Zapier is one very essential tool which you need when you need to connect two different apps or software which have no built-in integration.

For example, when I conduct my LIVE webinars, I need to connect my Convertkit account (Email marketing software) with the Google Contacts app so that when someone subscribes to my webinars, they also get added as a contact on my phone so I can add them to my WhatsApp group for webinar reminders.

In Online Course Launchpad, I even show you why this is important.

But today I want to tell you that you don’t need to use Zapier because it will cost you almost Rs.2300/month.

Instead, you can use Integrately, which is a competitor to Zapier and is actually an Indian company based out of Nasik (Go India!!!)

The best part is that you can use Integrately for free by using this trick:

1. Sign up for a free account on Integrately​
2. On the left hand side, you will find one option that says “Refer and Earn“. Click on that.
3. There you will find couple of options like inviting friends and getting free tasks. But the best option is the one where they give you 2000 tasks/month free for lifetime if you place their logo on your website.

2000 tasks are more than enough for anyone. Tasks basically mean the amount of times the integrations will get executed. Even at Rs.2300/month, Zapier only gives you 750 tasks/month.

If you scroll down to the bottom my my homepage at Click Trainers, you can see that even I have put their logo. And it doesn’t even look that bad.

Doing this allowed me to get rid of Zapier and saved me around Rs.2300/month in fixed costs.

Always remember that as an entrepreneur, looking out for quality opportunities to reduce your fixed costs (recurring costs) should always be your priority.

And using Integrately has done exactly that for me and I hope it will help you too.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post Free alternative to Zapier appeared first on Click Trainers.

Today I want to tell you about a money/business principle that changed the way I conducted my business forever.

Long back I read a short but fantastic book called The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D.Wattles

This book was written in 1910 and the teachings in this book gave birth to very famous books like The Secret, Think and Grow Rich, etc. In fact this is called as the original Think and Grow Rich.

One of the principles that I learned in this book was about the concept of product value and cash value.

Product Value is the value that your customer receives when they purchase your product/service.

And Cash Value is what you get in return from them when they buy your product/service.

According to the author, the Product Value always has be way way way higher than the Cash Value you get.

What does this mean in the online coaching world?

It simply means that you create a quality course but sell it at a slightly lesser price.

So the product value is greater than the cash value.

Here’s why this process works:

The customer doubts why you are selling your course at such a less price.

But because the price is less, they buy your course.

But they are hesitant that the product value will be lesser because the cash value is lesser.

But inside the course they discover that you have given immense product value.

Way more than what they paid for.

This shocks their system. Pleasantly.

Because in life we are not used to the product value being greater than cash value.

We always feel cheap things are of a bad quality.

You have to take advantage of this mentality.

The shock they receive changes their perception about you.

They are not able to find any faults.

And they finally realize they benefited more than what they paid for.

Such a person will do something for you which no other marketing tactic will do, which is, spread word of mouth.

And next time you have any offering, this person will buy without even thinking twice, EVEN IF THE CASH VALUE IS HIGHER.

This is the reason why I have always sold my courses/workshops at a lesser price that what my competitors do.

Because I am always looking at the Customer LIFETIME VALUE and not just at the cash value of that particular transaction.

And it really works.

For instance, sometimes when I announce to my existing customers that an advanced photography workshop will take place soon, it gets fully booked inside even 30 minutes sometimes.

Why?

Because of that shock they received when they interacted with me for the first time.

This principle goes against what my competitors are teaching their students.

They are telling their students to price their courses as high as possible.

I had written an article earlier on why this is the wrong strategy.

I also suggest that you get your hands on The Science of Getting Rich. It’s only Rs.29 on Kindle.

It’s not a perfect book by any means but it does have some amazing principles like this one.

And the best part is that you can literally finish that book inside 1 hour.

I hope this tip helps you.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post The Principle that Changed the Way I Conducted Online Business Forever appeared first on Click Trainers.

Suppose I told you tomorrow you had to fight the best Sumo Wrestler in the world.

What will be your reaction?

You certainly wouldn’t feel too warm and fuzzy, would you?

Yet, this is the single biggest mistake I see people make in the online coaching world.

They set up their coaching business in a way that they are setting up a fight with sumo wrestlers.

And this mistake is made when people choose their online coaching niche.

Let me give you an example.

Suppose you are a Maths teacher in the offline world.

Now you decide to go into online coaching.

The mistake you can make here is to simply start online classes related to Maths, just like you did in the offline world.

The moment you do this, you have set up fights with not just one but multiple sumo wrestlers.

Let’s see who these sumo wrestlers are:

If I was to go to Google and type in “Online Maths classes“, let’s see the sites that come in the top results:

• Khan Academy
• WhiteHat Jr
• CueMath
• Study.com
• Toppr

These are multi-national companies with hundreds and thousands of employees.

They are the sumo wrestlers you are going up against.

How will you fight against them?

You have no chance.

No amount of motivation or pep talk can help you here.

So what is the correct approach?

The correct approach is to NOT fight sumo wrestlers.

Instead look around for the weakest and skinniest person and fight that person.

That’s how you win.

In the online coaching world, you do this by narrowing down your niche and selecting a niche where there are no sumo wrestlers, only weak and skinny people.

For example, here are Click Trainers, my niche is about teaching the skill of online coaching and that too specifically by creating pre-recorded online courses for passive income.

I literally have just three to four competitors in India who are doing this and they are all solopreneurs.

No sumo wrestlers to compete with.

This makes marketing and selling easier.

What you have to remember is that the average person’s mindset is such that they always like to buy from established brands.

So if you are competing in a niche with established brands, you will always be the last person they will consider when buying a course in that niche.

So you always have to narrow down your course topic to something which these big players are not offering.

That’s how you will stand out.

In Online Course Launchpad, I go into detail on how to select a niche properly and show you multiple techniques to choose a perfect profitable and narrow niche.

I hope this tip helps you.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post Don’t fight with Sumo Wrestlers.. appeared first on Click Trainers.

In recent years, webinar marketing has become one of the most effective ways of promoting products/services of a business because webinars offer the chance to interact with customers, thereby developing familiarity and trust.

The COVID pandemic almost forced even the most reluctant of marketers to try their hand at conducting webinars.

Usually when one thinks of a webinar, the first thing that comes to mind is a person sitting in front of a computer with a webcam and interacting with a large number of webinar participants.

But automated or evergreen webinars are gaining so much popularity that the above default image of a webinar may soon change.

1. What is the meaning of Automated or Evergreen Webinars?
2. Do the terms Automated Webinar and Evergreen Webinar mean the same thing?
3. What are the benefits of an Automated Webinar?
4. What is the difference between an Automated Webinar and a normal video recording?
5. Example of Automated or Evergreen Webinars
6. How to Create an Automated or Evergreen Webinar?
7. Which are the best automated or evergreen webinar software or platforms?
8. Automated or Evergreen Webinar Funnel
9. Automated or Evergreen Webinar Conversion Rate
10. What is a Semi-Automated or Hybrid Webinar?
11. Good Practices for Automated or Evergreen Webinars

What is the meaning of Automated or Evergreen Webinars?

Automated or Evergreen webinars are type of webinars which are recorded and can be played and shown to a webinar participant without the need of any active involvement of the webinar host.

Simply put, they are recorded videos that give the impression of a LIVE webinar.

Do the terms Automated Webinar and Evergreen Webinar mean the same thing?

Yes, these terms are used interchangeably by different software companies and marketers.

It should be noted that some people use the term Evergreen webinar when they also want to emphasize on the fact that the content of the webinar is of the nature which will stay relevant forever or for a long time.

But in this guide, both the terms will mean the same thing because that’s usually the case.

I will be using the term Automated Webinar from now on since that is more popular.

What are the benefits of an Automated Webinar?

The biggest benefit of an automated webinar is that it can run without your presence.

You may be sleeping but someone can still register for your webinar and watch it since it’s basically a recording.

This means that automated webinars are great for scaling your business.

Just imagine this. Even the most aggressive of marketers don’t do more than three LIVE webinars in a week.

In fact most marketers don’t even regularly do one LIVE webinar per week.

That’s because LIVE webinars require a lot of energy, effort and planning since the host has to be present and conduct the webinar.

Where as an automated webinar can literally run 24/7.

An automated webinar is also more consistent in generating results because everyone watches the same webinar recording.

Whereas a LIVE webinar can produce varying results since it’s not possible to conduct the webinar in exactly the same manner even if the presentation remains the same.

And lastly, automated webinars are immune to real time glitches like the internet connection giving up on you or unfortunate events like you falling sick on the webinar day.

What is the difference between an Automated Webinar and a normal video recording?

That’s a great question because on the face of it, an automated webinar is simply nothing but a video recording.

But there is a big difference.

The difference starts from the time your prospect registers for the webinar.

The registration form offers different date and time slots for the prospect to watch the webinar.

This increases the anticipation level of the prospect since the video is time-bound.

They feel more compelled to watch it.

Secondly, and more importantly, almost all automated webinar software allow you to segment webinar attendees according to how they interacted with your webinar.

For instance, you will be able to segment webinar attendees based on:

• Whether they attended the webinar or not
• How long did they stay in the webinar? Did they leave early or did they stay till the end?
• If they did not watch the webinar at the allotted time, did they watch the replay?

This segmentation allows you to send targeted follow-up emails according to their behavior.

For instance, let’s say a webinar attendee left the webinar early.

In such a case, you can integrate your email marketing software with your automated webinar software in such a way that when this happens, this person can receive an email reminding them that they did not watch the whole webinar the first time around and asking them to register again or watch the replay.

These email software integrations are built-in and are very easy to execute.

Another benefit of using Automated webinars is that most software allow you to show time-based Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons that trigger when the video reaches a certain time stamp.

For instance, let’s say your automated webinar is 60 minutes long and you start talking about your product/service that you are offering at at the 45th minute mark.

You can set up your automated webinar in a way that the offer CTA button will be shown at the 45th minute in this example

This is great for conversions since your offer is only shown to the people who actually stayed till the end, which means it’s only shown to people who are really interested in what you showed in your webinar.

And the best part is that you can even segment webinar attendees on the basis of whether they saw the offer or not and whether they clicked on the offer or not.

For instance, if someone clicked on the offer but did not make the purchase, you can follow up with them and remind them again of finishing the purchase this time around.

The best part is that all this process is automated. Right from the webinar to the integration with the email marketing software for the follow-up emails.

Example of Automated or Evergreen Webinars

Here are some examples from my own business as well as some popular automated webinars by other popular marketers:

My own automated webinar for trainers.

Anton Kraly from Drop Ship lifestyle – Click here for his automated webinar

Harv Eker’s Zero to Multimillionaire automated webinar

How to Create an Automated or Evergreen Webinar?

To create an automated or evergreen webinar, you need to use a webinar software that allows this facility.

Later on in this article I will talk about which are some of the most popular automated webinar platforms.

But no matter which software you use, the process remains very similar. You will need to take the following steps:

• Upload the video recording on the platform
• Give a title for your automated webinar
• Specify the time-stamp at which your offer CTA will pop-up
• Integrate the segmentation feature (webinar attendee behavior) with your e-mail marketing software to automate the follow-up emails.
• Create the automated webinar registration page or embed the webinar registration box on your own landing page on your website

That’s it! Your automated webinar is all good to go!

Which are the best Automated or Evergreen webinar software or platforms?

Though there are more than 50 popular automated webinar platforms, I will talk about the ones that are really popular and used by some of the biggest marketers:

EverWebinar

EverWebinar is perhaps the most popular automated webinar software out there.

Unlike other platforms, this is specifically for Automated webinars only and you can’t use it conduct LIVE webinars.

The only downside is that there is no option to pay on a monthly basis. Well there actually is but the cost is ridiculously high ($99/month) and they don’t even advertise that openly.

You have to pay for it annually and the price currently is $499/month.

It’s actually one of the cheapest automated webinar platforms out there at about $41/month but you have to pay it together as a lump sum for the whole year.

It’s a fantastic software because it allows for every kind of webinar attendee behavior segmentation and integrates with all the popular email marketing software, thereby making the whole process seamless and automated.

EasyWebinar

EasyWebinar is probably the biggest competitor of EverWebinar.

The main difference is that EasyWebinar can also be used to conduct LIVE webinars.

Also, you can pay monthly. Currently the price is $78/month for the Standard Plan.

One thing to note is that Easy Webinar doesn’t allow you to host your recorded video on their own server.

So you’ll have to upload it on YouTube or Vimeo and then embed it in their software.

The segmentation, automation and integration features are almost identical to Ever Webinar.

Stealth Seminar

Stealth Seminar is another popular platform that allows you to conduct both LIVE as well as automated webinars.

At $69.95/month, it’s slightly cheaper than Easy Webinar.

WebinarKit (One-time fee)

Webinarkit is probably the most price-friendly automated webinar platform because it has a one-time fee of $72.

No other automated webinar platform gives a one-time fee.

Now to be frank I have never heard of any popular marketer using this software so I am not sure.

Most reviews I saw on YouTube were unknown people who were talking good things about it but I took that with a pinch of salt since they were aggressively promoting their affiliate link.

But if you are budget strapped or are a complete beginner and just want to experiment with and get a feel for automated webinars, giving this a go may not be such a bad idea especially considering the fact that it is a one-time fee.

Automated or Evergreen Webinar Funnel

A lot of people unnecessarily make the automated webinar marketing funnel very complex.

I like to keep my automated webinar very simple and more importantly, as automated as possible.

Here are the steps:

Promotion

I use Facebook ads to generate traffic and send it to my automated webinar registration page. Here’s how one of my ad looks like:

Using Facebook ads quickly generates a lot of sign-ups for your automated webinar. In my course Online Course Launchpad, I show you in detail how to create and run Facebook ads to sell your online courses and webinars.

Now the best part about an automated webinar is that it is evergreen in nature. Which means that it is not time-bound like an actual LIVE webinar.

So you can even promote it using organic means too. For instance, when I create my social media posts or YouTube videos, I usually leave a link for the registration page. Check out my Instagram account to get an idea.

The link always stays relevant since the automated webinar can be watched any time.

Post-registration

I set up my automated webinar is such a way that once someone registers for the webinar, they are redirected to a Thank You Page where I inform them that they webinar link has been sent to their email.

This automated welcome email which contains the unique webinar link for the attendee can be set up inside the webinar software.

Reminder Emails

I send three reminder emails –

• One that goes 4 hours before the webinar starts
• Another that goes 1 hour before
• And finally the last one that goes 15 minutes before

Again, this is automated and can be set up easily inside any automated webinar software.

Post-Webinar

Like mentioned before, I mainly rely on the capability to segment attendees on their behaviors and then sending them targeted follow-up emails according to that segmentation.

This is done by setting up the integration feature in the automated webinar which ties up your email marketing software (I use Convertkit) with triggers related to the attendee behavior.

Here is how it looks like:

If someone registers but does not attend – An email is sent to them asking them to register again for the webinar. (Some people prefer to send the webinar replay instead).

If someone attends but leaves early – An email is sent to them asking them to watch the replay.

If someone stays long enough to see your offer (time triggered CTA button) but does not click or clicks but does not purchase – An e-mail is sent to them reminding them of the offer.

Facebook Retargeting ads

I also run Facebook retargeting ads for people who visited the offer page for my product but did not purchase.

These retargeting ads remind them of the offer again and are great for conversions.

In Online Course Launchpad, I show you how to set up retargeting ads in detail.

Here I’ve given a very basic follow-up system.

I don’t want to get into advanced automated webinar funnels since they can get a bit complex and as a beginner it may confuse you.

Automated or Evergreen Webinar Conversion Rate

Most people conduct webinars (LIVE or automated) with the purpose of selling their products or services.

Therefore knowing the conversion rate of an automated webinar is important.

The truth is that automated webinars are still not as popular as LIVE webinars and the variables are too large to correctly judge the average conversion rate.

But what is very clear is that automated webinars don’t convert as well as LIVE webinars.

And that is pretty obvious since you are not actively present to answer the questions of the attendees.

On an average, the conversion rate of a LIVE webinar is around 5 -15%. So if 100 people attend your LIVE webinar, you can expect 5 to 15 people to purchase your product/service on an average.

Automated webinars don’t come close to this.

You can expect to see a conversion rate of around 1 – 2% but again this can be more or less depending on:

• Your industry
• The quality of your recording
• The quality of your pitch (upsell)
• Your product/service and its price
• Your webinar funnel and follow-up system

But the main point is that the conversion rate will be usually lesser than a LIVE webinar.

So what you have to understand is that Automated webinars are actually better as lead generation mechanisms than conversion mechanisms, at least when we talk about immediate conversions.

Again, I’m not saying you should not focus on selling. I’m just saying that don’t be disappointed if you see less sales.

A lot of the sales from automated webinars come when the attendee has been nurtured further, i.e, weeks after watching the automated webinar.

What is a Semi-Automated or Hybrid Webinar?

Like the name suggests, a semi-automated or a Hybrid webinar type of webinar is a mix of a LIVE webinar and an automated webinar.

So the content is still a recording, just like in an automated webinar.

But the difference is that you are present during the webinar to answer the questions of your attendees.

Not all webinar software allow this functionality so make sure you check beforehand.

To be frank with you, I have never conducted this type of a webinar. Once I do, I will update this section.

Good Practices for Automated or Evergreen Webinars

As learned in this guide, Automated or Evergreen webinars are a very effective tool for a business.

But they have to be handled with care because if done incorrectly, they can distort the image of your brand.

So here are some important points to remember when it comes to Automated webinars:

Don’t try to pretend that your automated webinar is a LIVE webinar

This is a tricky point and you’ll often hear different opinions from different marketers.

I’m just presenting you mine.

A lot of automated webinar software give you very advance functionalities like a pre-defined simulated chat and a fake dynamic participant counter.

These tools are for people who want to fool their participants into thinking that the automated webinar is a LIVE webinar.

I’ve seen some very big companies use these tools.

I’m not a fan of them because an intelligent customer can easily spot the difference between a LIVE webinar and a recording.

And if they do, it will leave a very bad impression.

In fact, there have been times when I myself have not purchased a product or service if the host pretended that the webinar was a LIVE one.

Now, I also don’t suggest that you mention that it is an automated webinar.

My advice is to just not mention any thing.

But definitely avoid trying to fool the participant and don’t use any of those fake functionalities.

Keep your automated webinar short in length

Usually automated webinars are under 1 hour, unless done by experienced marketers.

Unlike a LIVE webinar, it can be difficult to keep the participant engaged for a long time if there is no active participation and engagement on their side.

So for beginners, the ideal length would be around 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Apart from keeping the participant from leaving the webinar, another reason to have a shorter webinar is to make sure more people see your offer which you present towards the end.

The more the number of people who see your offer, the more the likelihood of conversions.

Following up is important

As mentioned before, automated webinars usually don’t convert as well as LIVE webinars.

So the follow-up strategy becomes very important.

After someone has attended your webinar, don’t just forget about them.

Have a series of automated emails (at least a few) that keep going to these people even after the webinar. Don’t just aggressively sell in these emails. Give value too.

If you do LIVE webinars, then make sure you send these people an invitation. Getting a chance to interact with you personally may finally break the ice and make them trust your brand.

And as mentioned before when we discussed the automated webinar funnel, you should run retargeting ads on Facebook (Or Google) to keep reminding the participants of your offer.

Like mentioned before, a lot of people who watch your automated webinar will convert later on when they are more familiar with your brand.

So keep adding value and you’ll see better results in the long run.

Conclusion

I’m still surprised to see that as compared to LIVE webinars, very few people do automated webinars.

This is a fantastic thing because it means you will have a chance to stand out and present your offer in a way your competitors are not doing.

In case you need help with planning and setting up your automated webinar, you can take a one on one session with me and I would guide you through the entire process.

If you have any questions, do leave them in the comments below and I would be happy to help you out!

The post Understanding Automated or Evergreen Webinars – The Complete Guide appeared first on Click Trainers.

And there’s a good reason for that too. Let’s discuss this further before we start with the tutorial.

Why you should use Zoom to do a webinar?

Zoom is one of the most inexpensive ways to conduct a webinar.

There are other webinar software out there also but all of them are very expensive as compared to Zoom.

Now even Zoom itself has a webinar add-on which makes Zoom equally expensive to the other webinar software but the good news is that you don’t need the webinar add-on to do a webinar on Zoom.

You can simply use the default Zoom meeting software to conduct a meeting and turn the meeting into a webinar.

Okay so Zoom is cheap. That’s good. But is it also reliable?

Yes, absolutely.

Usually when something is cheap, we always think that it may have some flaws.

While using the basic Zoom meeting software does have some flaws and I will discuss those later on, reliability isn’t one of them.

Zoom is 100% reliable.

In fact there have been situations where my more expensive webinar software failed me during my LIVE webinars and I had to quickly move all participants over to Zoom.

Zoom rescued me so many times that I actually stopped using those expensive webinar software and started using only Zoom for my LIVE webinars.

So now that you know the reason as to why you should use Zoom, let’s get started with the tutorial.

How to do a webinar on Zoom (The Set up)

Creating a Zoom account

The first thing you will obviously need is a Zoom account.

For that the first thing you need to do is to download the Zoom software from here.

Under the “Zoom Client for Meeting” option, click on Download as shown below:

Once the Zoom app downloads and you have installed it, open the app and then click on Sign in and then on the Sign up button as shown below:

Finish the process of signing up. After you sign up, you will most probably see that Zoom takes you to the browser version of your profile (called the Zoom Web Portal).

You can close that and open up the app again and then sign in from there like shown in the image below:

I always find it’s easier to use Zoom from the app rather than the browser.

Creating a Meeting in Zoom

Ok so now that you are signed in inside the app, you will see the following screen:

Here click on the Home button on top and then you will see the following screen:

Here click on the Schedule button.

So what we are doing here is that we will actually be creating a meeting.

Now a meeting isn’t actually a webinar in itself.

Zoom basically designed the meetings feature so that small teams could set up quick meetings with each other.

But since Zoom allows 100 participants even on the free plan, we can use it to conduct a meeting for 100 people, which basically turns it into a webinar for 100 participants.

So one thing to note here is that in this article the term meeting or webinar means the same thing.

After clicking the Schedule button you will see a window like shown in the image below:

Now this window is very important because you will be choosing the different options and settings related to your meeting (webinar). So let’s go through each of these options:

Topic

This will be the title of your webinar. For example, How to Use Facebook ads to Sell Online Courses LIVE Webinar by Kush Sharma

Start and Duration

As the name suggests, this is where you will be mentioning the date, time and duration of the meeting.

This is important because ultimately when you share the link for the Zoom meeting, this date and time will be shown to your participants.

Also, a very important point to note here is that on the free plan, Zoom will only allow you to choose a meeting of a duration of 40 minutes. Which basically means that on the free plan, you will only be able to do a webinar for 40 minutes.

You will need to upgrade to the Pro plan to conduct webinars which are longer. And since webinars are usually at least 60 minutes long, you will most likely have to purchase the PRO plan at some point or other.

But only do that once you are comfortable with this whole process of setting up a webinar.

I will also talk about the pricing of Zoom plans in detail towards the ending of this tutorial.

Recurring Meeting

You can check this if you plan to do this webinar again and again but to be frank, I usually leave it unchecked.

Meeting ID

Leave this to “Generate Automatically“

Security

This setting is very important. You will see three options – Passcode, Waiting Room and Only Authenticated Users Can Join: Sign in to Zoom.

Let’s first see what each setting means and then we’ll see which one is the best:

Passcode: When you finish creating this meeting, you will receive a link for this meeting which you can share with your webinar participants.

If the Passcode option is unchecked, then you will also have to share the Passcode and your participants will have to enter that too join the meeting.

But if you check this option, then the Passcode gets embedded within the meeting link, which means that your participants only have to click on the meeting link to join your webinar.

We will be seeing how this meeting link with the embedded passcode actually looks later on.

I always leave this option checked since I don’t want my participants to perform an exta step of entering the Passcode.

So my suggestion would be to leave this checked.

Waiting Room: This is another important setting. If you leave this checked, then once your participant clicks on the meeting link to join the meeting, you will get a notification like “XYZ is attempting to join this meeting. Do you want to approve it?“. You will have to then click on “Yes” to approve it.

So you can keep this option checked in case you only want certain people to attend the webinar. For instance, let’s say you are doing a paid webinar and you only want those people to attend who have paid the fee.

Because a meeting link can be shared with anyone, this option will serve as a way to double-check that no one unauthorized is entering the webinar.

But the issue with this is if you have a lot of participants. For instance, most of my webinars are free and I take in hundreds of people.

Having to approve each person can be very time consuming and frustrating. So I usually leave this option unchecked.

I only check this option if I am doing a premium paid webinar.

I remember once I left this option checked by mistake for my free webinar and it was a nightmare because I had to keep approving hundreds of people and it really distracted me from focusing on conducting the webinar.

Only Authenticated Users Can Join: Sign in to Zoom – You can leave this option unchecked since a lot of your participants may not have signed in to Zoom. You just want them to click on the link and join.

So to summarize, for most people, just checking the Passcode option is enough.

Video

For this keep the Host option set to ON because most likely, you will want to be seen during the webinar.

For Participants, it’s completely your choice. I usually keep it OFF because I get hundreds of participants. But let’s say you are doing a webinar only for 10-15 people, then you want to keep it on so they can see each other too.

Audio

Here select Computer Audio since you will be using a USB microphone like the Blue Yeti which is plugged into your computer. Click here the full list of equipment I suggest using for a webinar.

Calendar

If you want to sync this meeting with your Google or Outlook calendar, then you can select the appropriate options.

What I usually do is that I keep this option set to Other Calendar and manually create a Google Calendar link for this webinar using a third party website and then I share that link with my participants. I will show you how to do this later on in this article.

Advanced Options

Here you will see a couple of options. Let’s got through them:

Allow Participants to Join Anytime – According to me, this option can sound confusing. Because you may feel that you should check this option so your participant can join late too.

But that’s not what it means.

The actual meaning of this option is that if you check it, your participants will be able to join the meeting even BEFORE you have started it. And that can look really unprofessional and even a bit embarrassing.

So make sure this is unchecked so your participants can only join after you have started the meeting/webinar.

If they click on the meeting link before you have started it, they will just see message which says that the meeting hasn’t started yet.

Mute Participants Upon Entry – By default, your participants can speak via microphone. While that is ok for a meeting, it is not ideal for a webinar. Because in a webinar, it’s usually just the host (you) talking. So make sure this is checked.

Automatically Record Meeting – If you select this option, then the meeting/webinar will be recorded. This is important if you have promised a recording to those who will not be able to attend the webinar.

You can also manually start and stop recording when the actual meeting is going on using the recording buttons which are present inside the Zoom meeting interface.

Approve or block entry for users from specific countries/regions – I have never used this setting so I always keep in unchecked.

That’s it!! Your meeting/webinar is set up perfectly!

Now click on Save and you will see a window open up like shown below:

Here you can see the meeting link under Join Zoom Meeting.

This is the most important thing you have to copy and keep with you.

This is the link you will be sharing with your webinar participants.

If you observe closely you will see that this link contains the password too (written as pwd).

That’s because we had chosen to embed the passcode within the link in the earlier steps.

You can ignore the rest of the things.

So now that our meeting is set up, let’s see how to exactly conduct the webinar after we start a meeting and inside the Zoom meeting interface.

Using the Zoom Meeting Interface to Conduct a Webinar

The first thing you would need to do is to share the meeting link with your participants.

Then open up the Zoom app and Log in.

Click on the Meetings tab at the top and then select your meeting and then click on Start as shown below:

This will start your meeting and you will see the meeting interface like shown below:

Now the participants will be able to join too and you will be able to see the number next to the option which says Participants.

In this interface, there are a couple of important things to do which can help you in your webinar. Let’s see some of these:

Participants and Chat

The first thing I like to do is to click on the Participants and the Chat option so that they open up on the right hand side, making it easier to view, like shown below:

Video Settings

The next thing I like to do is to click on the little arrow next to the option that says Video and then click on Video settings, like shown below:

Here I like to check the option that says Adjust for Low Light (brightens up the webcam footage) and if you wish you can even touch up your appearance using the slider. In case you want to select a different webcam, you can do that also.

Screen Sharing

For most people webinars aren’t just restricted to the host talking in front of the camera. You will also like to show your participants some kind of presentation or a demonstration of a tool or software.

For this purpose you will need to share your screen.

To do this, you can click on the Share Screen option as shown below:

The you will be asked to select the window that you want to share.

You can select “Screen“.

Now whatever you do on your computer will be visible to your participants.

One important thing to note is that when you share your screen, Zoom automatically enables a feature called as Annotations, which means that you are can draw things on the screen too.

But the issue is that it enables annotations for your participants too and if there are some mischievous participants, they can start drawing things which will be visible to everyone else.

So you can disable annotations for the participants by clicking on the toolbar at the top and Clicking on the More option and the right and then selecting Disable Annotation for Others as shown in the image below:

Ending the meeting/webinar

Finally, when your webinar finishes you can click on End button on the bottom right corner and then selecting End Meeting for All.

If the meeting was recorded, then the conversion process of the recorded meeting will immediately start and it will be saved on your computer.

Important things to know about using Zoom for Webinar

In this part I want to discuss some random but important things that you should know when using Zoom to conduct webinars.

Types of accounts and their limits

By default your Zoom account is the free account, called as the Basic Account. A Basic Account allows you to host meetings for up to 40 minutes and for up to 100 participants.

Since most webinars are more than 40 minutes in length, you will most likely have to upgrade at some point to the PRO Account, which is the cheapest paid account that Zoom offers. You can see the cost in the image below:

The main upgrade here is that you will be able to conduct meetings for up to 30 hours. So basically, the length of your webinar won’t be an issue.

But the participants limit still remains 100.

If you want to increase the participant limit, then Zoom offers add-on packages called Large Meetings, which enable you to increase the limit to 500 or 1000 participants.

Of course, there is an additional recurring fee for that which is added on top of your PRO account fee.

I won’t get into the details of that now since most people here won’t be needing till they become more used to doing webinars.

Using Zooms Registration Forms

Webinars are usually done for the purpose of lead generation and then selling products/services at the end of the webinar.

Therefore you need to capture your your prospects e-mail address when they register for your webinar.

Now usually this process is done by having a landing page on your website with an opt-in form that is connected to your email marketing software.

Once someone registers you can set up your email marketing software in a way that it delivers them an email with the Zoom meeting link.

But you can also use Zooms own registration form if you want to keep things simple as a beginner.

This can be done by logging in to the browser version of your account by going here. This is called as the Zoom Web Portal. It will look something like this:

Here, click on Meetings on the left and either hover over the name of an existing meeting to find the Edit button or click on Schedule a Meeting to create a new meeting.

Now you will see options similar to what we had seen before when we created the meeting via the Zoom app.

But this time you will notice that there is an additional option which says Registration, as shown below:

Here, check the box next to Required.

Then scroll down and save the meeting. Now you will be able to see the registration link as shown below:

When you click on this link, it will open up the registration form in another tab, like shown below:

You can share this link with your participants.

If you wish, you can even edit this registration form a bit by going on the previous page (the page with the registration link) and scrolling down and clicking on the Branding option, like shown in the image below:

Generating a Google Calendar Link for Your Zoom Webinar

Like mentioned before in the article, I like to create the Google Calendar link separately for my Zoom webinars and then share this link with my participants so they can mark this webinar event on their Google Calendar..

This makes sure that they receive a reminder from Google and thereby increasing their likelihood of attending the webinar.

To create this Google Calendar link, you can use this website. You will see a page like this:

Just fill up the details and click on the Generate button. You will get a very long URL that you can shorten by using a service like Bitly.

So that’s it!

That’s the whole process of how to do a webinar on Zoom.

If you want to learn more about doing webinars to sell your online courses, products, services, etc, then make sure you check out my course Online Course Launchpad, where I even cover the part about how to market and sell your webinars.

In case you have any questions, do leave them in the comments below and I will be happy to answer them.

The post How to do a Webinar on Zoom – The Complete Guide appeared first on Click Trainers.

Having a fully booked webinar is a dream come true and can do wonders for the sales of your online courses, products and services.

Did you know that 2-5% of the people who attend your webinars eventually end up buying something from you? (Source: This article)

The best part about webinars is that unlike other lead generation mechanisms, they allow you to personally interact with your audience, thereby improving your relationship with your prospects and enhancing your personal brand.

But the problem is that it’s not very easy to sell the webinar seats.

Unless you are already an influencer and have a large following, it can be difficult to get enough people to register for your webinar.

So what is the solution?

The solution is that in order for you to sell your webinar, you have to first understand that there are different kinds of webinars and each requires a different kind of strategy.

Let’s look at the different types of webinars:

Free Webinars

As the name suggests, these webinars offer free registration. Your prospect doesn’t have to pay for the webinar seat.

These webinars are usually done for the purpose of lead generation. The sales usually come at the end of the webinar when you pitch your main product or service (called as an Upsell ).

For example, you can see the free webinar which I use myself.

Paid Webinars

Paid Webinars are of two types:

1. Paid webinars related to lead generation – These are similar to the free webinars that we discussed above. The only difference is that instead of a free seat, a small price like Rs.99 is charged so as to get more qualified leads. Qualified leads convert better when it comes to the upsell. You can read my comparison of Free vs Paid Webinars to see more differences.
2. Premium Webinars – This type of a webinar is conducted in order to generate income directly from the webinar fee. Here the charges for attending the webinar are much higher since it is like main product. So this is a like a premium webinar. Its main purpose is generating revenue, not leads.

So that is the first thing. You have to decide what kind of webinar will you be conducting.

The most popular type of webinars are the lead generation webinars since the main purpose of a webinar should be to educate the audience about your main product or service and then make an offer at the end.

Premium webinars are usually done for leads that have already been generated as well as nurtured and are already familiar with your brand.

Trying to advertise a premium webinar to an audience which is not familiar with your brand (referred to as cold audience) can lead to very less conversions.

But advertising a lead generation webinar to a cold audience works well since you are not charging them. Even if you are charging something like Rs.99, it is still a low amount and even a cold audience will not mind paying for it.

So we come back to the question – How to sell my webinar?

Now you can see the first part of the answer is that you should select the type of webinar correctly. For cold audience, select lead generation webinar. For warm audience, you can conduct a premium webinar.

Now the second part of the answer.

Once you have chosen the type of webinar, you will have to find a way to advertise the webinar.

Again, unless you already have a huge email list or social media following, you will usually require paid advertising because you need to sell your webinar quickly.

So which is the number one way to advertise your webinar?

The answer is using Facebook ads.

You can see an example image from one of my own Facebook ads for one of my webinars:

The reason why Facebook ads work very well for selling webinars is that you can quickly reach out to a large number of people in a very short amount of time.

For instance, my LIVE webinars are usually on a Sunday and I advertise on three days – Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Just advertising on these three days makes my ads reach out to around 40,000 people and gets me around 300 registrants for my webinar.

There is no way I can reach out to so many people using organic (free) methods of promotion.

In my course Online Course Launchpad, I show you the step-by-step process of creating and using Facebook ads for selling webinars and online courses.

If you are charging a small registration fee, then you may have to spend more while advertising. But that extra cost is usually worth it because people who pay even a small amount to attend your webinar convert more when it comes to your upsell. So you can easily make that money back.

When you are a complete beginner, I always suggest you to start off things with a free webinar as it’s much easier to market.

Also when it comes to selling webinars, there is one crucial thing you need to know, which is the attendance rate of a webinar.

Attendance rate of a webinar

Just because someone registered for your webinar, it does not mean they will attend it too when the webinar actually takes place.

This is especially true if you are doing a completely free webinar.

The average attendance rate for a free webinar ranges from 15-25%. Which means if 100 people register for your webinar, only 15-25 will actually show up on the webinar day.

You can dramatically increase this attendance rate by also adding these people to a WhatsApp group to give them reminders.

But the point is that not everyone will attend.

So in order to have a fully booked webinar, always take more registrants than your target booking capacity.

This is especially true for free webinars. If people are paying a small amount to register then the average attendance rate increases to around 95%. That’s another advantage of charging a small free for the webinar.

Conclusion

Creating and selling webinars is a great skill that can really take your business to the next level.

But just like any other skill, you need to practice it.

And there are two things to practice here – selling or marketing your webinar so it fills up and also conducting your webinar eventually.

Once you get better at both these skills, you’ll have one of most powerful tools to grow your business.

Check out Online Course Launchpad, where I teach you how to conduct as well as market your webinars and online courses.

The post How to Sell Your Webinar So It’s Fully Booked Every Time appeared first on Click Trainers.

I have just released a brand new short course on Udemy called 10 Laws of Online Entrepreneurship and Digital Marketing.

For the next 4 days, it will be free and you can get it by using the link below:

​Laws of Online Entrepreneurship and Digital Marketing​

After 4 days, this course will be turned into a paid course so make sure you get your hands on it as soon as possible.

This is a course which will forever be updated since I plan to create 100 laws.

This is a very important course because each law will teach you an important principle to follow when it comes to running an online business.

I hope you like this course.

Don’t forget to give me a review on Udemy when it asks you.

P.S – I’m also soon starting the development of a new online course which will deal with the topic of using a Green Screen.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post Get my new course for FREE appeared first on Click Trainers.

Do you want to know the secret of marketing and selling products/online courses?

There’s no secret.

I just wrote that headline to get you to open this email.

That itself is a good tip by the way. Always write sexy headlines. DO NOT BE BORING IN ANYTHING YOU DO!!!!

But since you’ve opened up this email, I want to tell you the only three things you need to know about marketing:

1. Develop a quality lead magnet (something that is free and gives value)
2. At the end of the lead magnet, talk about your main product (make soft offers and don’t be pushy).
3. Market the hell out of this system

This is all you need to know.

For example, in the last 9 years of being an entrepreneur, I have tried over 250 lead magnets, right from free e-books to free short courses to free webinars to free consultations to free workshops, etc.

Here’s the important thing though.

Your lead magnet can change but your URL of the lead magnet should not.

For example, at Click Trainers, my lead magnet itself changes sometimes but the URL is always www.clicktrainers.net/training​

You can make such a URL using a redirection plugin (I use Pretty Links plugin in WordPress)

The reason behind this is that you will share this URL everywhere. Right from your business cards to your social media accounts to your email signatures to Facebook ads etc.

So it’s important that you have a common redirected and shortened URL so you are not changing it every time even if the actual lead magnet changes.

This one URL will become your entire life.

You will market it so much that sometimes it will mess up your personal life too.

For example, when I go to Starbucks, the following conversations are common:

Starbucks staff – “Sir, which coffee would you like today?”

Me – “I’m not sure about that but you must go to www.clicktrainers.net/training”

Starbucks staff – “What???!!”

The more you spread this link everywhere, the more people come inside the TOFU (Top of the funnel).

​

TOFU = Awareness

The more people who come into the TOFU, the more will come out at the bottom (BOFU).

BOFU = Purchase

Most people only concentrate on BOFU but that strategy never works in the long run.

The only way to build a sustainable business is to concentrate on TOFU.

The better you get at TOFU marketing, the more your business will grow.

This is the reason why your Facebook feed is always full of those annoying ads related to webinars.

This is the reason why Netflix gives you a free trial first.

This is the reason why you get a heavy discount on your first Zomato order.

This is the reason why gyms let you workout free for 2-3 days.

That’s why in Online Course Launchpad, I focus so much on creating a lead magnet course first.

Give them a little taste first. Offer the full menu later.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post The Secret of Selling Online Courses appeared first on Click Trainers.

I’m down with the damn flu again. Second time in the last 25 days.

My sanitized fingers are crossed.

But this period always presents me with an opportunity to try out new things.

This week has been pretty exciting since I have really started using automated webinars with full seriousness.

I had used them before but never really gave them priority.

You can check out my automated webinar here.

Till now I have had decent results.

Of course, automated webinars never convert as well as LIVE webinars but they are amazing for lead generation. I have generated almost 400 new leads in just 5 days and it’s currently converting at around 2-3 sales/day (with a high ad spend though).

The second thing I am experimenting with is creating ONE Facebook ad with multiple interests in it (called stacked interests).

Usually I create multiple ad sets with a single interest each to see which one does better.

But that often drains the budget quickly since you are allocating the same budget to each ad set.

So this time I am trying to put all the interests in one ad set and seeing if it performs well by letting the Facebook algorithm do its thing.

It’s been just a day but till now the results have not been good but then you really can’t say anything with Facebook ads till you let them run for 4 to 5 days at least.

If it works, it will MASSIVELY reduce my ad spend so I will definitely keep you updated.

And finally…finally….finally..I changed my Facebook page cover photo to something presentable LOL. Have a look at it here.

Another thing I’ll probably experiment with is mixing ginger honey lemon tea with Old Monk to fight this flu but I’ll keep the results of that to myself.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post New experiments with Automated Webinars and Facebook ads.. appeared first on Click Trainers.

One of the most common questions I get from my students is:

Should I use Wix or WordPress for my coaching business website?

The answer is simple – Use WordPress

Why?

Because when your website needs to become more advanced and some special functionalities have to be put in, most of the software out there have built-in integrations with WordPress, not Wix.

Using Wix is like buying one of those bikes which have no service centers and spare parts available near you. When your website needs upgrading or you are facing some technical issues, you will be stuck.

In my photography coaching business, I actually recommend Wix to my students as you can see in this video.

But that’s because photographers don’t need anything more than a static display page.

For them, the website is just a page to showcase their talent.

But for online coaches. things are different.

Your website is a great tool for marketing.

It needs to have the best optimized landing pages and some important plugins in order to increase the conversions for your online courses.

That’s why in Online Course Launchpad, I have a whole module dedicated to building a professional website.

Yes, WordPress may have a (slightly) longer learning curve than Wix, but take it from me – Things that have a longer learning curve usually deliver better results and save you a lot more money in the long run.

And for god’s sake, don’t even think about the third option that all fake gurus are promoting, a.k.a, CLICK FUNNELSSSSSS. They only tell you to buy that because they get 40% commission from the sale (every month too).

P.S – If you’re a new subscriber, I maintain a list of my previous emails here.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post WordPress vs Wix – Which is better for your online coaching website? appeared first on Click Trainers.