How Eric and Neil Run Webinars - Choosing Topics, Promotional Tactics, and Follow-Up Strategies

In episode #2928, Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss effective strategies for promoting webinars, generating engaging topics, and utilizing the right platforms. They emphasize the importance of building long-term relationships in business and share insights on post-webinar follow-up strategies. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES (00:00) Promoting Webinars Effectively (03:12) Generating Engaging Webinar Topics (05:58) Choosing the Right Webinar Platforms (09:07) Building Long-Term Relationships in Business (11:52) Post-Webinar Strategies for Success (15:08) Navigating Economic Challenges in Business Prefer single topic episodes? Head over to our YouTube channel. To suggest a topic, go to https://www.marketingschool.io. For more content from Eric and Neil, check out Eric’s Leveling Up with Eric Siu YouTube channel and Neil’s Neil Patel YouTube channel. Connect with Us: Single Grain << Eric's ad agency NP Digital << Neil’s ad agency X @neilpatel, @ericosiu Instagram @neilpatel, @ericosiu Drop Us a Review If You Enjoyed the Episode!

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:34Speaker 01

  So, let's start all the way with how we promote, to platforms we use to get people on the webinar, to how we follow up. Let's break it down. So, do you want to start with how you promote your webinars?

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'll start first, and I'll give a caveat. Neil has a couple million, I think 2 million people on your email list, 3 million? Okay.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, hence I had you start first, because my way of promoting is just the email.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Exactly. Neil's, now, that might seem easy, oh, it's so easy for Neil, but like, he had to build that from zero, right? So, let's not take that away.

• 1:06Speaker 00

  And the way Neil did that, I'll let Neil explain that, but, for us, because we don't have a mega email list like that, we do rely pretty heavily on our email list, which is fine. Let's say it has, you know, I don't know, 30, 40,000 people on it, or something like that. But we do, I leverage the relationships I have. So, for example, if I do a webinar with Adam Robinson from RB2B, I know the webinar we did brought 500 people on it, like concurrent attendees. So, that's pretty good, right? And it's a B2B audience. And so, we'll try to find the right people that fit our audience, which is mostly B2B, or people that are interested in SEO, or people that are interested in like a tool like Carrot, for example. So, first and foremost, we're going to do a lot of outreach to these people, and try to do at least two of these per month, right? So, bi-weekly.

• 1:51Speaker 00

  And then, they promote it to their email list, we promote it to ours, and then, the way, and then I'll turn it over to you in a second, but the way we promote it to our email list is... We send an email the week before the webinar and then we send an email the day before. And then the day of, we send, um, I think we send it two hours before, an hour before and starting now. So there's basically five emails there that go out because people are busy. People lose track really quickly. Um, and then we try to text them to, um, where it's applicable. So.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Yes, the texting really does help. Uh, so similar to get people onto the list. Uh, what we do is we create content, guide people to ebooks, landing pages, quizzes where you're collecting emails. From there, you can end up using those to blast out. You can do cross promotions like Eric's saying, like joint webinars. That helps to getting people on, uh, the actual webinar. Um, another strategy that we do is every time we're going to do a webinar, we push it out a few weeks in advance on our social platforms to letting people know that, hey, we're hosting a webinar. Click here to sign up. Uh, you can also create videos on, let's say Instagram or any of these, um, social channels,

• 3:03Speaker 01

  promoting your webinar. Like if I'm doing one on SEO is dead, I'm just making it up. And I'm like, SEO is dying, you know, Google's losing, uh, look at their market share over time, but they're still getting videos or being still getting searches on a daily basis. Um, there are three things to change and I'm actually covering a webinar that's discussing these three things. If you want to join the webinar, just leave a comment with join. And then through tools like many chat, I can send them a link through direct message on how they can register for it. So those are the channels that we use to get people to a webinar. We've tried ads as well. Um, it becomes expensive and we tried to avoid that, but, um, the other channels work out quite nicely.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  I thought you still spend on the ads though.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Not ads for webinars.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  Got it. Um, should I get a chicken soup or a tortilla soup?

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Chicken noodle soup or chicken soup?

• 3:59Speaker 00

  It's just a regular chicken soup.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  I'll go for the chicken soup because you have gluten allergy if I'm not mistaken.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, great. So I'm just, as we're talking about this, I'm ordering, I'm ordering food, guys. So, okay. Now, we should talk about, in general, how we come up with topics for webinars. You guys do a good job of this. And the other thing I'll call out to is, not only do you run the webinar live, but you keep it evergreen too, correct?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Uh huh. How do you guys come up with topics for webinars?

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that's the first question. How do you come up with topics for webinars?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Oh, you're turning your back on me?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was asking you.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Oh, the way we come up with topics for webinars is we just run polls. So we go on social media, we run polls. If you don't have tons of social followers, you can do surveys on your website. You know, like SurveyMonkey or WooFor, not WooFor, SurveyMonkey, Hotjar, any of them. And just run a survey to find out what topics people are interested in. We usually pick the ones with the most amount of votes.

• 4:58Speaker 00

  Yep, yeah. So on our end, we send an email survey. And that's the best way we do it. And if you can, sometimes you can survey people on the call as well to see what they're interested in. That works too, just depending on how many people you have coming. The other thing we do to cheat is we also look at what other people are doing in the B2B space. Sometimes we'll even look at what Neil's webinars are running. And we just work off of that. And then we try to modify that way, right? So you don't necessarily have to try to come up with all the ideas from scratch yourself. And so I'll give a little bonus here. When we think about our YouTube ideas, we'll use a view stats, for example. We'll look at outliers that perform well, and then we'll come up with ideas that way. We'll find thumbnails that we like. We'll save them into a collection. And even when I come up with social ideas, like what I want to post, I'll look for formats that I like.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  And then I'll save it into a bookmarks folder. And that's how we come up with ideas. But you draw inspiration from different places. And then the key is you just keep iterating off of that.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yes, uh, and then what's next? Uh, webinar platforms? I think we both use Restream, right?

• 5:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, we use, yeah, we use Restream, but I got that from you. And then why do you like Restream so much?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Uh, one, it can, I can go live on all my social platforms at the same time on Restream. So that's really useful. They also have the feature in there where you can create QR codes and people, you know, can just scan the QR code during a webinar and you can drive them to landing page and collect a lead from it. So we'll announce that we're like, hey, if you want to work with us, scan the QR code and it tracks the QR code and how many people are scanning them and it displays a message of how many people have scanned them, which is really cool because it creates a little, uh, counter and that encourages more people to actually bust out their phone and use or scan the QR code. Um, the other thing that we like about Restream, and this is a new feature,

• 6:47Speaker 01

  they'll take your webinar and they can create short form clips with it. I don't know if you saw that feature. It was more recent.

• 6:53Speaker 00

  Do you, but do you actually do that?

• 6:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  I, I just, I don't find them that good. Yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Yes, that's a problem I have too. But for, I think a lot of people who don't do any content, I think it's something's better than nothing.

• 7:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  You have to keep in mind, you and I spend a lot of money on content production versus what most people are willing to spend.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  Well, let's also talk about the fact that the type of content that at least performs well for me, and I, I think this is the same for you too. When it comes to short form or long form video, especially short form, is when we have storage or when we have specific data to share. When we, when we don't tell a story, if we're just clipping from our podcast or even this, this, um, like a webinar that we're doing, um, it's, it's hard for people to pick up, um, because they're just jumping into a conversation. There's no story. There's, there's no background. So it's easy for them to just bounce away. So just keep that in mind, um, if you're going to do that.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yes, but Eric and I, we spend a lot of time brainstorming, scripting, content editing, uh, filming, and that's what helps us create decent quality content and helps us get the views, engagement and brand awareness. Uh, funny enough, we have one of Eric's, uh, old colleagues coming back and working with us again to help us film content, Noah, which I, I'm actually really happy about. Noah has a really good personality.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. And by the way, see, this is a good, this is a good lesson for you all. Neil and I, we have people that we've worked with for a very, very long time. Noah, I've worked with for seven, eight years or so. Um, and so my, my thing, and I think you're probably the same way, Neil. Once you're in with me, you're in, I'm gonna do whatever I can to help you. But if you don't like, someone said this the other day, I don't know if I told you this, but um, basically, I'm a 10 out of 10 empathy if, if you've provided value in some way, shape or form. I'm a one out of 10 empathy if all you've done is, is not add value and take. Um, so I'm sure you're the same way too.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, like Eric and I were on the phone the other day and we have a mutual friend named AJ. I've been using AJ for years for my social media content. Eric mentioned how they're not as good, and he's being neutral on this, like just general viewpoint. And I've already told AJ this months ago. Uh, they're not as good as the new people I'm using for editing. I totally agree with Eric. I even mentioned this to AJ. I don't think AJ will get there in editing quality. He just won't. I've tried multiple times over the years to get him to where I need him. He's just not going to. I haven't fired AJ. Why? Because he makes my life convenient from recording, showing up on time, bringing teleprompters when I need it, and just things flow

• 9:26Speaker 01

  without me wasting time. Like the last time I was in studio, I came, it was perfectly set up. I just go and record. And even with the scripts, they're just like, oh yeah, we moved all these filler lines. It'll just take your time. We know you're impatient and it's not necessary. And I was like, great. They just know me. So we tend to keep them. Noah's been really loyal. Once Eric didn't need him. Yes, you know, you let him go over time, but you still kept giving him business and we're going back to him and continue using him. His personality gels really well with you and I versus the last solution we used. The person did not have the personality that Noah did.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're, they're just very different people. And then, um, you know, obviously we, we, we love, we love both people that we worked with, but um, it's also a different perspective too, because when I told Noah, I said, hey, I'm like, so we're, we're gonna, how does this price sound? He's like, dude, that price to hang out with you and Neil? Like, hell yeah. I was like, that's what I need, right? That, that's, that's what we're talking about. Um, and so he looks at it from, we're, we're gonna get to hang out and he's gonna get to learn again. And so, you know, it's, it's cool. Um, anything else on the webinar piece before we?

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Well, one last thing, and this is a business lesson, this isn't even on the webinar piece, but to stick with the same topic. So Eric and I had someone who'd record all our podcasts. They came back to us and said, hey, things are picking up for me. We are, things are picking up for me. I have other clients who are paying me much more. Uh, can you guys pay me my new price? I can't keep dealing with the old price. And I don't know what Eric and I were paying. What were we paying before?

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Um, we were at 500 per recording.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  So we're spending at least $2,000 a month. All right. When you look at that, that means $24,000 a year for something that takes, call it, uh, no more than 16 hours. Would you agree with us, Damon, Eric?

• 11:17Speaker 00

  Uh,

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Per month? It wasn't even 16 hours.

• 11:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, hold on, because each, each recording session, let's say it's, it's 90 minutes plus he, he, plus it's another 30 minutes to get ready. So yeah, you can call each recording session too. So eight hours.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Roughly an hour. So 2.5, okay, times four, 10 hours. So the guy's pretty much making $200 an hour. And then he wanted to, what do you want to increase it to roughly double?

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Uh, 1250.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  So more than double. And Eric and I didn't do it. And I don't know if you recall Eric, well, time will tell. I, I said right away, after the guy tried to increase him, I said, I'm like, he'll regret not getting the consistent $24,000 in income every single year. And I hope he does well, you know, overall. But if someone's paying you $200 an hour, and they're mentioning your name and trying to get you business, the key lesson here is, don't get greedy. Sometimes you may not make as much per hour, but if something's consistent, it's better to have that than choppy clients that may pay you a little bit more per hour, uh, every once in a while versus something that's just consistent and you can rely on.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think um I I respect him for asking and he's got to do what's best for him and if he's truly getting that much inbound, I think he should take it and Neil and I aren't saying he should he shouldn't take it. But I do think if I were him, I would have tried to figure out a way, some type of way to keep that going because it was consistent, it was easy for us. Um for both sides where you wouldn't just dump the thing completely. So either business must be like really amazing right now, which if it is good for him.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  It can be. The economy is not that good.

• 12:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so I that's what I would say, right? Like, I respect the hustle. Um but at the end of the day, when it comes to like working with two, not just content creators, but mostly business owners first like you and me. Um I generally think we're pretty easy to work with. So so yeah, but it is what it is. It and it's it's uh but I think we both respect um him and his decision and we wish the best.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  We have no hard feelings and we love him to death. He he's been great and we worked with him for many years and he's really been kind to us. So I love him and I wish him the best of success. I'm just more so disappointed that he didn't look at it from a business aspect because I believe he's actually going to make less money from our perspective. You know, you got to opt you you got to be logical to and be think long term versus just short sighted. Because you can be getting all these inquiries, but when people are doing one offs here and there, that's not the same as consistent income.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  The way I look at it too is let's say um if if I get to, you know, if I get paid for this, I get to hang out with um let's say, you know, two business people, right? Um I might try to sneak in a question or two selfishly every single time for free coaching. That's how I look at it, right? And then. Coaching is like Neil, you Neil, you and I don't do coaching. Um but if I were paying for that coaching, it would cost maybe thousands of dollars to get those questions answered, right? That's how I look at it. It's like I'm trying to figure out how else I can arbitrage or I might ask, hey Neil, do you know this person? Hey Eric, do you know this person? Um so there's multiple ways to play aside from just the money aspect.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Dude, there was, speaking of coaching, my co-founder Mike is on this website where people can pay you for a call. I don't know what it's called. And yeah, intro. I'm pretty sure that's it. And he's had a call with some agency, I think, six times now for a while. And when he started with them, they were generating around a million dollars in

• 14:45Speaker 01

  revenue, a year, million, million and change, it was less than two. Now they're at nine million bucks and it's not all him and he even admits that. But coaching is very valuable. The mistake that people take, like the last person who's recording our podcast with us, they never ask you and I for questions or help on figuring out ways they can grow. They just sat there and that's the key. When Eric and I do stuff, seize the opportunity. Don't have an ego, ask. And it doesn't matter if someone's wealthier than you or has less money than you. You can get advice from multiple people and a lot of different people have different perspectives that can help you grow.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, to be fair, he did ask, he did ask me, um, cause sometimes I would come a little earlier and then so he would ask stuff. I think he was a little more hesitant to ask you. Um, I don't think he had any particular reason for that, um, but he, he, he did try to ask. So that's what it is. There's a multiple angle. Should we close it on the webinar piece and, uh, what else are we missing? The after webinar piece? Follow-ups?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Follow-up, text message, although a lot of people opt out of that. Emails and phone calls. And you gotta be consistent. What we find is a lot of people who join our webinars, they may not be ready right now, but they were on a few webinars and a year later they may hit us up and be like, hey, we're interested in working with you guys.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. And by the way, that email piece is, is so huge. So, so if you can keep them on your list, a lot of people would just come out of the woodworks later. Sometimes people might be 90% close to needing an agency and then all of a sudden needs change. But then six months later, they needed an agency and you're top of mind because you're always sending stuff and you're dropping them into webinars. Um, so I think the agency game, a lot of it is just staying top of mind. Um, what we do after the webinar, in addition to what Neil said, and, and I think you guys do this too, is we'll send them the slides, especially if I spoke somewhere, we'll send them the slides afterwards and say, hey, we spoke over here, you might've missed the talk, but if you want to talk about marketing, you could just book a call with us over here. And you know, things were just, you're kind of just shaking it to see what will fall out. So.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Yes. On a random note, how's the agency world going for you? Cause we're almost done with two months now compared to last year.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  I would say, uh, pipeline is pretty good. Um, and so I don't, I don't feel like the, I feel, I'm still cautiously optimistic about the economy. That's what I'll say. How about you?

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Yes, uh, we're seeing pipeline being much stronger than last year. So for example, if I just take US only. January of last year, we had one RFP. January of this year, we have four RFPs. February last year, we had three. Uh, no, yeah, was it three? I think three. What was it? Yeah. February last year was three. This year, February, we also had three. Um, Q1 of last year was a slow start. We had six total. We're already at seven total for, you know, being two months in. So we're ahead of last year, but again, cautiously, cautiously optimistic. Day is too early because there's ups and downs. So someone's going to be stronger this year versus last year and vice versa.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Um, but we are seeing it still take companies a long time to decide if they're going to actually sign a contract and close. And they're still hesitant, uh, because there's just a lot of things that they don't know. Uh, tariffs impact a lot of businesses. No one knows what's happening with the tax. Things like bonus depreciation impact a lot of businesses. Uh, rates impact businesses when they're borrowing, right? All these factors are up in the air, which makes a lot of businesses hesitant.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  Yep. Yeah. We'll see what happens. I mean, I'm, I'm hoping all this cutting, you know, it's not going to just all be Doge, but if we can cut, you know, a trillion or two trillion from the deficit, um, we're going to be good again because that, that means we can bring interest rates down. That, that's not the end all be all, but at least interest rates are going to come down. Inflation is going to come down. I think people will be more confident. Um, but we need to get the, you know, at least we're, we're speaking from the US. We're, we're trying to get things healthy again overall. Um, and we'll see what happens. So not trying to be political here, but, um, you know, cautiously optimistic. That's what we're at. Cool. Alright, so that is it for today guys, please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe. Um, and there will be no more Agency Owners Association, um, we'll save that for another Marketing School episode.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  And, uh, that being said, you know, we'll have some other things to throw your way in the near future, so catch you later.