013 Hybrid Webinars - What, When, Who, Where, How?
In this livestream episode, we explore the ins and outs of hybrid webinars, including what they are, when to use them, and how they can fit into your marketing strategy.
This episode dives deep into hybrid webinars, breaking down how they combine live streaming and pre-recorded content for a seamless event experience. We’ll explore practical examples of when hybrid webinars work best and how they can save you time while engaging your audience.
We shed light on how hybrid webinars can become a game-changer for your business, allowing you to engage with your audience both live and through pre-recorded content. By incorporating a live Q&A, product launches, and client testimonials, you can reduce the fatigue of running multiple webinars while still providing value to your customers. The flexibility of hybrid webinars ensures that you can still provide the live engagement that builds trust, while the pre-recorded content guarantees consistency and saves time.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your webinar workload or struggling to maintain live engagements, consider experimenting with hybrid webinars. They might be the perfect solution to help you maintain high-quality content while minimizing burnout. Don't be afraid to test the waters with a hybrid setup and fine-tune it to your needs. And remember, every great marketing strategy starts with action, so take the plunge and start planning your hybrid webinar today!
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00:00 – Introduction and welcome message
02:40 – Acknowledging the challenges of the past week and addressing technical issues from the previous livestream
07:00 – Recap of past events and gearing up for upcoming holidays, Black Friday sales, and end-of-year strategies
12:00 – Introduction to today's topic: Hybrid Webinars – What, When, Who, Where, How
13:40 – Explaining the difference between hybrid webinars and hybrid events
16:00 – Exploring the live and pre-recorded components of hybrid webinars
21:28 – Sharing a story from a networking event about a client’s struggles with webinars and introducing hybrid webinars as a solution
27:00 – Discussing the setup of a hybrid webinar and its benefits, such as reducing fatigue and providing better audience engagement
33:30 – Reviewing the pros of using hybrid webinars for client success stories, product launches, and personal branding
39:00 – Examples of how hybrid webinars can be used in various business scenarios, including educational workshops, networking, and seasonal sales
49:16 – Discussing hybrid webinars in training series and online courses, plus the importance of testing and trial runs
53:42 – Wrapping up with final thoughts on using hybrid webinars for personal branding, reducing work fatigue, and maximizing audience reach
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2:40
zo wood G'day, and welcome to the video confidence connect with Your host, Zoe wood, the video, confidence coach. It has been an interesting week, and I'm here to tell you all about it. We hear we live stream weekly here at the video confidence connect every friday from 10 to 11am to be able to have a chance to answer your questions and your thoughts and your ideas about personal branding and the power of video. That is what we're here for, and that is why we're here today. Make sure to watch or listen to this live stream as it happens on LinkedIn or YouTube, and you can also watch the RE hashtag replay squad on those same channels as well. You can watch this after the fact, or sorry, I didn't look to myself for the first time. Thank you for oh, I am I'm red today. I don't know why I'm that red today. We'll see how we go. But thank you everyone for your patience over this past week. Oh, I forgot to mention you can also find more information on our website, VCC, dot training before I'd like to begin of today's festivities, I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the wadawurrung people of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians and land on which I conduct my business today. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and I stand with the traditional custodians of these lands in working towards a more equal future Aboriginal, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to face discrimination and disadvantage due to our country's colonial past. I stand with them and their fight against justice always was, always will be Aboriginal land, and for today, as you may guess by looking at me, because I do not feel well. It has been an interesting week. We have been we, meaning me, have been sick this week, and it is showing so I'm doing my best to make sure that I am here for you and making sure that I stand up while also being able to recover and. And make sure that I am doing my best for you. I would like to thank everyone who reached out to us regarding our live stream. Last week, we ran into a lot of technical difficulties. And once we finally got the stream up running, the sound wasn't running. And then once we finally got into it, figured out the sound issue, got everything going. The Internet cut off fly entire street for like, a good hour and a half, and then by the time that we had got going, it was already well past. I was tired, and so realistically, I want to thank everyone for sticking with us during that live stream. And for those who unable to visit. Don't worry, I've deleted that one, mainly just because I feel like it makes me look very, quite unprofessional that I can't run a live stream and but also it just it was cater Cove, you know, a domino effect of things going wrong for us at the video confidence coach. So do not worry. That happens to us too, and in these moments where you decide to just wipe this slate clean and start afresh, and I'm gonna do my best to look slightly less red today, combination of being sick and doing my best not to look sick for you guys. And I am very sick, but gotta say, makeups relatively on point. I'm may have gone a little bit overboard today, and that is okay, because I recently got review bombed on one of our videos. And my annoyance is that, mainly it's just throwing out my my algorithm and throwing out my numbers more than anything. Essentially, it was a bunch of old white men from the West, mainly America, on a Sunday morning my time, so Saturday morning their time getting very angry that I had opinions and wore makeup. So have fun with that. For everyone else, we are gearing up for Black Friday and Christmas shopping sales with my clients and my mentees. So if you have not thought about that yet. I would imagine that you should definitely be on your way for that. For those who offer product sales, you can definitely work within the bounds, but you might be slightly limited this year. You might need to start planning for next year. And for those of us who provide services, you may have a little bit more room to move, but you gotta act quickly, because everything starts kicking off. I think by the end of this month, speaking of by the end of this month, today, I am hosting an in person at the cafe go on belling Street in the Geelong CBD at one to 3pm today, the last Geelong podcasters event for the year. I've enjoyed running the in person cash ops this year, and it's been great to meet everyone in person who has been able to make it next year, we're looking to shake things up, both branding wise, but also in the work that we do. We're probably going to be running quarterly workshops, and we'll look into maybe providing more opportunities for podcasters in our group to collaborate and have opportunities there together. So if you are interested, if you're around the Geelong and honestly, Victorian region of Australia and you are a podcaster, make sure you join us on Facebook or LinkedIn, or join our email newsletter, where you can get all the details at once in your inbox. You can find all those details at Vcc dot training, slash Geelong podcasters, I have to remember to breathe a bit more than usual, because it has been a hell of a week for breathing. This week and last off. We are gearing up for 2025 I highly recommend, for those of us who are in the services based industry, I understand that right now, it is incredibly stressful. You can tell that by my face at the moment, it is quite stressful, and it can seem very distant to start thinking about 2025 but I would implore you to start thinking about next year and taking the necessary steps to start preparing yourself for when 2025 kicks in. What changes are you making? What are you continuing to doing for your business, and when it comes to your personal brand, what changes are you planning to make? Stagger them out over the year. Don't just say, hey, next year is going to be my year to grow myself on LinkedIn. Okay, how are you going to do that? What are your goals? What are your metrics? What exactly do you want to achieve? What are the numbers behind wanting to achieve that, and then breaking it down into quarters, then into thirds for those each of those quarters, and start breaking it down into manageable chunks for yourself, because by the 17th of January each year, that's when most people forget their New Year's resolutions and completely drop them. And I don't want to happen that for you, and I don't want that to happen to happen to you for your personal brand or your business, so start thinking about that. Now start chunking it down. Now give yourself a bit of time in your subconscious to start thinking out a plan, and by the time you hit 2025 you'll be ready to go. Thank you again for all your patience, and I think moving. Slightly Calm down, a bit, not entirely, but a little bit, and hopefully my breathing will kick in to a point where we can start doing this. Let's get started with today's first of two podcast episodes that we're going to be recording. I liked here at the video, confidence coach. Video, confidence connect, I should say which is what you're watching, if you're watching live, or how in the hashtag restream, I like to be able to take this opportunity to answer people's questions that I have during the week, or this opportunity to record podcast episodes or tutorials or whatever. Essentially, I need to help you out. I will take this opportunity each week to make time to do so. So today, we're going to do podcast episodes. We're going to do two podcast episodes. We're going to do starting off with hybrid webinars. I've had a couple people ask me about that in the past. Over the past couple of weeks, this week, as you can imagine, I have done no networking, no nothing. Just rest. Obviously, my other engagements, of course, continue to do and hello to all my mentees and coaching clients, but for everyone else, no no networking. Had to cancel a fair few of them this week. So what we're going to focus on is a question and an email I got over last week or week or two ago, which we are going to discuss in today's podcast about hybrid webinars, breaking down what they are seeing, if they're an option for you and your business, and what you can do to leverage them in your marketing strategy. And then I'm also going to touch on strong personal brand. How does it work? What is it and how do I break it down for the lovely gentleman at the networking event that I met either last week or the week before, you know who you are. I love you. Feel the Love. Let's get going. You
12:00
zo Welcome to the video, confidence coach, cast with your host. Zoe wood, the video confidence coach, and today we are talking hybrid webinars. What are they? When do I use them? Who are they for? Where do I even do them? Zoe, and usually the question I get asked, how? And today we're going to go for a fairly big, deep dive. So that's what today is all about. It's going to be a bit of a long podcast with subsequently longer show notes, with a nice detailed write up of how these events work. So all I want to do today is, if you're unaware of what hybrid webinars are, be able to bring them to your attention. So you can use this potentially in your marketing strategy as an option for you, or just be able to see and be able to pick up when other people are doing this themselves. If you don't want to use this as your strategy just yet, because when it comes to marketing, for example, you may see other people do things, and you think, I will never do that. Maybe when as you grow in your business, and you do other aspects, or want to get into other areas or cater to other people within your business, you might start marketing yourself slightly differently. So being able to be across all different examples of marketing, especially in the digital marketing world, is always a plus. So today we're going to discuss so let's start off with what a hybrid webinar setup is, or what a hybrid webinar is. So a hybrid webinar combines the live streamed and pre recorded content into one webinar, or one webinar event or what have you. Now, when I've discussed with the story time that I'm going to get to in a sec, I brought up the hybrid webinar idea, and my colleague initially thought that I meant hybrid event. So a hybrid event is when you incorporate both in person elements at an actual physical event and live stream components as well. So what I mean by that is people say, for example, hosting a panel show or a talk show or something that is like at a stage, while also having a live stream component where people can learn from what is being talked about on the stage and be able to fulfill polls ask questions without being actually in the room, asking those people of that event. In other words, so there is a difference between hybrid webinars and hybrid events, because that is the difference that I like to put in there. The reason I put that caveat in there is because when you say hybrid webinars, it's purely within the webinar context. Webinars, as you can imagine, are very much online processes that people are able to access, and having that then move it to a, say, an in person setting, it is now an event. You are doing it for more than just, you know, the camera on screen. You're doing it for both the people in the room and the live stream camera, which then is constitutes more of an event. If you get Madrid. It, and a good example of that is right now. So right now, I'm recording a doing my best to record a podcast episode, and I'm going to be putting this on the live stream as of next week, as I'm recording this right now. But for you, this is being live streamed right now. The reason that this is important, and for those who are not watching the live stream or watching this in a podcast, or listening to this in a podcast format. This is an example of a hybrid event, because currently, as it stands on the 15th of November 2024 my internet completely cocked itself and halfway through my stream, and it made things really difficult and really unhappy for me to work with. So what I'm doing now is taking that opportunity. I already put on my makeup, I already did all the notes, I already did everything. So what I'm doing is I'm just pre recording the stuff that I'm going to send out next week. And next week, I can do both a hybrid event of being able to have my intro and maybe record one episode and then follow up with the second episode, of course, I'm going to be informing my live stream viewers of that. I'm not going to be trying to hide anything from you, because why would I? But for those who are listening and watching now, as we go on through the description this hybrid webinars can include things like live Q and A sessions while other parts of the presentation or the interview are pre recorded to ensure quality and consistency, but also ease of use. So what I mean by this is, let's go to story time. So I was talking to a colleague this week at a networking event. Yes, you will see me at a lot of networking events, mainly in person, ones around the Geelong and Bellerin region. So if you see me, say hi, plenty of people do. So back to the story, though. So talking to a colleague at the moment, and it was clear that she was kind of like itching to talk to me. So we ended up walking off away from the group and having a chat. And she wanted to talk to me about, here is a problem I have. Zo I need you to help me come up with solutions. She is very straightforward in this way, and I thank you so much for that. In her ability to be like, Hey, this is what I need. I'm not beating around the bush. This is what I need from you. Instead of just like, hi, I need reassurance that I've made the right decision. She's like, No, I need solutions. I'm like, Cool. What is the problem? Her problem is, is that she's currently working with a marketer, a marketer currently based in the States, which for her is important, because most of her target market is based in the United States. So that cool, awesome. And this marketer has, I don't want to say accidentally, but more just like without really consulting this colleague of mine that they set up a whole bunch of webinar dates. So they've set up a whole bunch of pre recorded, so not pre recorded, a whole bunch of dates that are suited to us time, of course, that are helping to generate leads for her and to generate potential customers for her, which for the type of work that she does. Now, I'm not going to name names, but for the type of work she does, webinar does make sense. It is still a useful tool that actually delivers value, and especially in her particular niche. It's actually more beneficial than just saying, you know, being spoken at or being taught at a university or what have you. So this type of stuff works for her, and I'm not saying that webinars work for everyone, but webinars definitely work for her, and she's had success with them in the past. The problem that she was having is she can't cancel them because people have already booked in, people have already locked in, and she's already feeling quite tired and exhausted, and it was because this line of webinars that she's doing, she is very much an in person, live. She doesn't like to do a lot of pre recorded stuff, because it can feel very cheesy and a bit icky, because you're essentially lying to people, saying, Hey, I'm live and I'm talking to you right now. Even though you're not actually doing that, you're honestly just like, pre recording a generic enough webinar so that when people log in, they see the same webinar over and over again. Well, obviously these are new leads each time, but it can feel a little bit icky from the personal brand or the business owners point of view, because you're not giving people your actual attention. So she didn't want to do pre recorded webinars. So that idea was out of the window, but her worry was that she's already, you know, fairly consistent on the stuff that she's teaching, and she's quite tired, but she doesn't want to do pre recorded webinars. So we thought about it, we discussed it, and I proposed doing a hybrid webinar approach. Now, of course, after we dealt with the confusion that was, you know, do you mean a hybrid event? No, no. I mean hybrid webinars, where she where she is able to still have the live component, where she is a. Still able to, you know, rock up, show up, do what she needs, do what she does best. But when it comes to the meat and potatoes of the webinar, keeping in mind that this webinar is 45 minutes long, and she's doing about two of them a day in US time, which is weird, weird times for us in Australia. And she's doing two of them a day for, realistically, the next fortnight, and probably a bit more, leading up to Black Friday and Christmas and Thanksgiving and all the stuff that they have over there. So what she, what I proposed to her, is for the large chunk of what she does where it's the same presentation, same information. Pre record that section, but the intro, have it be live, answer people's questions, be live, then go into the presentation, and then for the last 10 minutes, which is usually Q and A, she likes to be challenged. She likes to have that opportunity to answer people's questions as they come up. That can be live too. Now, of course, that does require you to say, be there the whole time, but you don't need to be switched on the whole time. And that was something that she found very interesting and very engaging. And for those of us who have done webinars in the past or who regularly do webinars as part of their marketing strategy, this is actually quite desirable when it comes to a marketing strategy, because, yes, you would have to say, show up, maybe put some makeup on, and
21:28
like research and make sure you're awake and on top of the questions that people give. But you also have that opportunity to not constantly go back over and over and over and over the presentation that you've already give, probably already 1000 times before. So in this opportunity. So I said, we can do this. You can do this hybrid webinar option, and of course, you can be transparent with the people who are watching, saying, Hey, we're going to watch this presentation together. I'm going to be in the chat, and you continue to chat and engage the people who were there live while answering them as the presentation goes on. Or it's not necessarily hiding the fact, but because it's still you, it's still your voice and say, for example, if you've got relatively the same uniform, like the physical uniform that you wear, again, doesn't have to be a uniform, just the same color of shirt and the same make it start makeup style that you use, then you could easily then cut from your live, your live work, to the in to the virtual and then back again to the live with it, without it being too jarring for the listeners and people who are watching the webinar. And again, they are there to gain information they are there to gain an awareness of what you're trying to educate them on, and potentially have them become a lead of yours. So that's ultimately what's being exchanged their time and energy for your knowledge base and the effort and time that you're putting into it. So I do recommend being transparent. But I also understand, because it's a show at the end of the day, being able to lead seamlessly within those both recorded and live recorded factors can be quite useful to keep the attention and keep and make sure everything is on board. So when doing these type of hybrid webinars and a model that's incorporated in your overall marketing strategy, I highly recommend testing it out before going live with actual people. The webinars, for this particular example, with this colleague of mine, was divided into three sections, so we we essentially broke it down into a the first section would be her live streaming. Welcome everyone in doing and bringing everyone an intro into the subject. The middle section would be a live would sorry, would be a pre recorded presentation that enable people to interact with using polls, enable people to ask questions, making sure that we met, we answer these questions or specific questions at the end of the presentation, and provide some animations and some flair during that recorded session to keep people's attention, but also to just make it interesting for you as the person who is possibly watching or engaging with the chat at this time, and then in the third, in the third, third, then have that opportunity to answer all the questions that were asked during that pre recorded session, and be able to be live and genuine and actually look at those poll results with a bit more scrutiny, and have a bit more of an understanding of what people need from you, and of course, being able to point people directly into, say, for example, any podcasts, any areas of your website, or any resources that you have that will be very useful to them. And you can also do this as they are asking questions in chat. What I would do, and what I recommended to this colleague of mine was to have an alternate account that is a either a staff member or an assistant, so you're not just, it's not your name, like they're watching you in the live stream, but also you're answering the questions in the chat that can be a little bit jarring and a little bit like, what's what's going on when, of course, everything is up to par. Everything's up to snuff. I want to stress we are not lying to any of the people who are joining the webinar, but we're taking that opportunity to just okay, answer people's questions and do what they need to do without distracting them from the content that you are providing them at the end of the day. And these type of webinars, yes, like I said, she's got a fairly heavy schedule coming up regarding these webinars. It allows her to take breaks. It allows her to have these pre recorded sessions so that she can be on for a less period of at a time, that she can then put her energy and effort into that 10 minutes, into that five minutes, and into that 10 minutes at the end of the session, so that she is not draining herself by doing all of these multiple webinars. And because she's only doing these webinars, these hybrid webinars, for such a short amount of time, yes, two weeks is a very long amount of time, but short in the grand scheme of things, this allows her to a feel like that. She's, you know, in control. And also, once she finishes those webinars, then, from that point of view, she can then decide to do, I want to run, say, another series of these webinars where, sorry, a season of these webinars where she's just doing the whole thing again, or is she taking a break, working with the leads that she's able to acquire from this webinar series, or the offer that she was providing, and then six months later, do it all again, maybe pre record the presentation. So it can be a little bit different with the knowledge and information that you acquired from this round of webinars. And there you go, less stress and less overwhelm for you as both the proprietary and information, and it also allows you as someone who is possibly running your own tech because either maybe you don't have the cash flow just yet to have an assistant, or maybe because you're running a lot of webinars in a very short amount of time that it wasn't conducive for you to then pay someone else to help you with the admin or the technical side of it. Well then, using a hybrid approach. You could do it yourself, of course, again, always test these things. Always practice these things. And if you need to, or if you have a like a business colleague or someone that you work with that, you can just send them a message, saying, Hey, can you watch this? You know, test webinar. Let me know what you think, what things I need to change. And you, we always need someone like that, and if you don't reach out to me, and I'll be that person for you. So again, I want to stress that what we're doing here is both an equal share of being able to provide the attendees of these webinars engagement information and education on the subject to be able to have them walk away from the presentation with actual like education on the subject that you're teaching, as well as a next step, which is usually, most of the time, a contact. You take their offer, take your offer, book a session, whatever that next step is for them that call to action, but also, you're not just leaving them with a hey, you're dead to me. If you don't, you know, pay me money. You're also providing them that option of here are some next steps that you can do by yourself. Once you feel ready, once you feel confident, then you can come back. And maybe the offer is only available for a limited time, but your website will always be available. Your the services that you provide as a whole will always be available. And in my experience, that is more beneficial. What I mean by that is, I am not a fan of pressuring or, you know, providing like, you know, you only have 24 hours or 48 hours to access things, this thing forever. Now, of course, with my live streams, especially my free ones, that I provide, not outside of like my weekly live streams, but my events. Because I'm working with other providers, or I'm working with festivals or councils or whoever I'm working with, usually there is a little bit of constraint in regards to them saying, hey, the recording can only be available for 48 hours afterwards. I'm like, yep, that's fine, but most of the time I don't like to force people to like, you know, you only have this amount of time to take, take this offer. It's like, if it's not the right thing for you, now, that is okay. But of course, if I'm a little bit skipped, I'm a little bit like, if that has worked for you and your business, then feel free. I just don't like putting people under undue stress just to get something out of them, because if I am providing value, then they are going to come to me. They may not come to me like within the next 24 to 48 hours, but they're going to go away find how hard it is to do the stuff that I'm i. Um, you know, I taught it. I've taught them to do, or I help clients do, and then they're going to come back to me and say, Zo, I tried it didn't work. Help me. And I'm like, Cool, no worries. You give it yourself. And now, to be honest, I prefer clients like that, because they feel now appreciative, more appreciative of the work that you do, and a they're more likely to pay you on time and and to and do give you the deliverables that they need from you, but also it allows them to just not admit when they're wrong, but for you to be able to understand of like, Thank you for, you know, trusting me with the work that you're doing.
30:38
So here are some examples of ways that you can use hybrid webinars in your business or in your when growing your personal brand. And I've got eight examples here from you know, places that I have done with clients and mentees and with coaching clients I've done in the past. Not all of these have been hybrid webinars, but these very much all fit into the realm of the work that I've done in the past. So these are going to be fairly rapid fire, but if any of these relate to you, feel free to reach out to me and we can have a much more in depth chat about it. So first example is product launch. So for anyone who either runs a physical product store or a online product store, or even if it is a package or a bunch of services that you run together and a final product that you can hand people launching this especially if it is very of the moment, or it is something that is really in the zeitgeist of what your particular clientele want. Again, it's all for the customer at the end of the day. It's all for the client at the end of the day. So we want to be able to make sure that we let them know that the product is being launched. And you can use both a live and pre recorded segments to make sure that everything runs smoothly, that it is a live event. And then once the live event is done, you can provide the people who are actually on the hybrid webinar a chance to either get a discount or get special access, or future access or early access to the product. So then and then once you say, for example, give it two weeks, or give it a week again, depending on the time scales you're working with. Then after that product launch, or product launch, product launch webinar, you're able to then provide it to the open market, to be able to take advantage of the product you are providing, and again, because at the end of the day, the webinar, as well as being an educational product, is also entertaining, is also meant to educate people on what they have and what they need. So in moments like that, to be able to provide them that option in a really polished format, both the live and the pre recorded stuff, makes it easier on you as the person creating this content, but also makes it easier on them, to be able to not get confused, not have issues like the internet, like I'm experiencing now. Why are you back on? My apologies, I'm looking at my internet and it's back on again. Was out for an hour, but now we're back on so in moments like that, you can then rely on the fact that you've already got pre recorded content that is able to negotiate. And of course, there are platforms that allow you to do this. Most are what I like to go, what I like to say as to go platforms. So we're talking about your stream yards, your Riversides, your restreams, your descripts, your OBS. Open broadcasting software is a free platform that you can use. There is a little bit of a learning curve that you would have to take, as you would with any program. I do personally find that it is the most consistent and also it's free to access so so again, back to the examples here. Zo focus, also with pre recorded stuff, you don't have to worry about losing focus because you've got time. And when it comes to pre recorded stuff, you may not have the opportunity to edit because it will look very weird for a live stream to be edited. But you can use the opportunity of say, for example, if you've already got elements created that say cut between say, one type of screen to another, then you can use that opportunity to say, have different cuts. So again, back to the example, Zo focus. So another example is an educational workshop or training, being able to provide a pre recorded tutorial or instructional segment for the consistency and the quality of it, and then also then follow up in that same session with the questions and an interactive practice that you have obtained from people asking questions during that training. Part, again, very much like the example I mentioned earlier on in this episode. You can also use this opportunity in these hybrid webinars to I wouldn't say this be the entire hybrid webinar, but you can use maybe a section. This to be able to provide client success stories or testimonials, I highly recommend using this format in your say, regular live streams, if that is what you do, to be able to take breaks and take pauses and essentially put add ad options or ad services or ad segments within your own content to prevent people from getting stale of watching your same face. Now I apologize for the people who are watching my face, but hopefully you are dealing with it, and those opportunities to be able to, you know, put in these customer success success stories, my apologies. I was at the slip at the time and again, these pre recorded testimonials are not just going to be of you, they're going to be of your clients. They're going to build trust and credibility. And credibility. And you can sprinkle these in throughout either live segments that you have in these hybrid webinars, or maybe just to, like, bookend the pre recorded stuff, for example, to be able to allow people to say, hey, we're just about to begin welcome everyone in, mention some names that are in the chat, and then cut to a testimonial that is about 30 seconds, 60 seconds long. Then go into the training, training train, and then mention that, you know, we're going to answer people's questions, or, like the really key poor piece of information after you know in that is going to be spoken in the Live section that is next. And then they watch another testimonial, get on board, and then they go to the questions. Now when it comes to webinars, I'm going to stress this now that there is a high probability that people are going to be dropping off, who are going to be losing interest. Because when it comes to consuming content on the internet, there is a world around us. There are kids around us, there are pets around us, there are significant others around us. There is always distractions. So when people leave a webinar, do not worry, it is not a reflection of you or your brand or the type of person that you are. Things just happen. And those people are usually people, especially if they're engaged or interested enough to join a webinar and give you their email address and hopefully their phone number, they're going to be likely to follow up and watch the restream. They're going to watch the not restream. What's the word? They're going to watch the recording that you may or may not provide for them? Again, being able to provide options for people, because some stuff happens. The Internet goes out, for example, like today, you can also use the live sections of this example of client success stories and testimonials to be able to have live sessions with the business owner or the team in a Q and A and deeper insights. Aspect of being able to refer back to the testimonial that people just watched and thanking the person who provided the testimonial, while also being able to outline saying, hey, the example that we showed before, that was of Greg. Greg's testimonial is relating to the example that we showed in today's presentation. That is how we were able to achieve that goal for them, everything is connected. So the next example I have for you is networking or meet up on Meet and Greet events. So again, these webinars are less strictly educational, because I'm trying to provide you more examples than just talking about webinars, which are mainly educational, but to be able to have these pre recorded events that are in a webinar style, that allow you to introduce key team members or special guests. Example of this very heavily, is your Spotify, your restream, your Riverside, all of all these Apple podcasts, they have these user exclusive webinars that introduce people to products, to services, to team members that enable that have both the live stream and the pre recorded content aspects to be able to allow people to get more information about what they need. Now, of course, with the Spotify and the apple podcast, these are very large companies, and you can't expect everyone to contact one single person when they have a problem. But in those events, when you are, say, a smaller business, because I say a majority of businesses are smaller than those juggernauts, to be able to use live streams and to be able to use these webinars in that live stream component, to be able to showcase your key team members or special guests or maybe particular staff that you have on board to fix issues regarding either an issue within your business or issue within the industry. You can also take this opportunity using programs like zoom or Jitsi or a couple of other platforms that allow breakup rooms so that people are able to have discussion sessions during the webinar that people can talk with these staff members, with these people that are really important. And in the event that you do not have staff members, or if you do not have anyone that you could realistically run this type of event with, you can still use that opportunity
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to be able to. To like, for example, have a select group of people that at the end of the webinar, that people have put in their information into a chat bot that essentially says, you know, the five people get a chance to have a one on one set like to get to have a group coaching session with me right after today's webinar, and pulse them out into a breaking break room. Someone else can take care of everyone else, especially for something as complicated as this. And people gain value. They gain interest, and because they've won in almost like a lottery type scenario, they're more likely to be engaged and to hopefully buy from you. But also you can help them, because you are able to focus on five people instead of 200 if you catch my drift, a next example for you is seasonal campaigns or sales events, very much like Amazon shopping live, Tiktok, live, all of these other platforms. Now, of course, throughout this podcast, I am using live stream and webinars interchangeably, a little bit here, mainly just because you can do all these a lot of these examples with the pre recorded aspect of a webinar and a live stream aspect of a webinar. You can also use this in a live stream format that is seen by more people. A Webinar is more of a closed system, in the sense of people want to see a webinar, they need to provide their name, email address, at bare minimum, a live stream. However, is a lot more open that people can just stumble upon it, access it, or, in my case, like to leave me a whole bunch of hate comments about how I look, because they've got nothing else better to do on a Saturday night. So in those events now, of course, I want to stress. I'm going to do a podcast about that in the future. Do not worry. Do not stress. I am perfectly fine. It's okay, and you will be too, because old people, it's like old, sad, old sad people on the internet can do whatever they need to do, but again, focusing on what we need to do. So for example, like these Amazon and Tiktok lives, who are very much selling their wares, they can use both a pre recorded aspect and a live stream aspect to showcase holiday specials, limited offers, features. For example, they may not be able to show the insides of a phone, but they can use a pre recorded segment that shows you the insides of a phone in a very nice graphical format, which I don't think you'll be able to do live. So using those pre recorded aspects to then get people on board, so that they can see more of what they're purchasing, and then also provide that opportunity to then have that Q and A with those customers answering their questions, showcasing the quality of the products. But also encourage into encourage immediate engagement, because the more engagement that you get, especially on those sales platforms, specifically, the more people who are going to stumble upon your lives and hopefully buy from you. A next example for you is personal brand launch or rebranding announcement, again, with a closed group. So we're talking webinars here with a closed group of people. These can be people who have worked with you in the past, who've already got their email list. And it can be very exclusive. It can be very, you know, only no homers in the tree house type group no Homers. We can have a Homer, just not a Homers. And in that opportunity, you can use a pre recorded segment that is a brand story or behind the scenes to reframe your journey of launching a personal brand in an online setting, again a rebranding journey, and then using that live component to be able to answer questions and foster a sense of community, because it is exclusive, because again, it is in that webinar format, which again, can also contribute to lives, and in those events where you are launching or doing a big rebrand, to be able to have an in person element does layer a lot of extra factors on top of it, which you may not have the energy, time, money or people power to deal with. So having a webinar as an option is a slightly easier option, so you're not too overwhelmed on being able to run an in person event as well as a live stream event and running pre recorded segments at the same time, it just layers and layers and layers when all you want to do is let people know that you've rebranded, you've changed direction. This is a big thing for you. Awesome. Next example that I have for you is a training series or an online courses that are available in a webinar format, again, closed community here, compared to, say, my off the cuff live streams, which I run every weekday on a Friday, from 10 to 11pm win, quick match, nudge, the pre recorded sections can be the instructional the content, the learning content that people can, you know, do what, easily and simply, and then again, have those large, those Q A sessions to clarify any doubts and support participants as they're going through this training series. Because this won't be just one, because it's, like I said, courses and series, it's going to be a longer process. Of not just one webinar. So to be able to provide those opportunities for people to be there as it goes live, so again, watch the webinar as it goes live, and then they're able to consume the content, you know, 2448 hours after the fact, but, but, but it also allows you, as the creator, to keep that recording and the information that you gained and the insights that you gained from your community, to then have that as a standalone course or itself, where you're not mentioning that it's going live in a webinar format, you're able to then provide that as something that you can then hand over to potentially new customers as an online course that people are going to pay money for. Now, I would, personally, when it comes to online courses, do a lot more research than you think you need to, because online courses are very much in that realm of very overdone. It was very, it was a very 2010s thing to do, to do online courses and to grow money, but it very much showcased a lot of the gurus, the shills, the people who don't exactly know what they're talking about. They Yeah, it didn't. It doesn't have as much sway as it used to in the 2010s now, I'm not saying that online courses are dead, or, like all those training stuff is dead. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is, for your particular niche, they may already be wary and tired when it comes to online courses, so make sure you keep that in mind when you are looking into doing that as a form of marketing for your business, it is always an option. But is it an option because you think it is, or is it an option because your clients think it is? And if your clients think it is, then you're on right track. And the last example that I'm going to give you in this mammoth episode, this podcast episode, is providing case studies or industry insights for clients. So you can use this opportunity to provide the analytics and the insights of those industry trends in that pre recorded section of the webinar, and then you could have a expert panel to discuss and expand on those topics, um topics, of those topics in real time after that pre recorded section that laying the ground rules under um, laying, making sure it is clear for everyone what exactly you're talking about. So Can that be five to 10 minutes? And then the rest of the webinar session will be these live experts discussing what was presented in that first pre recorded section, because you are providing people that ground level work so everyone is on the same level, so that they get more out of that webinar to in turn, buy from you in the future, because they're confident what you do. Again, I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot in this podcast episode, but that is just me repeating a lot of what the mantra that I do in my marketing and the work that I do. So hopefully, after all that we've talked about today in this podcast episode, do you think hybrid webinars can work for you and your small business? Do you think hybrid webinars can work for you and your personal brand? Do you think that they're not going to work for you ever? Or is it a they might work for me in the future if I invest more time into it? Or is it something that you could realistically do now, because when it comes to the challenge or the how hard it can be to do once you get a hold of a tech operator, or, to be honest, maybe follow like two or three tutorials on various tools. Find a tool that you feel comfortable with, do a bit of a trial run with it. You know, go the 14 day, seven day, free trial. Have a crack at it. See how you go, send a couple of examples. So record yourself doing what you need to do. Send a couple examples out to other say, to marketers, or to friends or colleagues that you have in the business world, or maybe even people who are your target market, and see what they think. And then if you need to, sorry, not if you need to, if you're getting all good feedback and like you're getting thumbs up from there, then from there, you can realistically go, Okay, I'm going to pay for this for the next I'm going to pay for this tool for the next month. I'm going to do a series of these, you know, webinars. Sorry, I'm going to do a season of these webinars. So
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the reason that I specify a difference between series and seasons a series is a chronological process. So for example, like a Siri, a training series where you have a one, a, two, A, three, a, four and a season. When it comes to webinars, is that you have a strict period of time. For example, two weeks, you're going to be running webinars once a day for two weeks over that season, over that period of time, and then from there, you're going to be able to look at your metrics, have a much clearer idea of the type of people that you get on board, the people who are actually going through your pipeline, who are actually going to be coming into leads. And of course, you're not going to get everyone on a stress. This isn't a this is a very much near top of funnel when it comes to. Marketing work that you do, it's going to bring in a lot of people who maybe never heard of you before, and you're going to have to maybe do a lot more work to nurture them and nurture their contacts to before they start to buy from you. But that is not always going to be the case for every single person that you get on board. And over that season, over that say, again, a week, two weeks, however long, you're able to look at your numbers, and you're also able to get a better idea for yourself about Did I enjoy doing this? Did I enjoy the webinar experience? Did I absolutely loathe it? Did I absolutely hate it? Then maybe don't do that again, or maybe find other ways of going around it, so say, for example, maybe the hybrid webinars was your best performing way of getting leads, and everything worked fine, only a couple of technical hiccups, and you haven't lost any clients and you've gained a crap ton more, then maybe You should keep doing it, and in the event that you, for example, enjoy doing it, then give yourself, say, another month, I'm going to pay for the tool again for another month, doing it again in a month, and we'll see how we go. And then, when it comes to marketing, whatever you do to put your foot on the accelerator to get things to happen is your choice, and because it's marketing, is the work that you're doing to put yourself out there, to bring awareness to you and your brand and your business. It's all with it's all with you. So if you do not enjoy doing it, and you absolutely loathe it, but it is giving you awesome results, maybe do a little bit of soul searching and figuring out, okay, what exactly do I hate about it? Can I give this to someone else in my team? Can I realistically find a way to love it, or if it's a case that, like, I absolutely hate it, and what are you going to do? You're going to put that energy into finding something that you love that is going to give you better results than the thing that you hate. That is a tip from me and the people that I've been working with this week, because I do have a couple of clients who have not been who've been becoming tired of the way that they've been marketing their business at the moment, but it gets them leads, it gets them whatever thing to do. And I say, Cool, well in that time, yes, let's use this fatigue. Let's use this annoyance, I wouldn't say hate, but let's use this negative t or this spite is another way of putting it, to find another method that you enjoy, or maybe you just feel neutral on, and actually find that thing that gives you better quality leads, that gives you more leads, that actually does the marketing better for you, so you don't have to do the thing that you don't like. See, there is always an answer to everything. Thank you so much for joining me on the video confidence coach cast on this mammoth episode regarding hybrid webinars. Let me know what you think. If I talk too much, feel free to let me know that too you can always reach me on Zoe at VCC, dot training my email address, or you can check out our website. VCC at training, yeah. VCC, dot training for the website. It may have been a long day, but I will leave you to it. Hope you have a beautiful time. Bye and
53:42
thank you everyone for enjoying that mammoth episode on hybrid webinars. So that was probably a lot longer than I intended for it to go. To be honest, I didn't actually look at how long the episode is, because most of my podcast episodes, when I record them, are about 20 minutes. That was double that was 40. So hopefully you got a really clear idea of what hybrid, hybridized webinars could do for you and your personal brand, and if not, what you could use it maybe in the future, or aspects of it in the future, to be able to reduce the fatigue and workload from yourself and your team when if you have one, or when you're about to have one, as you can probably guess, that was pre recorded last week when everything went to absolute crap, but I already had the mindset that I was going to record, so I did. Thank you everyone for your well wishes this week, for everyone who's who knew I was sick before this live stream, the colors going slightly down. It's not going fully down, but it's getting there, and my voice has gotten has come back a lot more which thank you so much for everyone, for all your well wishes. And got to enjoy the rest of this week, we're going to cut our live stream off here. Thank you for all your comments. I've replied to them in the comments. Next week, we will touch on our. Strong personal brand, that podcast topic, and then also a second one, depending on the conversations that I have over this coming week. We are going to be gearing up for December and all of the stress and pain that brings. But I wish you the absolute best over this next week, and no worries. And whatever it is, you can do it. You are a bad business owner, and bad in a good like bad in the cool way, not in the bad in the bad way. You've got this.
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Who is your host?
Zoë Wood, your Video Confidence Coach connects the dots between personal branding and video marketing. Helping women and non-binary folk in small business, find their way in the world of marketing their passion without the energy drain.
Find out more about how to grow your personal brand with the power of video right here on vcc.training
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