Amy Porterfield is one of my absolute favorite people in the online business space, and she always provides such value in helping people wrap their heads around online marketing. So I was thrilled to recently have the chance to chat to her specifically about using webinars to market and grow your membership.

Amy uses webinars in a big way to promote her business, so I knew she would have a lot of practical tips and advice to share.

“When people want to buy from you, they really want to have that first connection with you,” Amy pointed out. “With webinars, you have that first opportunity to give, give, give.”

Check out the 6 top tips Amy shared about growing your membership with webinars:

1. Avoiding the Awkward Sell

Come to the table with a different mindset if you want to avoid that awkward transition into selling your membership.

When you’re ready to go live, tell yourself that even if your viewers don’t buy, they will feel inspired and driven to take action.

For Amy, the first 45 minutes is all about teaching, it’s about genuinely giving away value. If you’re relating back to your product constantly, your audience might feel turned off.

Instead, set the stage for an opportunity. Give the knowledge regardless of whether or not they’ll buy.

Have you ever noticed how people sound like a different person when they start the selling portion of their webinar?

Amy says that you need to start with a question.

“Can you imagine yourself doing XYZ?”

Then, show them how they can do that with your paid membership program.

2. Getting Sign Ups for your Webinars

How do you get people to actually turn up for your webinar? Amy shared 2 strategies.

First, use social media and your email list. It’s free!

Most people need several invites before they take the leap and sign up. You need to make sure you get in front of them a few times.

What Amy sees that’s working really well right now is Facebook Live.

Get on and talk about your webinar. “Doing free Facebook Live session is where it’s at. That’s what’s getting the most organic traffic right now,” Amy said.

What else works? Facebook ads. Every day Amy drives traffic to automated webinars. This cold traffic works surprisingly well.

3. Motivating Your Audience to Show Up Live

To get her audience members who’ve registered for a webinar to show up, Amy created a really good pre-webinar onboarding sequence.

This email series starts from the moment they register until 10 minutes before the webinar.

“Email marketing works when you tell the right story,” she noted.

In the email series, Amy talks about the content she is going to teach, why it’s important they show up live, and a live bonus.

Getting them to register is just not enough.

4. Choosing between Live or Automated Webinars

Amy said, “People don’t start with live because of fear of the unknown.”

People might not show up, the technology might break, but what a live webinar can do for your business is powerful.

There’s something magical about a live webinar. The first things people ask is, “Are we live?” It matters to people.

Amy’s live webinars always convert better than her automated webinar.

Amy recommends you start with 3-4 live webinars even if only 5 people show up.

You have to figure out what’s going to convert and tweak it after the first one.

Find one that really connects with your audience and then put that on automation, so you know that what’s on automation really works.

5. Implementing Scarcity for Your Membership

Amy believes that all webinars need some form of urgency or scarcity in order for people to take action.

Bonuses that are going away are a great way to have scarcity for a membership. A trial price is another option.

You could make it that the only trial for your membership comes on the back of the webinar.

There needs to be a way to create that feeling of needing to buy now.

Something special needs to happen. Deadline Funnel is a tool that allows you to put a deadline for everyone that enters your funnel. Everyone is on their own deadline to take action. “I like that concept. I like that everyone has their own deadline,” Amy said.

6. Boosting Your Conversion Rate

Getting conversions begins with having amazing content from the start so people feel like you’re fulfilling your promise of what you’re going to teach them.

Once you deliver that, your audience will trust you.

Many people speed right through the selling portion to try to get through it. Amy believes you need to speed a good 15-20 minutes on your program.

And be sure to tie it back to what your audience just learned.

Show them behind the scenes and go into what exactly they’re going to get.

Then, show them what they’re going to create with the help of your program.

Whether you're already running webinars, or you're thinking of adding them to your marketing mix as a way of growing your membership: be sure you're following Amy's top tips to make them work for you.

Click here for more advice from Amy on how best to use webinars to grow your business.