system or scarcity control features?

38. Find a Sponsor

Sponsorship? How very corporate…

In the real world, yes. But online, sponsorship is increasingly the domain of the small or non-
profit business.

Podcasters have been one of the chief beneficiaries of this arrangement, allowing them the
freedom to focus on their content, while their sponsor covers the costs of production or even
provides some income.

This report, however, is not about making money from your webinar, it’s about filling your
webinar. So, in this instance, you’re looking for a sponsor to provide you with funds, not to line
your pockets, but to allow you to purchase more advertising.
And this strategy is cumulative.

As your audience grows, the level of sponsorship and the money you can attract increases. This
gives you a greater advertising budget, leading to an improved audience attendance. Allowing
you to attract greater sponsorship…

And so on.

p.34
If you’re just starting out and you don’t have the audience size to attract a paying sponsor, you
can still seek out a non-monetary arrangement. Essentially, going back to the joint venture
strategy we covered earlier. You give your sponsor some airtime on your webinar and, in
exchange, your sponsor promotes your webinar to their audience.

Finding a sponsor that is complementary and not competing is always good, but if you know
at least a few things about the make-up of your audience, there doesn’t even have to be any
obvious connection. MailChimp sponsored the Serial podcast, presumably, because they have
an overlapping demographic and not because they’re seeking an entry into the “true crime”
entertainment market.

The only exception would be companies that are obviously in opposition to your content. You
wouldn’t expect, for instance, a webinar on diabetic nutrition to be sponsored by Coca-Cola. Or a
webinar on tackling alcohol abuse to be sponsored by Jack Daniels.

Heh. This is a fun game.

How about a webinar on childhood obesity sponsored by Doritos?

Or a webinar on militant veganism sponsored by KFC?

Ooh… Ooh… How about a webinar on eradicating workplace misogyny… sponsored by the
campaign to reelect President Trump?

Hmm… I might have crossed a line there. Let’s move on…

p.35
39. Facebook Live
Facebook Live is an odd fish that, at the time of writing at least, seems to be struggling to find its
place. If you browse the FB Live world map you’ll find a mixture of TV channel broadcasts, tattoo
parlor webcam streams, and randomers staring mutely at their laptop or phone hoping the
number of voyeurs reaches double figures.

But I think this is something of a red herring. These random broadcasts are mainly just people
who are either bored or ignorant of Facebook’s privacy settings, and, as such, this is more
about Facebook showing off their global reach than a useful demonstration of the technology’s
purpose.

I believe the real aim of Facebook Live is to allow users to quickly share with their FRIENDS a
live stream of whatever they’re currently doing. Instead of sharing a photo of that fabulous
chocolate brownie dessert you’re about to enjoy, you can share a video, in real-time, of you
eating said dessert.

I don’t think I’m really selling it. So, let me put it this way…

If you have a decent-sized following on Facebook, you can broadcast a pre-game show
promotion to your webinar on Facebook for your connections to see.

For a webinar presenter, then, Facebook Live is not a replacement webinar host, it’s a
complementary tool that reminds your contacts that your webinar has begun, or simply clues
them into the fact that you host webinars.

And what’s great about this strategy is that it requires virtually no additional effort to set up. Just
pop your phone on a stand, alongside your laptop webcam, and activate Facebook Live 15-20
minutes before your real webinar stream goes live.

You can then tell your Facebook contacts, that are currently online, that your webinar is about to
start and they should go to your webinar page to watch the show.

There’s nothing to stop you from broadcasting the whole webinar on Facebook Live as well, but
your real goal should be to get people to your site to register so they can watch your event with
all the bells and whistles and interactive elements that your webinar host provides.

Maybe in the future we’ll all be wearing Google Glasses and streaming the live feed, 24 hours
a day, through Facebook Live. If that sounds terrifying, it’s probably because you saw THAT
episode of Black Mirror.

But that’s a way off… hopefully.

In the meanwhile, and until the true intent and potential of Facebook Live is realized, this is an
easy way to expand your webinar marketing a little further.

p.36
40. Become a Journalist
I’ve saved this strategy until last because it requires the most effort and commitment. And, truth
be told, this approach is only really appropriate if you’re prepared to take your business in a
certain direction.

But if you’re looking for a way to get a foothold in a particular industry that you’re passionate
about, this will get you in deeper than you ever imagined possible.

This strategy is designed for business owners who are positioning themselves, or are willing to
position themselves, as a commentator on an industry. So, for example, if you’re a comic book
enthusiast but don’t have the skill or inclination to create your own comics, you might produce
webinars on which you review comic books and curate industry gossip.

Perhaps you’re mad on horse-riding and travel the country attending shows, and you have a
webinar audience that love hearing you talk about your experiences and share your pictures and
videos.

Maybe you love board games and put on webinars in which you and some friends review and
play the latest releases. Basically, you’re Wil Wheaton.

But what you really want to be able to do is get DEEPER into the industry and rub shoulders
with the key players. Imagine how much larger your webinar audience could be if you had
direct contact with the business owners and trend-setters who are willing to give you exclusive
interviews and inside information.

Here’s how you do it.

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Attend as many relevant exhibitions as you can. But instead of buying a weekend pass, search
the website for the “press” section and apply for a “press pass.”

It can’t be that easy, surely?

Well, it is. And once you know how event organizers operate, you’ll understand why.

Exhibition organizers have a lot of expenses and they only cover their costs and make a profit
if they can convince enough businesses in their sector to purchase stands and advertising. And
businesses will only be willing to do so if the exhibition is popular and can attract a lot of foot
traffic.

Which means that the organizers are DESPERATE for press coverage.

Events in popular sectors that have a broad interest are often inundated with press requests,
which means they usually only respond to accredited journalists. Your webinar with a few
hundred regular attendees probably isn’t going to get their attention.

But in niche sectors, the flow is completely reversed. Exhibitions in specialist areas usually have
to do all the legwork themselves, contacting press outlets, and begging for coverage. The more
press they can attract to the event, the more prestige their event garners and, over time, the
more popular it becomes.

Event organizers on this level can’t afford to be picky about the press that take an interest in
their event. Which means that, while your webinar might, in your view, be quite modest in terms
of its popularity… the very fact that you have a following at all, gives you value in the eyes of the
exhibitor.

So, what does attending an exhibition as a member of the “press” get you, aside from a free
ticket?

First of all, it gets you into the press area, where you can access press material for most of the
exhibitors. You now have access to the most up to date information the players in your industry
are willing to release to the public. Free food and alcohol is often provided as well.

The event organizers will go out of their way to make you feel welcome and will help you set
up one-on-one interviews with some of the exhibitors who have requested press meetings.
It’s important to bear in mind that, as a press outlet, you are now a marketing opportunity for
everybody involved.

You can, and should, maintain your independence – no one is expecting you to be a shill for the
exhibition – but don’t be surprised if everyone treats you with a little more deference than you’re
accustomed to.

The event organizers will also be keen for you to explore the event and meet as many of the

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exhibitors as possible. It’s good for the prestige of the event for the exhibitors to see “press”
wandering around.

Ultimately, the experience will be similar to attending as a visitor, but with behind-the-scenes
access, and a willingness on the part of the exhibitors to give interviews and exchange business
cards. As a visitor, your maximum reach with each exhibitor might be a sales executive. As a
badge-wearing member of the press, your maximum reach will often be marketing director, or
even business owner.

You’ll come away from the event with a pocket full of business cards, a bunch of promises from
exhibitors for follow-up interviews or webinar appearances, and tons of great stories to share
with your webinar audience.

Some event organizers will even publicize you as an official sponsor, simply for promoting their
event.

In fact, even if your business doesn’t have a journalistic slant, and you provide a product or
service to a niche industry, it might be worth setting up an arm of the business that acts as a
news outlet, simply to gain the kind of inside access that most people aren’t aware is available.

Does all of that sound like a lot of effort compared to the other webinar-filling strategies on this
list? Well, I did say this would require substantial commitment. But the return on investment can
be considerable.

That’s a lot of information to absorb in one go, so probably best that you don’t try.

Instead, why not skim through the report again and highlight the strategies you think are going
to be most useful to your webinar style. Then, whittle it down to, say, half a dozen, and focus on
putting those into effect.

Each time you put on a new webinar, review this report and pick a couple strategies to add to
the mix.

Then make them your own. This list isn’t exhaustive. Take some of the ideas you like best and
tweak them, improve them, supercharge them.

Marketing is as much art as science, so get creative. And when you have a success story, drop
me a line. I’d love to hear about it.

XOXO

Andy Jenkins 

CEO, Genesis Digital 


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