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Do you still include a sales pitch in your webinars?
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Secrets to Webinar Success
The standard webinar recipe has included industry expert and sales pitch. That is contrary to to the new rules of content marketing. What do you do?
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4 Answers
Hi Craig! The companies and organizations for which I have presented webinars (both free and fee) prohibit pitching. A link on the end frame and offer of my newsletter or similar is perfectly OK, of course.
And even if they allowed a sales pitch, I would never do one in a webinar. Business people join webinars in good faith, to learn and to consider, based on the merit of the content and the performance of the host. If they want commercials, they watch TV.
As we discussed in our Webinar today, I think the days of the standard "industry overview + demo" Webinars are waning, if they're not gone already. Good content is just too readily avaiable, and people are just too busy, to warrant anyone sitting through something they know is going to be a pitch for a product. To paraphrase Jamie Wallace from our event, Webinars should be about teaching, learning, showing people how to solve a problem. The benchmark I like to use is: "Will someone want to attend this event independent of their level of explicit interest in your product?" If the answer is "yes," you're in good shape.
I agree with Michael and Howard. But let's also remember that some webinars are legitimately designed to be sales pitches--they are in effect sales calls/presentations enabled by webinar technology--and have a valuable role to play. But the public type of webinar we've been talking about is better served if it's positioned as authoritative and objective content.
I am also in agreement that a webinar is no place for a sales pitch (thanks for paraphrasing, Howard, you saved me the extra typing!) :)
However, I do think that every webinar should include a simple and easy-to-follow call-to-action. So many times, I see webinars that completely miss on the opportunity to further engage the attendees. The CTA might be something as simple as downloading additional resources or subscribing to a topically relevant newsletter for the latest updates, but it's important that you tell your audience clearly what you'd like them to do next. "Ask and you shall receive. Fail to ask, and it's your loss."
Just make sure that the CTA remains fully and strongly aligned with the teaching/serving mindset. "Click here to contact a rep" (or worse, have a rep contact you) is not an appropriate webinar CTA. "Click here to download our XXX roadmap planner" is a much better way to extend your conversation with the prospect while continuing to establish your brand as a helpful problem solver.
Good luck!
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