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Marketing Sense

How to Grow Your Audience Using Online Workshops: Part Six

Marketing sense

We’ve almost finished preparations for our online workshop! If you’re just joining us, you may wonder…

“Why bother with a live webinar? Can’t I just send that information in an email series?”

Yes, you can, but a live webinar is about more than transferring information. It’s about new and established audience members engaging not only with you…live…but with each other.

And in this, our final segment, we’ll talk about when and what to send in both your pre-launch and post-webinar email series.

Here’s our breakdown of this series so far…

In Part One, we chose our topic.

In Part Two, we identified and researched various title resources.

In Part Three, we chose our title (it’s a dandy!).

In Part Four, we discussed priming our audience for our upcoming webinar using what’s called “pre-launch” emails.

In Part Five, we confirmed our goal and our plan to reach it.

This “live” component is more powerful than it appears. Your readers will also experience community. YOUR community. While learning information they have sought from YOU. Boom!

They’ll learn. They’ll laugh. They’ll value you. They’ll want more. Voila! Your audience has just grown! Now, serve them well, and as Christ leads, periodically promote a paid product or service. Do that once a month or once a year–whatever your marketing plan is–and you’ll have a larger, loyal following. (Hint: That’s a good thing.) 🙂

The last step before our online webinar is our launch email series.

This is a group of emails (usually) created ahead of time and scheduled for release pre-webinar. It’s imperative that readers understand the benefit your free webinar offers, as that will help them choose to attend. It’s up to you to tell them in both your title (Survive These 3 Treacherous Ice-Fishing Dangers) and your email’s content (below).

First email: Send your Webinar Announcement email 14-30 days out.

You want to give your audience time to adjust their schedule if necessary. Better yet, sharing the date early will prevent conflicts altogether. Include all the normal information: date, time, location, topic, and your event’s URL, along with a clear benefit.  

These days most of us present on Zoom. You can set your webinar up in your Zoom account weeks in advance and share the details in your announcement email.

You don’t have to include your Zoom link in this first email, but it’s a good idea because some readers are meticulous about details. You don’t know who those readers are, so go ahead and send the full details in this email and plan to add them to subsequent emails as well, for those readers who’ll wait till the last minute to take note of them. It happens. 🙂

Second email: Send a Webinar Reminder email 7 days out.

Simple. Clear.Almost a duplicate of your Announcement email, adding another benefit for those who attend. Consider placing your webinar’s URL, date, day, time, and so on in your postscript instead of the body this time, as scanners will read a postscript (a P.S.) when they won’t read anything else.

Third and Fourth emails:

One day before your webinar begins, and a final reminder email 30 minutes before your webinar begins. Isn’t that too many? No. We all get busy and miss important meetings without gentle reminders. You’ll be doing them a favor with these last two emails. Add one more benefit, please, or repeat the benefits you mentioned in your previous emails.

Fifth email:

Send a Thanks for Joining Me! email within two hours after the webinar is over. (Another  reason you want to create this simple email series ahead of time.)

Share a recap of the webinar’s content and its benefits. Offer a limited-time replay link if that’s part of your marketing strategy.  

It’s over! Serve your new readers as well as you’ve served your current readers. Offer them life-changing content that will draw them to your message and to Christ.

Create new webinars as you desire, and watch your audience grow. Offer your knowledge for free or via paid products or services and reach more people for Christ around the world!

Patricia Durgin

Patricia Durgin is an Online Marketing Coach and Facebook Live Expert. She trains Christian writers and speakers exclusively, helping them develop their messaging, marketing funnels, conversational emails, and Facebook Live programs. Patricia hosted 505 (60-minute) Facebook Live programs from 2018-2020. That program is on indefinite hiatus. She’s also a regular faculty member at Christian writers and speakers conferences around the country.

Website: marketersonamission.com
Facebook: MarketersOnAMission

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How to Grow Your Audience Using Online Workshops: Part Four

Marketing sense

Want to grow your audience faster? Online workshops (also called webinars) are a great option. In this series, we’re using an out-of-the-ordinary topic (ice fishing!) so you can follow the process step-by-step no matter which topic you offer. Learn the sequence then apply it to your message.

In Part One, we chose our topic.

In Part Two, we identified and researched various title resources.  

In Part Three, we chose our title (it’s a dandy!).

This month, in Part Four, we’ll discuss how to warm up your current email readers, so they’ll be interested in your (as yet undisclosed) online workshop when you’re ready to market it.

Some call these “pre-launch” emails. Some call them “seeding” or “pre-webinar” emails. All are correct.

In this example, our audience is ice fishermen. I know, I know, unusual to say the least, but the goal is to learn the process. Grasp that, and you can use it for any content you want to offer, either to your established audience or those (in this case) ice fishermen who don’t yet know you can help them.

So…back to your email series.

You’re regularly sending emails related to your overall topic, right?

Since our workshop’s content teaches how to eliminate or survive ice-fishing dangers, we want to bring this concept into our pre-webinar emails. Indirectly. Why? Because we’re not yet ready to market our webinar.

During this, our warm-up or pre-launch phase, we want to help readers (ice fishermen, remember?) begin thinking about how dangerous ice fishing can be. That way, they’re more likely to be interested when we market our webinar on surviving those dangers. Get it?

Of course, they all know it can be dangerous, but they push that fact to the back of their mind, or they believe they already take every necessary precaution to stay safe. We want to challenge that notion without challenging them.

Increase the pressure on a potential problem bit by bit then offer your solution to that problem, and readers will want your offer.

There are many ways to introduce this topic without being pushy, abrasive, or an alarmist. I’ll list a few, then you can take it from there.

You might research various past or current news stories to mention in your email(s), highlighting what the victim(s) could have done differently. If you choose this path, be sure not to “steal” your workshop’s content. Simply point out a poor decision or, going in the other direction, share (perhaps for the umpteenth time) how to check the ice’s depth before stepping on to it or driving over it.

Whatever your topic, it’s always appropriate to review the basics from as many angles as possible.

You might suggest a book or magazine article (that you’ve read) that highlights this subject, but again, not anything that will cover what you plan to cover in your workshop.

You might interview someone who had a harrowing experience while ice fishing. The goal isn’t to scare your reader or cry, “Wolf!” It’s to bring this topic up in your regular email correspondence with them so that when you market your workshop (that solves this specific problem), they’re already warmed up to the topic. You’re not starting “cold.” Meaning they’re more likely to respond to a workshop related to how to eliminate or avoid the dangers of ice fishing.

Begin sending these pre-launch or warm-up emails 60 days before you begin marketing your webinar. If that sounds like a lot of emails, it’s not. One email a week (if you send emails out weekly) is only eight emails in two months. No more than you’d normally send.

Next month we’ll discuss ideas for your launch emails and beyond.

This process applies to anything you want to offer, whether free or paid. It’s not necessary to use this sequence of activities and emails, but if you do, it will be a smoother, easier, and hopefully, profitable process for both you and your readers.

See you then!

Patricia Durgin

Patricia Durgin is an Online Marketing Coach and Facebook Live Expert. She trains Christian writers and speakers exclusively, helping them develop their messaging, marketing funnels, conversational emails, and Facebook Live programs. Patricia hosted 505 (60-minute) Facebook Live programs from 2018-2020. That program is on indefinite hiatus. She’s also a regular faculty member at Christian writers and speakers conferences around the country.

Website: marketersonamission.com
Facebook: MarketersOnAMission

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Marketing Sense

How to Grow Your Audience Using Online Workshops: Part Two

Marketing sense

Last month we began this series by choosing the marketing message for a workshop on  ice fishing. Ice fishing?!? Yep. I chose an out-of-the-ordinary subject to focus on the workshop process from start to finish. Nail the process, and you’ll be able to present an effective workshop that will grow your audience anytime, anywhere, on any topic.

I know zero about ice fishing, so you and I are starting from the same place: ignorance 🙂 Let’s learn together, shall we?

This month we begin working on our title.

Creating a Results-Oriented Workshop Title

Weak, vague titles run rampant throughout the world like vermin.

We want a title that will do 5 things:

-identify our audience directly or indirectly;

-address a problem, a challenge, or a goal;

-begin with an action verb;

-include a number (maybe), and;

-is utterly clear…like glass.

So clear that it’s understood by those inside and outside our audience. Why? We only want people interested in ice fishing to attend our ice fishing workshop. So obvious! Yet many don’t “get” this basic truth: it serves no purpose to attract people not interested in our offer.

Where to Find Title Inspiration

We can find scads of fill-in-the-blank title templates online. But you and I are intelligent. We can be more unique than some ol’ cookie-cutter formula, right?  

That goal leads us to online research. Let’s see what others are saying about ice fishing.

Inspiration can be found in book titles. How about Drill It Till It Squirts? Uh, noooo. Incredibly, there’s both a book title and a popular clothing line with that phrase.

Here’s another: You Had Me At Ice Fishing. That’s a fun twist on the famous movie line. Let’s keep looking.

Don’t limit your research to Amazon. There’s a wide range of books on this subject beyond what Amazon offers. Google it.

On-topic magazines can be a gold mine for titles. I’ve found their covers and the stories highlighted on them super helpful. They either confirm my direction or change it, which is what happened in this case.

Scanning different ice fishing magazines, I realize my workshop’s original promised result–catch more fish–is both waaay too basic and too vague compared to what else is in the marketplace.

Others are offering sophisticated information, and not just about the best gear or locales.

For example, many such magazines regularly publish deep dive articles on a single fish species. There seem to be hundreds: panfish and walleyes, giant perch, trout, pike, catfish, and more, each with their own likes, dislikes, homes, favorite bait, and on and on the details go. Yikes!

We can’t possibly contain that in a 60-minute workshop. Instead of too basic, this topic’s waaay too broad.

It looks like we’re back at zero, but we’re not. We’ve eliminated our original direction and its extreme on the other end of the spectrum. Good work!

We must dig deeper. Be more specific. Back to the magazines we go.

We find the following article titles:

-The Search for Perch

-Strategies for Northern Pike

-How to Read Fish and Respond

-Pike Lairs, from Big Lakes to Secluded Backwaters, Find Where Monsters Lurk

-Tracking Pike

-Ice Fishing Game Plan

-The Hunt for Gillzilla

I did not make these titles up. Some of them are real possibilities because their only purpose is to spur our creative thoughts. You and I could ponder the same article titles and come up with vastly different workshop titles. That’s a good thing.

Why Are We Spending So Much Time on Our Workshop Title?

Because potential attendees will decide whether to sign up or not based upon it.

This 3-7 word phrase will determine the success of our workshop. That’s a huge load to carry.

Important as our content is, some will never see it because our title either turned them off or didn’t interest them enough to find out more. So, they won’t sign up.

Let’s keep working to find / create a great title so our workshop is full. That will make our title struggle worth it.

See you next month.  

Patricia Durgin

Patricia Durgin is an Online Marketing Coach and Facebook Live Expert. She trains Christian writers and speakers exclusively, helping them develop their messaging, marketing funnels, conversational emails, and Facebook Live programs. Patricia hosted 505 (60-minute) Facebook Live programs from 2018-2020. That program is on indefinite hiatus. She’s also a regular faculty member at Christian writers and speakers conferences around the country.

Website: marketersonamission.com
Facebook: MarketersOnAMission

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Marketing Sense

Evolution of a Lead Magnet Title (with example)

Marketing sense

What Is a Lead Magnet and Why Is the Title Such a Big Deal?

Lead Magnets are the overlooked heroes of online marketing. Unassuming, they stand like sentries on your Home page and social media accounts, ready to serve at a moment’s notice.

We want ours to be so obviously helpful that readers can’t resist signing up to read it (trading their name and email to have access to it).

In their most basic format, Lead Magnets are 3-10 pages long and in PDF format. They include a great cover image, an enticing title (bonus points for an equally interesting sub-title), with images, graphics, or infographics to support the content.

They also include lots of “white space,” a designer term meaning empty space with no words or images. White space breaks up content and gives the reader a chance to pause and absorb your content.

Few people read page after page text with nothing to separate them—that’s like reading a clinical report—and who wants to do that?

The goal of a Lead Magnet is to answer a single question or solve a single problem the reader is dealing with now. It’s not about what you know they need; it’s about what they’re searching for today.

Titling your Lead Magnet is everything. Potential readers sign-up for it, or not, based entirely upon that single piece of information. Does your title promise it can help your readers in the specific way they want to be helped? If not, keep working on it. It’s that important.

The Process in Action

I helped a friend develop her Lead Magnet title recently. Her ministry serves Christian women dedicated to praying for their children. Here’s how our conversation went (I changed her name for privacy).

Becca: I’m working on a new Lead Magnet.

Me: Great! What’s your working title?

Becca: 10 Truths About Prayer

Me: Now add a promise…

Becca: 10 Truths About Prayer That Will Change Your Prayer Life

Me: Are your readers praying for themselves or their children?

Becca: 10 Truths About Prayer That Will Transform Your Prayers for Your Child

Me: A bit wordy. Make it tighter (reducing the number of words while keeping the primary idea = stronger title).

Becca: Prayer Can Transform Your Child’s Life

Me: Better but informational. What’s the end result your readers desire for their children?

Becca: Transform Your Child’s Life Through Prayer

*** YESSSS!!! ***

See how that title “plants a flag”? Do “this” and you’ll get “that.”

Your readers (and mine) don’t want more information. They want to experience a change. They’re looking for someone who’ll stand up in the crowd and proclaim, “Do this (our message) and you’ll experience that (the change they want).”

Your CONTENT may be phenomenal, but if your TITLE is not clear, action-oriented, reader-focused, with a promised result that readers want, your Lead Magnet will not help as many people as it could. What. A. Shame.

Sound marketing connects you to your audience and grows your platform, but it’s not intuitive.

Fortunately, it’s not a gift you inherit (or don’t). It’s a skill. And skills can be learned. 

Hallelujah! 

Shape Your Content to Fit Your Title

Becca had specific content in mind to match her former title, 10 Truths About Prayer.

As we continued chatting, I mentioned that if she’d add a number that fits her content (or if she adjusts her content to coordinate with a number), her title could be:

10 Prayers to Transform Your Child’s Life.

I suggested a content plan for the title above:

  • 5 Traits to Pray “In” + 5 Traits to Pray “Out”
  • 10 Scriptures with Promises in Those Areas and
  • 10 Prayer Prompts with Suggested Words

Compare her first title (10 Truths About Prayer) to this one. See how this last one is action-oriented, it makes a promise (IF readers apply her message), and it tells readers what info they’ll receive?

There is no “magic title.” Work the process. Refine. Tighten. Focus on the result your title promises. Make it clear. More readers will sign up and their lives will change (in this case) as they pray for their children, which is the goal of Becca’s ministry! BOOM!

Patricia Durgin

Patricia Durgin is an Online Marketing Coach and Facebook Live Expert. She trains Christian writers and speakers exclusively, helping them develop their messaging, marketing funnels, conversational emails, and Facebook Live programs. Patricia hosted 505 (60-minute) Facebook Live programs from 2018-2020. That program is on indefinite hiatus. She’s also a regular faculty member at Christian writers and speakers conferences around the country.

Website: marketersonamission.com
Facebook: MarketersOnAMission