A whop­ping 70% of B2B cus­tomers and researchers are watch­ing videos through­out their path to pur­chase. Things are sim­i­lar on the B2C front, too, with 88% of con­sumers admit­ting that they’ve been con­vinced to buy a prod­uct or ser­vice by watch­ing a brand’s video.

Webi­na­rs, in par­tic­u­lar, have a con­ver­sion rate of 55%, and when com­bined with an effec­tive sales fun­nel, the results are a game-changer.

We’ll be look­ing at what an auto­mat­ed webi­nar sales fun­nel is and how you can use it to gen­er­ate traf­fic, nur­ture leads, and boost your con­ver­sion rate.

The mes­sage is clear: if you’re not incor­po­rat­ing video into your sales fun­nel, you’re los­ing out.

What is an automated webinar sales funnel?

An auto­mat­ed webi­nar is a pre-record­ed web sem­i­nar that you can set to run as often as you like. A sales fun­nel is the jour­ney that cus­tomers take from hear­ing about your prod­uct or ser­vice offer­ing to actu­al­ly buy­ing it. So, an auto­mat­ed webi­nar sales fun­nel is essen­tial­ly a round-the-clock webi­nar strat­e­gy that attracts and inspires cus­tomers to buy your products.

Here’s why you should be mak­ing use of webi­na­rs to opti­mise your sales fun­nels:

Higher engagement

Due to their on-demand nature, the aver­age atten­dance rate of auto­mat­ed webi­na­rs is 65%, which is 31% to 46% high­er than the indus­try aver­age for live webi­na­rs. Addi­tion­al­ly, 72% of cus­tomers pre­fer watch­ing a video over read­ing text, mak­ing an auto­mat­ed webi­nar sales fun­nel eas­i­er to engage with and there­fore be a cat­a­lyst for more conversions.

Immense value

Cus­tomers want excep­tion­al, orig­i­nal, and tar­get­ed con­tent — and they’re will­ing to reward brands for it with their loy­al­ty. Webi­na­rs can be a source of valu­able infor­ma­tion for poten­tial cus­tomers who are look­ing for more detail about your prod­uct, ser­vice, or company.

The wins don’t stop there; webi­na­rs also offer immense val­ue to busi­ness­es too. They inspire cus­tomer con­fi­dence and yield quick returns. A well-craft­ed webi­nar can turn a prospect into a pay­ing cus­tomer in under an hour.

Automation

Imag­ine being able to make sales all day, every day. That’s what a well-designed auto­mat­ed webi­nar sales fun­nel can do. Through a com­plete­ly auto­mat­ed process, you can take prospects on a per­son­alised jour­ney and con­vert them into pay­ing customers.

Automa­tion allows you to save time and resources. This means you can focus on reach­ing more leads, re-engag­ing cus­tomers, and turn­ing them into loy­al fans of your brand.

Higher quality lead

Approx­i­mate­ly 96% of vis­i­tors to your web­site aren’t ready to buy. But they might be will­ing to pro­vide their con­tact infor­ma­tion in exchange for valu­able con­tent. Enter webinars.

When it comes to cre­at­ing qual­i­fied leads, webi­na­rs are bet­ter than all oth­er chan­nels. This is because inter­est­ed cus­tomers must first reg­is­ter to attend. By sign­ing up and pro­vid­ing their details, they become high-qual­i­ty leads that are more like­ly to be nur­tured into conversion.

Powerful insights

The data gen­er­at­ed by sales fun­nels allows you to track a cus­tomer’s actions at every stage and deter­mine what real­ly works. An auto­mat­ed webi­nar sales fun­nel is no dif­fer­ent. With access to cus­tomer details and behav­iour, you have valu­able infor­ma­tion to lever­age. You can fol­low up, col­lect insights, or explore dif­fer­ent ways to con­vert them.

How to build a converting webinar funnel

So, how exact­ly do you build a con­vert­ing webi­nar fun­nel? Well, get­ting the most out of a webi­nar fun­nel involves fol­low­ing these key steps:

Step 1: Be clear about your goals

Con­vert­ing fun­nels start with clear intent. So, be clear about your goals. Whether it’s get­ting bet­ter leads or dri­ving more sales, nar­row­ing it down allows you to focus your efforts.

Step 2: Understand your target audience

Did you know that 73% of con­sumers report feel­ing frus­trat­ed when they’re offered con­tent that has noth­ing to do with them? Cus­tomers want rel­e­vant, use­ful infor­ma­tion and solu­tions that actu­al­ly solve their problems.

So, what are your cus­tomer pain points? How can you address them? What kind of con­tent do they respond to? A cus­tomer-cen­tric approach guar­an­tees bet­ter cus­tomer con­ver­sion and reten­tion rates.

Step 3: Tailor your message to your audience

Craft­ing a mes­sage that res­onates with your tar­get audi­ence is eas­i­er when you under­stand their frus­tra­tions. What sets your offer­ing apart from the com­pe­ti­tion? How does it address cus­tomer pain points? If your webi­nar sales fun­nel can help prospec­tive cus­tomers see exact­ly how to get what they want, you’re more like­ly to con­vert them.

Step 4: Prepare supporting content

Although your webi­nar is the star of the show, it must be sup­port­ed by com­pelling land­ing pages and a per­sua­sive email cam­paign to secure conversions.

Effec­tive land­ing pages build curios­i­ty and get peo­ple excit­ed to learn more about how you can solve their prob­lems. They also pro­vide clear CTAs and allow poten­tial cus­tomers to reg­is­ter for your webinar.

Pro­vid­ed you stick to best prac­tices like cap­ti­vat­ing head­lines, pow­er­ful intro­duc­tions, and clear CTAs, webi­nar land­ing page con­ver­sion rates can be as high as 51%. Mak­ing use of well-designed reg­is­tra­tion and thank you pages reduces bounce rates and fur­ther helps to build anticipation.

Send­ing emails to remind atten­dees of your event could increase atten­dance rates by 20% — which is great, but emails can do a lot more! Well-craft­ed pre-webi­nar emails can pro­vide addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion to poten­tial cus­tomers and get them excit­ed to join your webinar.

Step 5: Drive traffic to your landing pages

To dri­ve traf­fic to your fun­nel’s land­ing pages, you’ll need to use the insights you gath­ered in Step 2. How do you reach your tar­get audi­ence? What are their online habits? What­ev­er con­tent you use as part of your strat­e­gy should be rel­e­vant, engag­ing, and pro­vide clear CTAs.

Step 6: Focus on continuous improvement

Even if your first cam­paign meets your con­ver­sion goals, there’s always room for improve­ment. It’s impor­tant to remain respon­sive to your audi­ence’s chang­ing needs. By track­ing key met­rics and tweak­ing things, you can con­tin­u­al­ly opti­mise your con­ver­sion rates.

How to use the auto webinar automation in ClickFunnels

Once you’re ready to add an auto­mat­ed webi­nar sales fun­nel to your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, you’ll need a way to do so quick­ly and effi­cient­ly. That’s where Click­Fun­nels comes in.

Click­Fun­nels is an all-in-one online mar­ket­ing and sales plat­form that allows users to build and opti­mise sales and mar­ket­ing fun­nels. This is all done through key fea­tures, such as:

• Ful­ly cus­tomis­able tem­plates and a drag-and-drop builder
• Full email inte­gra­tion with any email mar­ket­ing software
• Automa­tion (Sales, Emails, Webinars)
• Pay­ment Gate­way Integrations

A lot of ele­ments go into a suc­cess­ful sales fun­nel. Thank­ful­ly, you don’t have to wor­ry about putting them togeth­er your­self. With Click­Fun­nels, you can launch your own auto­mat­ed webi­nar sales fun­nel in just a few clicks.

Here’s how to use the auto webi­nar automa­tion in Click­Fun­nels in 10 sim­ple steps:

1. Cre­ate a Click­Fun­nels account or have a pre-exist­ing and active account.

2. Have a con­tent plan plus an actu­al webinar.

3. On your dash­board, click on “Cre­ate New Funnel.”

4. Select “Host Webi­nar” and then “Webi­nar Replay.”

5. Give your fun­nel a name and click “Build Funnel.”

6. Select a tem­plate from Click­Fun­nels free cus­tomis­able tem­plates or buy a tem­plate from the Click­Fun­nels marketplace.

7. Use the drag-and-drop edi­tor to cus­tomise your funnel.

8. Add your webi­nar video.

9. Save your funnel.

10. Launch!

Though it’s super sim­ple, there are Click­Fun­nels experts that you can hire to cre­ate a cus­tom fun­nel if you prefer.

ClickFunnels pricing

If you’re look­ing to scale your busi­ness, the abil­i­ty to con­vert leads into pay­ing cus­tomers 24/7 is cer­tain­ly worth the investment.

A basic Click­Fun­nels account costs $97 per month. This will get you all the essen­tials: 20 fun­nels, 100 pages, 20,000 vis­i­tors and access to lim­it­ed fea­tures and support.

The Plat­inum account is $297 per month. This gives you access to the full Click­Fun­nels expe­ri­ence: unlim­it­ed fun­nels, fea­tures, and sup­port. With no lim­its to what you can do, it’s Click­Fun­nels’ most pop­u­lar plan.

You can opt for the annu­al billing option that saves you $194 per year on the stan­dard plan and $594 per year on the plat­inum plan.

You get a 14-day free tri­al with either plan when you first sign up, so you can give Click­Fun­nels a try before committing.

Mistakes that webinar hosts make

If you want to reap the ben­e­fits of an auto­mat­ed webi­nar sales fun­nel, avoid these com­mon mistakes:

Boring content

Atten­dees are look­ing for­ward to valu­able con­tent. Not mak­ing good on your promise or, worse yet, mak­ing them feel like they’ve been hood­winked isn’t the best way to start a rela­tion­ship, as you’ll lose cred­i­bil­i­ty. After aban­don­ing your webi­nar, they prob­a­bly won’t want to lis­ten to any­thing else you have to say.

Poor design and structure

A poor­ly designed pre­sen­ta­tion is anoth­er com­mon mis­take to avoid. Great visu­als are a must if you hope to keep atten­dees glued to their screens. Here are a few more things to focus on:

• Make use of a clear struc­ture to help atten­dees keep up with the salient points of your presentation.
• Pre­pare an engag­ing wel­come with a brief overview of what’s com­ing and what they can expect to learn from the webinar
• Pro­vide your brand sto­ry and make a per­son­al con­nec­tion with atten­dees before deliv­er­ing your con­tent or pitching.

Flat delivery

Atten­dees are less like­ly to aban­don your webi­nar if your pre­sen­ta­tion is inter­est­ing and deliv­ered well. When you’ve worked hard to get leads this far down your fun­nel, you don’t want them to aban­don your webi­nar because of flat deliv­ery. Con­fi­dent deliv­ery con­veys author­i­ty, builds trust, and inspires action.

Not providing a replay or an on-demand version

Accord­ing to cus­tomers, on-demand view­ing is the most valu­able addi­tion to a webi­na­r’s fea­tures. Often, cus­tomers want to go back to a pre­sen­ta­tion. If you’re try­ing to make high tick­et sales, this becomes even more impor­tant. Not pro­vid­ing a replay or on-demand ver­sion of your webi­nar can upset or frus­trate cus­tomers, as your con­tent becomes inaccessible.

How do you create an automated webinar?

Before you can auto­mate it, you must cre­ate it. Craft­ing a webi­nar that’s engag­ing and aligned with your objec­tives is cru­cial for con­nect­ing with poten­tial cus­tomers – and dri­ving conversions.

Finalise your content and structure

For a webi­nar that con­verts, ensure that your con­tent is use­ful, urgent, unique, and ultra-spe­cif­ic. Keep­ing these four ele­ments in mind helps deliv­er what you promised. It also ensures that you real­ly lean into your audi­ence’s pain points and hot buttons.

Record your webinar

After you’ve mapped out the struc­ture and con­tent of your webi­nar, you need to record it. Remem­ber to use good qual­i­ty equip­ment and soft­ware to cre­ate a qual­i­ty pre­sen­ta­tion. What’s great about pre-record­ing a webi­nar is that you can tweak things to make it perfect.

Repurpose a webinar

Alter­na­tive­ly, if you have a record­ing of a webi­nar you host­ed, you can repur­pose it.

Automate it

If you’re try­ing to gen­er­ate traf­fic, nur­ture leads, and boost your con­ver­sion rate through an auto­mat­ed webi­nar sales fun­nel, pick­ing the right plat­form is cru­cial. A plat­form like Click­Fun­nels can auto­mate sched­ul­ing, CTAs, sales, fol­low-ups and more.

Are webinars at the top of the funnel?

The goal of any suc­cess­ful dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy is to move poten­tial cus­tomers from the top of the fun­nel to the bot­tom of the funnel.

At the top of the fun­nel, you’re cre­at­ing aware­ness and more oppor­tu­ni­ties to nur­ture your audi­ence. Get­ting cus­tomers to pro­vide their con­tact infor­ma­tion in exchange for some kind of val­ue (like a webi­nar) so you can move them through the fun­nel is crucial.

In the mid­dle of the fun­nel, the focus is nur­tur­ing leads by pro­vid­ing valu­able con­tent (such as a webi­nar) that proves your author­i­ty and address­es their pain points.

At the bot­tom of the fun­nel, incen­tivis­ing and inspir­ing action should be your pri­or­i­ty. After all, a webi­nar is a per­fect place to offer poten­tial cus­tomers more val­ue. Atten­dees are more like­ly to buy what you’re sell­ing if you pro­vide them with time-sen­si­tive offers or discounts.

Evi­dent­ly, webi­na­rs are mar­ket­ing pow­er­hous­es that can pro­vide val­ue at every lev­el of a sales fun­nel. It’s no won­der they’re increas­ing­ly being used at all stages of the cus­tomer’s jour­ney. In fact, 60% of busi­ness­es use webi­na­rs for the pur­pose of mov­ing peo­ple through the cus­tomer lifecycle.

Does zoom do automated webinars?

Zoom does­n’t offer auto­mat­ed webi­nar func­tion­al­i­ty. How­ev­er, you can still make use of Zoom’s webi­nar fea­tures to host, record, and repur­pose live webinars.

Final thoughts

Whether it’s cre­at­ing aware­ness, con­vert­ing cus­tomers, or boost­ing your after-sales efforts, webi­na­rs are a valu­able addi­tion to any dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strategy.

Would you like to start mak­ing use of auto­mat­ed webi­nar sales fun­nels? To get expert help, why not book a fun­nel strat­e­gy call with us? You can get in touch via the but­ton below!