I know I promised I’d talk about doing your marketing planning for 2018. But heavens to Betsy. I just recently had four webinars that made me want to speak out and warn you how NOT to do a webinar.
Don’t Fake The Background
I’ve started doing YouTube videos lately, and they’re fun. But it’s not always easy to clean up my office and close my closet doors. I have a yarn habit for my knitting that sometimes gets a bit extreme. But I digress. So instead of trying to shove everything in, I hung some peach colored fabric. (I have a sewing habit too)
I use Camtasia 2 on my Mac. It has a nice built-in camera and it’s easier to record video on it than on my Chromebook. But I can’t move my Mac downstairs like I can a Chromebook. So I set up the backdrop to test the ability to “green screen.” It’s a work in progress.
But there’s a huge difference in cleaning up the background and faking the background.
I was on two webinars that were pre-recorded. By the way…most webinars you’re on are going to be pre-recorded. You’ll see someone saying something like “let me just switch to a different camera” or whatever, and they’re just turning on the recording. I don’t mind that, honestly. I’d prefer if it were more authentic and you could go watch it on demand rather than trying to find some time when it’s being played.
And always put in controls. Please. I sometimes want to skip your “about me” section and get right into the meat.
The marketer slash salesperson would say that the intro is important for building up know/like/trust. I get it. I really do. But if I already know you, I want to skip it.
So on one webinar that was supposed to be a lot of free information, the background was a grand study with lots of books in the background. It’s nice, but I didn’t buy it. And the webinar disappointed me because the interviews with the bigwigs turned into a love fest. “oh, remember when we met. And you said this. haha. yes, that was so funny.”
This should be its own heading but don’t waste my time. I’m there to hear what you promised. Make sure you’re delivering it. (I was on another one today where I gave up after 25 minutes. Yeah, I can’t believe I gave 25 minutes of my life to a webinar that never got to the point.)
The second delivered the goods. It was amazing. The person used a fancy car background. I thought it was a bit over the top. It’s so 00’s to show a big house and a car. I think the market is over that. Then I was checking him out (do your research on everyone.). I saw in his YouTube videos, he had the exact same car in the background. It hadn’t moved & it still shined in the same places. Therefore, it was a fake background.
Maybe it’s a big joke kind of thing with his tribe. But if you’re trying to bring people into your tribe, think about how they would react to it.
Be There When You Say You Will
So, my other webinar today seemed to do things right. It had a 6 day email series leading up to the event. I was engaged. I was excited.
It was supposed to be 1pm. Now, I thought it was 1pm Eastern Time and had that on my calendar. None of the lead up emails had a link to the webinar. I did get one this morning that said I’d get an email right before the webinar with the link. Ok. Cool. I must have misunderstood & maybe it was 1pm Pacific.
Well, 1pm Pacific came and went.
2:48pm I get the email for “here’s the link!” and it also said that it was starting at 1pm Eastern on the dot. End quote.
I’m guessing their email person goofed and set it up for 4pm Pacific instead of 4pm Eastern. These things happen. It’s just surprising when it happens with a big name.
Always check your time zones in your email service provider before scheduling your emails.
In their defense, they started as a big love fest and I thought “I’m done.” They provided an option to read the transcript instead of quitting. Which I did. It’s a sales gimick. I should have known.
It’s refreshing when someone puts on an information only webinar to help their tribe. I’m going to start doing FB lives on the FB page, and I’m starting to build up my YouTube channel. I want to have the information there when you need it. Sign up to my email list and you’ll be the first to know when a video goes live or when I’m about to hop on to Facebook.