Growth

Strategies for small business growth with virtual events

Erin Cline

Updated: Jan 08, 2024 · 6 min read

Person on laptop in video meeting

“If by the end of this presentation you learned EXACTLY how to attract more new leads and sales AND how to automate those efforts to run 24/7… would you be happy?”

That’s exactly how EasyWebinar founder Casey Zeman started his presentation during our recent Keap + EasyWebinar event, Unleashing Growth: Strategies for scaling your business with virtual events. A question to which the chat lit up with a unanimous YES.

During this event, Casey covers:

  • How to use webinars to work less and sell more
  • Finding people to participate in your webinar
  • Using automation tools to sell while you sleep

Read on and watch the video for a recap of how Keap + EasyWebinar can help you scale your business and sell 24/7 (without working 24/7).

Virtual events aren’t just for selling

Casey walks us through how many uses there are for webinars — and, spoiler alert, these events aren’t just about selling. While selling is, of course, a major reason businesses use webinars, Casey lists lead generation, running virtual summits, and building trust as reasons why more businesses should be prioritizing a virtual events strategy.

“One thing that a lot of people don’t talk about is how you keep customers. Well, with webinars, you can actually keep customers around and lessen attrition by showing them more value up front, or lessen the fulfillment process by running workshops. And you can do all this with live webinars or automated webinars.”

However, Casey explains, entrepreneurs often don’t know where to start, or how to use webinars effectively. He says the success of your webinar comes down to two things.

“Sincerity and value. When we're talking about sincerity, we talk about a problem your customer is facing and you show how you overcame that problem with the solution. You prove the solution works by showing real world examples and testimonials. And then value. It's more about establishing solutions than selling. Give them the opportunity to see exactly what your product delivers for them. That's really important.”

What to say: Tell your story

Now that we’ve covered the main ways businesses can use virtual events, it’s time to choose a topic and structure the story you’ll tell in your next one. Casey tells us there’s a simple formula with three components: Problem, Solution, and Proof.

  • Problem: Describe the problem your customers are facing
  • Solution: Explain how your service or product solves the problem
  • Proof: Show examples of how your service or product has solved the problem

Casey explains that it’s important to center your customer in the story your webinar tells.

“You want to make sure it’s relatable to your audience. It’s not about, ‘Oh, we’ve been featured in this magazine and that magazine.’ Accolades are fine, but you have to lead with, ‘Here was my struggle and my solution, and here’s how it will also benefit you.’ People buy for two reasons: heart and logic. Your story connects with them on a heart level. The logic is the value that your product provides.”

Who to say it to: Niche down

Next, Casey tells us the importance of getting specific about who your customer is. This means determining characteristics such as age, gender, location, hobbies, lifestyle, political stance, career and more. This is necessary, because when you have competition in your market, you need to find the right niche to showcase your product or service to.

“The riches are in the niches, as they say, and that is very true, especially when you’re trying to find the blue ocean and you have high competition,” Casey says.

He shares that the more specific you are about your ideal customer, the easier it is to market directly to their preferences. But some business owners still don’t know how to bring those customers to their webinar in the first place.

Where to find attendees: Start with social

Casey suggests business owners begin by tapping into the power of social networks. Join Facebook groups that include your target customer and start sharing value there, then you can promote your webinar (as long as the group owner is OK with it!).

Then, of course, Casey mentions running Facebook ads.

“Niching down and running ads,” he says. “This is one way that our customers actually scale in a big way. Dave McCready and Amy McCready [of Positive Parenting Solutions] would not be able to scale if they didn’t run ads from Facebook.”

He goes on to explain how Keap fits into the equation by collecting all the attendee data on the backend so you know exactly who your customer is. “Those are really some of the most powerful tools and powerful capabilities,” he says.

Casey reminds us to keep expectations realistic, saying that a goal of 30 attendees is reasonable and attainable. What else should you expect?

“You want a 50% show-up rate [of registrants] and if you can do that, you’re doing good. 10% of the people who show up to the webinar, you want them to purchase… you don’t need to sell to everyone to have a successful webinar,” Casey says.

Automation is the key to small business growth

Casey also explains how EasyWebinar can help businesses sell 24/7 without a massive time commitment, and that’s with automation. He compares the difference between live webinars and automated webinars — while live webinars are engaging for the audience, they’re also time consuming, and success really depends on how many people actually show up.

On the other hand, automated webinars are available to watch 24/7 on demand — which may be more convenient for attendees — are easy to set up, and require very little time commitment from your team.

So, what’s the “secret sauce” for successfully using virtual events to grow your business?

“My ability to use Automated Webinars for nearly ALL of my sales, along with Keap’s campaign interface to track and optimize for scaling sales,” Casey shares.

But do automated webinars really convert to sales?

A third-party analysis from SegMetrics in 2015 showed that leads who registered for an automated webinar have been worth $81.05 each — 243% more than leads that came through via different means.

“Imagine being able to generate $5k, $10k, $50k more without doing more work,” Casey explains. “That’s the power of automation.”

So what can EasyWebinar do, exactly?

EasyWebinar was designed to do three things:

  1. Get you new customers
  2. Keep your customers
  3. Save you time and money

Casey goes on to explain the functionalities in EasyWebinar’s new Next product.

“It has a page builder tool in it; it has deep dive analytics, so you know your people from who registered, who showed, who no-showed, when they left, if they saw the offer before they left, where they’re from, demographics. We go very deep in knowing your people, because knowing informs all your sales and marketing decisions. And every key point that we have in this analytics section can be tagged in Keap.”

And how does it work with Keap?

This partnership of Keap + EasyWebinar is built to help you with:

  • Deep integration: Track segments and custom field data.
  • Segment marketing intelligently based on ads, lead sources, webinar activity and other behaviors.
  • Increase webinar attendance: Get up-to-the-minute automated reminders and follow-ups on your virtual events (only available for EasyWebinar users integrated with Keap).
  • Use automation to grow and expand your business, even when you’re not at work.

Watch the event replay for more from Casey Zeman, including a Q&A.

Need a system that integrates with EasyWebinar and helps you automate your business so you can sell 24/7? Check out a free trial of Keap today.

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