I hosted my first webinar last month: 5 Hidden Utility Billing Errors Costing Your Business Thousands. Promoted it through LinkedIn and email. Got 35 registrations, 18 actually showed up, and 3 requested follow-up consultations. One of those is now a client. Thinking about making this a quarterly thing.
Using Webinars to Generate Leads
That's a solid conversion rate. What platform did you use? And how long was the presentation?
Used Zoom, 30 minutes plus 15 minutes for Q&A. I kept the content educational - actual examples of billing errors with dollar amounts - and only pitched my services in the last 2 minutes. The Q&A was where the real engagement happened. People started asking about their own bills and I could tell who was a serious prospect based on the specificity of their questions.
I tried a webinar a few years back and only got 6 people to show up. Felt like a waste. Maybe I didn't promote it enough. How much did you spend on promotion?
Zero dollars. All organic. I posted about it on LinkedIn 3 times over 2 weeks, sent an email to my contact list of about 200 people, and asked two clients to share it with their professional networks. The clients sharing it was probably the biggest driver - it came with a built-in endorsement.
Webinars are underused in our industry. Stuart's approach is textbook - educational content, not a sales pitch. The follow-up consultations are where you convert. I'd encourage anyone with 20+ contacts to try this. Even if only 10 people show up, if one becomes a client it's the best ROI you'll get on 2 hours of prep work.