BONUS DROP! Amy Porterfield Shares Webinar Engagement SECRETS!| Ep. 371

0:01Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast for marketers. Each episode is packed with quick tips. They're super short, and at the end, we have some fun. Let's jump into it, and thanks for being here. So we're releasing this special bonus episode, and this is something we've never done before, so it's a test. I had the opportunity recently to sit down and do a fireside chat with Amy Porterfield to really ask her everything I want to know about how she drives so much value out of webinars and boot camps and small in-person live events that she does, because she really has built an incredible business tapping into these things.

0:38And for a lot of people, webinar attendance is down, registrations is down. So this, what she shares is amazing. And if you don't know Amy, she is a powerhouse. Her podcast, the Amy Porterfield show has over 60 million downloads. She is the person in the world of digital courses. She's the number one person on the planet. She has a zillion followers. She's had over 90 ,000 students take her courses and she's just awesome. She's a bestselling author of Two Week Notice. So I hope that you get a lot of value out of all of her methods, all of her stuff. And hopefully you like this format of an episode because we have a lot of cool discussions like this we might share in the future.

1:17So let me know. And here it is. I've attended so much of your stuff and you just do everything differently. You do. And that's what I want to dig into. So enough of all the fluff stuff. I want to get right into it so we don't lose any time here. So let's talk webinars first. even before I even get into webinars, do we love the word webinar? Are you like, is it like your favorite word? No. And I just recently read one of your newsletters that the word webinar we're not using. And I've been teaching my students that for a while. So I felt very validated, but it was something like if you use it, like conversions could go down by 30 % or something like that.

1:53So your newsletter is my favorite for the record. So I don't use the word newsletter. I use, I mean, sorry, webinar. I use the word masterclass. So masterclass also workshop works as well, but we're not using webinar externally. Yeah. I love that. And when you, I'm just curious, I'm off script already. That's terrible. When you use masterclass or workshop, do the registrants think it means something other than a webinar? Is it like a different content format? It's not a different content format, but because we've used webinar for so long. Like when I came on the scene 16 years ago, webinar was like the hot thing and everyone wanted to get on one, but you usually sell on a webinar.

2:32And so when they hear the word now, I think most people are keen to be like, oh, well, they're going to sell me something. So I'm not sure if it will be valuable, but a masterclass Oprah uses masterclass. And then of course, masterclass is a whole company. It just has an elevated feel to it. So whether you're only teaching or you're teaching and selling, I think it just creates a feeling of a better experience. I think it's so important that if everyone's not testing the name of the format of their event, right, they're missing one of the biggest variables that's out there. So one of the other things about, let's call them webinars, I know it's a bad word, but one of the things about your webinars, I always feel this need to show up live.

3:10There's something in your marketing, I don't know what it is, but everybody else's, I ignore, I don't show up, and I always want to show up to yours live. What is the secret sauce? What are you doing to get people to want to show up live? Okay, I love this question because to back up a little, when people show up live, your conversions are likely going to be better. And so a live experience, the perceived value of that is higher. So whatever you can do, if you're going to do it live, whatever you can do to get them on live is really important. So the first thing is a little bit controversial and you'll want to play with this.

3:43But Jay, you know how everyone gives a replay? They're like, yeah, if you can't show up live, get the replay. We really downplay the replay and sometimes we don't even offer one. And if you don't offer one, watch your show up definitely increase. And most people say they're going to watch a replay and they never do. Like it's a very small, small number of people who watch it. And so I kind of like the idea of no replay. we'll do two of them live. So you can have different dates and times, but your show up is going to increase. I don't always do that, but it definitely works. The other thing is, you go ahead.

4:18I want to know. Keep going. Okay. The other thing is that I always offer a show up live bonus. So in the, this is important when you place it or when you talk about it, it's in the marketing. So show up for my masterclass. And if you show up live, I will give you this free guide, cheat sheet, checklist, template, whatever it might be. So we always have a special bonus that the minute you show up live, we pin it to the top of the comments and you get it. And so we don't make them wait till the very end. We just say, show up live. We're going to give you this bonus. And that definitely increases show up as well.

4:51All right. Let me go backwards then for a second with the show up live thing. I'm curious. That's a great tactic. I love that. Do people, because you're giving out right away, right at the beginning, right? Do people just, okay, I showed up, I got the guide later, smell you later. Is that what they do or do they stay for the whole thing? So you would think that maybe that could happen. We've tracked this very closely. It just doesn't because people are too busy. They're not going to like stop their calendar just to get this like free guide and then peace out. Like they're genuinely interested and there's a benefit to being there.

5:21All right, I'll take advantage of that. So we tend to not see people bounce. However, some of my peers, they'll say, so glad you're here live. Wait till the end. I'll make sure to give you your freebie. So you could do either way. Okay. Now with this whole idea of maybe no on demand or not often on demand, in order for that to work, to get people to show up live, are you aggressively highlighting the fact that there is no on demand in your marketing? Absolutely. So if we decide not to do on demand or replay, we will make it very, very clear. There will be no replay. You have to show up live. That's why we're giving you several dates and times to do so, but make sure that you show up live.

5:59So it has to to be part of your marketing. And that's the secret sauce here. If you want people to get on live, it all is in the marketing, not necessarily just when they sign up, but when you're getting closer to the event, all the email communication. So another way we get people on live is we have a whole email sequence from the minute they sign up for the webinar to the day that I'm going live till 10 minutes before I go live. We have a series of emails, nothing aggressive, but enough to stay in their, stay in their attention the entire time all the way to the end. And here's a little secret.

6:34When people sign up for a webinar, if they sign up closer to the actual live date, they're more likely to show up. So if you think you want two weeks to fill up a webinar, your show up rate's going to be terrible. So we try to do like seven days before, usually not much more, maybe a few days before to test your ads, but a real good concentrated seven days tends to help your show up as well. So, so, uh, playing off of that, do you not start promoting a webinar until like two weeks out? Like if you have a webinar, you know, three months from now, will you wait till just two weeks before? Will you start even like further out?

7:08Oh yeah. We don't even talk about the webinar until about 10 days before the live webinar, but we do a lot of pre-launch work to get people in the right mindset and excited that something's coming. So we do a lot of work for pre-launch, but we don't mention that webinar until 10 days before. So what does that mean, pre-launch? Are you just start talking about the topic and then you say something, you actually say, get ready, something cool is coming? Okay. So a webinar, when you say webinar, Jay, do you typically mean you're going to sell on it? You're going to sell something at the end of the webinar?

7:39Yeah, I guess. Okay. Same, same. So let's talk about that. You could do webinars where you don't sell, but typically if it's a free webinar, you're going to sell something at the end. So if I'm going to sell something at the end of my webinar, let me give you an example for my own business. As you said, I teach people how to create digital courses. My program is Digital Course Academy. It's a$2 ,000 program. I offer it once a year and I offer it at the end of my live webinars. And so the webinar typically is something that they need to know before they're ever ready to buy, showing them the five steps it takes to create and launch a digital course or how to come up with your digital course topic and your price and your offer.

8:16Like it's something robust. That's the webinar. So at the end of the webinar, they're like, wait, this is exciting. I could do this. And I'll say, great, because your next step is to get inside my program. So that's the webinar in the course. The pre-launch to get people excited, I say to prime the pump, can happen 30 to 60 days before you ever open your webinar, which means if you open your webinar, if you go live, that's the day you're selling your course. We call it cart open. So that's the day you sell your course or your program or whatever you want to sell. So backing up to the pre-launch 30 to 60 days before you ever announce your webinar, you're priming the pump.

8:52If you think about what you want to sell on that webinar, think of all the objections you're going to get, all the reasons people won't buy, not enough time, not enough money. I don't have a topic for a digital course, so I would never get on a webinar about one because I could never create one. I help them come up with their topic in the pre-launch time. I do it through my podcast. I choose topics that will lead up to the webinar that make sense. I do it on all my social media. I sprinkle it in throughout the weeks. So if you look at 60 days before I do a webinar, if you look closely, you will see little breadcrumbs all the way to the webinar topic and the course I want to sell.

9:31Oh my God. I feel so unbelievably unorganized. I mean, that's because, because you know what, a lot of times it's like our webinar is this other thing and we're not talking about that topic leading into it, but that makes so much sense. Getting everybody on the same page. And again, this is off script, but is that because you have a content calendar that you're laying out for like a year and you're like, this is the plan? I'm not that good. So I am very mindful of when I do any kind of promotion. So I'll know, let's say it's January, I'll know the promotions I'm going to do throughout the year.

10:04And so if I'm going to do one in August, I'll back it up a little bit and say, okay, in June and July, I got to be creating content that makes sense for the webinar I want to do in August. So a promo calendar, at least to know what's coming down the pipeline, I think it makes it so much easier to convert when you get at least that organized. Okay. I got some work to do. I'll do it. I'm on it. I'm getting there. I'm kind of an organized queen, Jay. It's kind of. I know. I know you are very organized. I always feel like a slacker when I talk to you. So, all right. Right. But what about everybody else?

10:34So now you've got these people to show up, but you still, I mean, you're not getting like 95 % show up rates here, right? What are you doing with the other 50 % of the people that don't show up? Yeah. So on average, people are seeing around 30%, 35 % show up rate. So what about all the other people? Great question. So if I'm not doing replays, I will then email everybody who did not show up and say, you missed it, but I have one more live webinar coming up tomorrow. It's really soon. So you missed it. There's no replay. Here's another opportunity. And I get them to sign up for the new thing. Maybe as easy as just click here and you're automatically signed up because I've got your name and email, but we, that's what we do immediately after.

11:17But let's say I have a replay. This is, this is important to hear. So if you have a replay and you just did a webinar and a bunch of people didn't show up, the people that did show up, but did not buy the email you send them is about what you sold on the webinar. It's not a big, Hey, here's the replay. Why would they need it? They don't. But sometimes the mistake I see people make is send a blanket email to everyone who signed up for the webinar, whether they attended or not. Hey, we're doing another webinar or here's a replay. Makes no sense. So segmenting is where the money is. So everyone who was there, but didn't buy, we're going to introduce the program.

11:53And in the PS, maybe if you, if you want the replay, here it is because some people asked for it. Those who did not buy and didn't not attend. So of course they didn't buy. They're getting the welcome to the next, we call it an encore and having them do that. Now let's say they never get on a webinar. Okay. So there's a lot of people that don't want to get on a webinar. What I do is I send out what I call a sales booster email series. So after I email everyone and put on social media, come to my webinar and I do my, let's say two live webinars the next day, everyone who did not sign up for the webinar, but they are on my email list or a segmented group or whatever, they all get information about the actual course I sold.

12:36No more talk about a webinar, but it's a series of emails because I have to kind of introduce them to the product, use testimonials and tell stories. There's like three or four emails. We call it the sales booster email for a series that no one who signed up for a webinar. They all get it. If you didn't sign up for a webinar, you get it. So when you look at your Venn diagram of everybody that's signing up for the big one, the two thousand dollar program. Is it like a tiny fraction of people that didn't attend a webinar that actually then convert? Are they like almost just a tiny sliver? They are a tiny sliver there.

13:10Let me think about the last one. maybe 15%, maybe 15, maybe 20 on a good day that they did not sign up for a webinar. However, they did engage in something, a really good lead magnet that led into my topic. Sometimes I do a sneak peek of my program. And so they got to get module one and they could do a sneak peek of the program. Only 2 % of my audience buy my$2 ,000 program without ever being on a webinar or ever touching one of my freebies leading up to it. 2%, meaning almost nobody. So the work you do leading up to doing webinars and selling is so incredibly important. I think it's so important for everyone to hear because people think, oh, webinars, oh, nobody attends, nobody cares, or blah, blah, blah.

13:55Your whole business is really being driven by, you know, we're not calling them webinars, but essentially these webinars. And so the other thing I'm always curious about with your content is you actually provide a lot of free value. And I'm always like, is she giving away the store? Like, do you, do you like sit there and be like, okay, we can't talk about this because this is the good stuff for the paid people. Like, how do you delineate that? I have a formula. So what I teach my students and what I do myself is I always say there can be a 20 % overlap between what you sell and what you give away for free.

14:28So if you created a program, a product, a service, a mastermind, a membership, whatever, and that's what you want to sell, you can take 20 % of that and move it into webinars, freebies, cheat sheets, checklists, whatever you want. No one will ever say a word. No one cares. And we don't pay that much attention to things. So it's never an issue. But a lot of times people are like, well, I can't say that. That's in my course. You can, you can pull it out. Usually in your course, you're going to go deeper or your program or whatever, but absolutely you could take some of that out. But here's a really great webinar framework.

15:03Let's say I only know my example. So my example is I teach you how to create and launch a digital course inside my$2 ,000 program. My webinar tends to be here are the steps to take our steps you need to take to create and launch a course like big picture. Here's what it looks like. Here's some challenges you might have. None of it's the how it's more of the why and the what. And then the how is let me teach you how to do it step by step, get in my course. So it can be very much aligned. Right. One feeds into the other. I totally get that. So, all right. I couldn't be more off script. I sent Amy all these questions I wanted to ask her.

15:42For an organized girl, it makes me nervous, but I'm on my toes. I haven't looked at a single one. It's amazing. So, all right. One more random question before we get to live in-person events. Sometimes you charge for your webinars, which is like wild. Everyone listening, like I want to charge for a webinar. And then you charge, like, I think it's$37. All right. I think, or something like that. Does that work? What, what is$37? Like, is that your favorite number? Like what's going on here? Okay. So to get clear, I don't charge for my webinars, what I've done. And this is, this is a really big deal.

16:16So if you're multitasking, come back to us. Cause you want to hear this. A lot of times webinars alone don't work for a really big launch. If you're looking to make hundreds of thousands of dollars, webinars alone aren't going to cut it. For my new students who are just starting out, absolutely, webinars alone is where you start. But when you start to get bigger and start to do it more, you need a little bit more selling power behind it. So what I do is boot camps. And so the boot camps are usually about three days of training and then my master class. So three days of training, then my master class.

16:49The boot camps are$37 for a reason. when people pay, they pay attention. I used to do my, my bootcamps for free. I get like 10, 20 ,000 people in them. And then when I sold my conversions were tiny because they weren't in it for the right reason. Now, when you pay$37, it's a smaller group, but I can really focus on them, give them the attention they want. And I'm converting at like 25 % in the groups. And that's a very big number. Webinar is usually around 10, 12%. A bootcamp I'm converting at 25%. I've put in the work. I've done little trainings leading up to it. I've created a community. And the bootcamp can be just like for a week, but it's a community and you're teaching and you're live and then you're selling.

17:33And it feels so good because you have a connection with your audience. So I'm a big fan of a bootcamp that leads into a webinar for only the people in the bootcamp. Then you can do solo webinars out of the bootcamp for those who didn't sign up for it. I think that's so cool. And I know the word community is so overplayed now, but you really are able to kind of get a community of people that are invested because they spent the money. And did you like have to test a lot of different dollar amounts to land at 37? Do you start at like 99 and went down to 20? Like, was there math like science? You know, I learned how to do boot camps many, many years ago.

18:07And the guy who taught me suggested 37. It's always worked. My friend's doing one now for 27 and she's killing it. And I have another girlfriend that did it for 97. So I don't think that part really matters. Okay. Okay. Okay. I love all this. All right. So now I want to pivot to in-person events. All the people here, some of them put on a big in-person event. Some people only do online. Some people put on really small in-person events and you coming out of COVID before COVID, you were doing some in-person stuff. You took a break during COVID. Good idea. So nobody like died. And now we're back to a little in-person action.

18:41So what is your in-person playbook? What are you doing in person? What I'm doing in person is I've decided over the last two years that I've put together some mastermind groups or small groups. So I have a group of 30 women who are making about 500k and they want to hit their first million dollar year. So I call it the Millie Club and it's 30 women that get together with me for six months. I do an event at the beginning, an event at the end. And the reason I told you what the group was about, because when my groups are really focused on one very specific thing. The events are incredibly powerful.

19:14And so we'll do an event in Nashville. That's where I live. And I like the events where I live, so I don't have to travel. So two events in the beginning, one event in the beginning, it's two days. I find a venue that's kind of a little upscale because these women pay a lot to be in this group with me. And we create this beautiful experience over two days. Sometimes we'll have a dinner or a cocktail hour. I bring in special guests. We do a lot of round table discussions. People get into small groups. I do tons of Q and a very high touch point to me and to each other. And that tends to be the types of live events I'm putting on now.

19:49And they're incredible. I love them. I'm a bit of an introvert. So really big groups. I used to do them very big events. I always hate them. And then I love them afterwards, but I can really enjoy these smaller groups so much more. So is that something you want to do more of? Are you like, Oh, this is working. I'm doubling down on this. I'm going to go to every city in America and do 30 people. Heck no. But if more groups want to come to Nashville, I'm open for business. There you go. Amazing. So when you're setting up these small in-person events, is it like, okay, somebody goes, they check in, they get their badge and here's their agenda.

20:24Like what is kind of the Amy Porterfield experience when someone goes to a small event of yours? So, like I said, I like to choose a really kind of upscale venue. So it has a good vibe. Like I do some at the Soho house, which is kind of fancy here in Nashville. And so when they come, it's less conferencey. So we do some, we do name tags on the first day, but usually the second day is such a small group. Everyone knows each other, but usually they come in and I do a kind of a welcome presentation. And then the whole day is planned with speakers and workshop type things. But I recently learned from one of my friends, Stu McLaren, he said he took a facilitator training and someone that was teaching him said, get your group talking in the first 10 minutes with each other, not just with me.

21:07And so what I do now is I get in there, I welcome everyone and say, okay, by the way, I want you to get in small groups and I want you to answer this one question before we get started. So now they're all chatty and they're all women. So it's very easy to get them all very chatty. So everyone's talking and it just breaks down that awkwardness of not knowing the person next to you or feeling like you don't belong in the room. That's a big thing when you, especially big groups and small groups, a lot of people don't want to come out of their hotel room and get into the room. They're nervous. They don't like to network.

21:36They feel awkward. So anytime you can get them into communication and connection, they're going to feel a little bit less nervous right off the get go. So I love that tip to get them in conversation right away. Oh my God. I love that. And you know, something that I've learned from you and especially even during this session, which I think everybody could take from this is that everything you're talking about, you've been shrinking your audience, right? You're charging a$37 to get less people, not just the big tent. You're having these small intimate groups of 30 people because you get more out of it than the big people.

22:09That's a wild thing because you have this big thing going on. Zillions of people follow you and all, but it seems like you're very intentional about shrinking your audience. It's funny. I never thought about it that way, but you're absolutely right. And now that I think about it, I think when I first started doing it, It hit my ego a little because I had 20 ,000 people in a group. Look at me, all these people. And then the next time we did, it was like 6 ,000 when we said paid. And it hit my ego like, wait a second. Do people not want to get in my group anymore? What does this mean? What if people see I have less in the group?

22:38And then I thought, wait a second. That is not how I want to run my business. I don't want to run it by ego. I really genuinely care about the experience people have. And I want to make money. So I like both. And so I do believe you make more money when you curate the group. You're very mindful of who's in the group and the experience you'll give them. So smaller groups tend to make a whole lot more money for me than the big ones that kind of boost my ego a little. I think that's such an important takeaway in all aspects for any marketing anybody's doing. People have an ego about the size of their email database.

23:12They don't want to take off people that haven't engaged because we'll shrink it or we need our event to have this many people. but your playbook is the opposite. And obviously it's working. I think that's so cool. Yeah, I love that you pointed that out. I didn't realize that, but yeah, it's a huge point of it. Isn't Amy awesome? Listen, she puts out a lot of great content and she didn't tell me to do this, but I'm just telling you, you're gonna wanna consume her stuff. If you go to amyporterfield.com slash newsletter, you can get her on her amazing email newsletter. And her podcast is absolutely one of the best podcasts on the planet.