Ask the Readers: What’s Wrong with Webinars?

I am tempted by webinar descriptions– as always sound like something I need to know.

Sometimes what I take away is more how the person presented, than any content.

I miss webinarsI’ve signed up for through fatigue or life getting in the way. Try to catch the replay, but often end up doing that on the weekend, when I would like to do a little living that does not involve sitting in front of a computer.

I have a life to lead and it can only be lived once. Webinar–and marketing overwhelm. I hate to unsubscribe to helpful people, but I am going to have to take my life back.

I prefer MP3 recordings that leave me free for other things while getting informed to sitting through more live pitches for further training, just so they can read my comments. A moratorium on webinar attenance may be coming soon on my part. I wll have to get strong within myself about this. I had told myself I wasn’t going to take any over the summer–and then, couldn’t resist the inbox marketing. See?

Ita, I register knowing full well that I won’t be able to attend the LIVE webinar.
The only way I can have access to the replay is through registering.

I DO loyally listen to the all replays … every one of them. It’s the only way I CAN listen.

So I sign up so that I’ll be guaranteed to be sent the link to the replay.

I’m also going to add that, like Terry above, time is a factor. I would prefer to read (or even speed-read or skim) an article that has outlined bullet points of what to do than listen to an entire 60-90 minute webinar on something where the presenter spends the first 15-20 minutes talking about himself, the next 40 minutes presenting content with a lot of fluff (stories, etc.), and then making a sales pitch at the end.

I attend 2 to 3 live webinars a week & miss others. Like all of the above time priorities dictate my attendance.
Defiantly have your webinar available for replay. The best webianr I have ever attended on how to create presentation material was aired in 2005, is still available and I send it, probably once a week to presenters who display the annoying traits listed above.

With so many comments above mine, I rather doubt many will get to this one! But I have been thinking about my answer, so here are my 2 cents.

I wonder if internet marketers have no one to blame but themselves (ourselves? Do I dare call myself that yet?) if there are a lot of no shows, and even a lot of complaints. The real question is, since when did people think that they have a right to get something for nothing? Essentially, that is what happens when people complain about so little value in the webinars! Napster went away, replaced by iTunes. Free news is going away, being replaced by paid subscriptions. It seems to me that there is really nothing wrong with asking people to pay for quality products, even if that payment is in the $5 to $10 range. Then people who sign up are more likely to show up, and the marketer has a real reason to provide quality content. When you go into Costco and they give you some food, is it more than a mouthful? Everything else requires actual money.

Yes, I understand the bit about using quality content to build relationships with potential customers. I guess that is the new cost of advertising, right? You, the presenter, give up your time to prepare slides with (hopefully) quality material, then you give up your evening to present it to people for free. Those who show up give up their time in hopes of gaining some small morsel of information that they hadn’t heard or considered before. Hmmmm…. As I write it, this model sounds a little funny. Perhaps that is why there is less and less trust between potential customers and the marketers.

To be fair, Danny’s webinars have been phenomenal. He delivers exactly what he says he will, and he doesn’t fool around at the beginning. So do a few others, like Derek Halpern (who, last time, got into the meat of the presentation within about 4 or 5 minutes). But these are few and far between. I think these types of webinars have an unwritten contract between audience and presenter: I’ll give you something valuable and useful in exchange for your time and attention. Then please consider my reasonable offer at the end. Ramit Sethi also makes it very clear that there will be an offer at the end and if you don’t want to hear it, go away!

It’s like the vacation time-share presentations. You give up an hour or 90 minutes of your day to hear their pitch in exchange for 2 airline tickets. It must work – they must make money – or they wouldn’t still be doing that same old thing!

So what is the answer? Unfortunately, good webinar presenters take the hit for all of the bad ones. Webinars have developed a bad reputation because there aren’t enough good ones. So the message must be clear: in exchange for your time and attention I will share some good stuff with you; please then consider my offer at the end because that is how I make a living. And yes, shorter presentations would be terrific! (Advertise them as 30 minutes and you may get more people to show up!) In essence, it is unfair for people to expect a lot for free; it’s not how our economy works!

Hi, Sometimes the live event is scheduled at a time when I sleep and when the replay is also in the ‘wrong’ timezone that is not good.

Other times the scheduled time is within both the awaken time and my schedule is open, but some event of great importance come in the way. Again the replay doesn’t necessary fits my agenda either. That has happened often with Firepole’s replays actually.

I do prefer the live event. If you think limited replay is a good idea you should perhaps consider more options with respect to timezones. There might be marketing (scarcity, avoid copying) issues for having limited replays, but I have to say I prefer the free availability of the replay. It gives more flexibility for those with busy schedules and living in other timezones. If the quality of the webinars (cannot be direct sales pitch – those webinars I ignore completely) are good and I am interested in the topic I will watch replays.

To throw my 2 cents into the mix. I have pretty well given up on trying to go to any webinars for the following reasons:

1. They are scheduled when I have other things to do – like work! I have a day job and it seems any that are marginally interesting are scheduled during the day and I can’t attend. I did try to watch the replay on a few; but, they failed to deliver on what was promised.

2. The webinars I have attended all follow the same script as mentioned in several comments. They are a mostly a one-way sales pitch. Yes, there are questions at the end. You have to have people left at the end to ask questions though. Most I have seen I haven’t been interested enough to stay that long.

3. The webinars don’t provide enough detailed information to make a good decision on the purchase. The only webinar recently I attended that was really useful was one from Frank Kern. He actually went through each step and explained it and his pitch was to join his training and learn all the details and get access to tools. There was enough information to make a good decision if it was something you could actually do.

The medium has succumb to a “standard” and not living up to it’s potential. The presenters are stuck in their own presentation. They seem to have to do it “this way”. Probably because everyone else does it that way.

The real missing part of the whole process is the front talk. To find out what the attendees are looking to get out of the webinar and then the presenter uses this opportunity to provide information about what products they have to fill the need of the audience.

It seems webinars have become not much more than an “infomercial” on the web.

That’s my story and I ‘m sticking to it!

I have such a crazy schedule – I teach 13 fitness classes a week. But I love attending worthwhile webinars, so I do often sign up hoping that I will be able to attend a replay if the time conflicts with my schedule. One man whose webinars I attend, usually offers two different time slots – one early in the day, the other in early evening. The flexibility helps.
So many webinars – not yours – go on and on and on. Have you considered doing Hangouts? They are so much more personal and interactive!
You know that I love your information and content, so I attend as many as possible.
Thanks, Chris

How great that you asked this questions. From my viewpoint, the first problem is that there are way, way too many of them and they’re all too long. Some go on for three and four hours!! People don’t have that kind of time. People who give webinars talk as if they’ve got all day, but must spend very little time trying to hone what they say into a succinct presentation. If you cannot say it quickly, go back and rework it. Also, unless there’s a replay, chances are I won’t make it. Most of us have many commitments and need to hear it at our convenience. Everyone is trying to sell you something and everyone has a webinar. That’s it in a nutshell. I get at least three offers a day.

The issue I run into with webinars is that I forget about them, even with reminder emails. A button to add the event to my calendar could be helpful.

Hi Danny,
I register for a lot of webinars because often I find them very useful and sometimes they offer products or services I really want.

That being said, here are my problems with webinars in general:

1. I often can’t get onto the webinar with the link I’m sent. And/or am sent to a register page for the webinar rather than the webinar itself.
2. Lately it seems that most seminars require you download specific software to go to the webinar instead of just letting you use gotomeeting (which used to be the standard). This puts me off because it’s just one more thing to download and I really would rather not if I don’t have to.
3. Almost always there is about 20-25 minutes of ‘dead time’ while the webinar sponsors are working out tech problems and then talking about themselves and who they are and what they’ve done. I understand the whole concept of social proof but I’m usually good to go after about 5 minutes. I mean if I was interested enough to register, then I don’t really need 20 minutes about who is talking. Since I’m self employed if I’m going to give up an hour or more of my time, then I want that time to be filled up with information I need or want. Know what I mean.
4. Also, someone else mentioned this – the time these webinars are scheduled are usually right in the middle of the day for me, which means I either have to pass or stop working so I can attend.
5. Also, sometimes when I register for a webinar I get mulitple notifications and that clutters up my inbox (a small thing but still I get enough email that extra isn’t needed.)

Anyway, that’s my two cents, hope it helps.
Annie

Danny,

You do an excellent job and as a solopreneur I attend your webinars to learn and see what I’ll need to do when I’m ready to launch.

First, I appreciate how hard you work and your drive. I work 5-6 days a wee/9-12 hours a day. I know your success is earned and I respect that. That said, to the point of this post.

The last webinar on learning anything in 20 hours was VERY weak. It was all common sense stuff and frankly I bailed out with about 15 minutes to closure. I couldn’t stand it, it was starting to be painful. That bad!

It was like death by 1000 cuts. WAYYYYYYYYYYY to many digressions off topic and the speaker needed some high test coffee. Ten he repeated his dialogue in the power point slides and this went on and on. I’m sure he’s an expert in his field as I am in mine BUT I’d never want to go through that again.

What I’m looking for, since you asked, is fast paced practical info that is not simple common sense stuff that you’d tell a ten year old.

Your first and 2nd webinars were off the charts good. I told at least 20 people about them. You need to do more of your own – they were that good.

In a nutshell, for business professionals, webinars need to be quick paced w/out any digressions and trying to say the same repetitious points over & over. Stick to the action, make it pop and you’ll get repeat business. BTW, repeat business is the lifeblood of any company – as you very well know.

Please keep up the fine work.

Best of health and continued business success.

I am guilty of registering for webinars and not watching them. Most of the time, I just don’t bother registering anymore. I don’t think I have ever come away from a webinar feeling like I learned something valuable and know exactly how to implement it. They are mostly just a waste of time. But sometimes, I get caught up in the excitement, thinking maybe this one will be different. That excitement often fades as the time for the webinar approaches and I realize it’s probably just going to tie up an hour or two of my time for nothing.

Last time I watched one of your webinars, I had signed up for two on the same day. They both sounded exciting. The first was two hours long, and it was by Jon Morrow: “How I Grew My Blog to Over 13,000 Subscribers and Made $500,000 the First Year.” He promised “super advanced, difficult stuff.” There was really nothing new.

An hour into his webinar, yours started, so I closed his out and went to watch yours: “4-Step, 12-Month Process to Create a Raring Fan Base.” It was almost the exact same webinar, with the key points reworded to sound slightly different. Who ripped off whom? I don’t know, but it was a complete turnoff either way.

1. I have attended many webinars, some good, some bad, but I’m at the point now where I recognize names and know the good ones, so I’ve been able to whittle it down and get the best. I realize webinars are to promote (and sell) the product, but some are so blatant and pushy. It feels like direct marketing of the “But wait, there’s more” type. Usually, I watch till it gets to the promotion part and then switch off. What I like about your approach is its lack of “pushiness,” plus a lot of obvious and real sincerity. I BELIEVE you. Most turn on the sincerity button, but it’s all part of the act. 2. I have registered for, and not attended, some webinars, usually due to a conflict in scheduling. Two days ago, I was waiting for an important call which meant I’d be out the door. It came JUST as the webinar was starting. The timing couldn’t have been better (or worse!) and 3. Live replays are nice, but what I really like are transcripts that I can read at my own pace, skip over what I don’t need, and save a lot of time. Second best is a recording for much the same reason. I can watch in bits and pieces and skip over parts if I want to. I have recordings that I didn’t get to for weeks after it aired. But if I have a recording I usually DO get around to it. Same with a transcript. Live replays are similar to the original in a sense – a limited time to watch before it goes away. I only recently discovered Firepole Marketing and am very impressed, by the content, and as I said earlier, the attitude, and the realness of the person behind it. I know you’re selling, but it’s OK because you don’t pressure. Your sales pitches are actually interesting to watch just to see how you do it. I do have one question – drives me crazy- how did you come up with a name like Firepole Marketing and is there a meaning that I’m not getting? Thanks for all you do.

I rarely attend a webinar live or watch one of those replays that play at x time on y day. I watch the 24/7 type replay so I can stop and back-it up to hear something again if need be. I watch it when it works for me. What motivates me to watch it (besides the content) is when a webinar organizer says it will be available for viewing for 72 hours before it disappears. That usually allows me to watch it over the weekend or on a Monday. And… they remind you that you have 48 hours to watch the replay and then 24 hours via email.

As some others said above – I also watch replays so I can forward through the intro parts (unless I don’t know who the speaker is) and even forward through the content to see if they get into the promised material or just ‘talk about’ the topic. It’s also helpful to be able to forward through the 30 min. of product promo to get the url for the product and to see the price. It really sucks when you’re on a live webinar and have to sit through 30 min. before finding out the product is way out of your price range.

I would be much more willing to attend a webinar that told me how long it was. I think I even asked Danny one time. He, of course, answered immediately.

I want a replay I can look at later. Maybe much later.

The reason? I can fast forward it through the “life story” and all the rest of the garbage I and everyone else speaks of hating as a time waster and see if there is any worthwhile content. If I spot some good stuff they get some more of my time.

You can’t “sample” webinars live but you sure can do it on a replay.
Maybe we need a webinar DJ cranking just the best samples? Just kidding.

There are some people I trust will pack worthwhile info/entertainment into a webinar and they usually get a free pass on the sampling routine…until they fail to deliver or cease to be entertaining.

Sometimes things get and stay crazy busy enough I couldn’t get to even sample a webinar until a week later. There’s part of your number for those who don’t watch the replay if it’s not available on a longer time frame.

It’s a combination, in my case, of my idiosyncrasies, a function of where I am on the webinar continuum (newbie, watched some, watched a lot) and whether or not I’m really your “ideal client.”
For instance, I’m drawn to the least “unbelievable” headline promises. And although my schedule is quite flexible, I want to schedule it on my time (in case an urgent priority arises in its time slot), so if there’s no replay, I almost never register.

Also, I cannot stand sitting through the background speech nor the “sob story” and don’t really care who you are and how you got where you are–not during that initial meeting at least. (It’s as if I’ve entered a classroom ready to begin a course and the teacher gets up and says let me tell you about me. I’m not interested. I want the. lesson and how it applies to me!)

If the material you present is good enough, then I’ll check you out further to see if you’re for real or just another schemer. And if these guys (NOT Danny Iny) are going to “sell,” that’s fine. Just tell me it’s an infomercial. I know where the off button is if I need it.

My biggest complaint is the presenters in many cases don’t respect our time. I was on a webinar last week with a well known online marketer. The webinar was 5-10 minutes late in starting because we are waiting for everyone to get online. Don’t make me wait because others can’t make the starting time.

Then even though most people have heard the stories before, the moderator has to give his history and “credentials” and then the same for the guest. Thirty minutes into the seminar not one word had been mentioned about the subject. I’m still mad I wasted 30 minutes before I left the webinar.

My suggestions would be start on time, take less than 5 minutes for background and chit chat, and deliver value in 30 minutes or less and then do your sales pitch. If you deliver value I might stay for your pitch, if not I’m gone. Lastly, always provide a replay we can schedule at a time that works best for us, and don’t try to create urgency by saying this replay will only be up for 24 hours.

Thanks for reading my rant!

Hi Megan, I think all of the ideas you mention to deal with the problem are good ones. Sometimes people forget so yes a button would be good. Personal connection would be good too, as I almost didn’t listen to your last one because I thought it might be ‘just like so many other ones’ with no value and a huge sales pitch, and of course it wasn’t so I was SO glad I listened in. I was actually taking notes on how the webinar was run at the same time as taking notes on the information being given. That’s how good I thought it was. You could also say that the webinar promises to deliver ‘take aways’ or ‘concrete value to your business’ within the first x number of minutes. That’s the thing that irritates people as you well know. I hope that helps!

I’ve attended a few webinars, and I can say that yes, people schedule them in busy times, or schedule them when they’re actually not interested in the. I’ve actually signed up for webinars at times I knew I would not be able to watch them because I just wanted insider information. But I have a beef with most free webinars. I attended two in the past week. Half of the time was spent talking of the speaker’s credibility (which I understand the reason, but really? Fifteen minutes?) and then their sales pitch. All of this I have read before to get prepared for the webinar. I am left with twenty minutes of somewhat useful stuff (digging through free information on the speaker’s site afterwards yields the same info on the webinar) and ten minutes of questions where everyone fights to ask something. Most of the time webinars promise to gear their sales pitches for my line of work but they end up making me scratch my head in confusion. There is never enough time to get specific to be worth it, and only enough time to make vague sales. This is only for a one hour webinar though. Two hour webinars are more specific, but anything over one hour can be a large investment or sacrifice of time.

First off, let me say: If you plan to request phone numbers, I hope you’re planning to make them optional. I can tell you, if a webinar requires a phone number from me I don’t sign up at all. Doesn’t matter if you assure me that you’ll only use it to send a reminder text for the webinar – if I don’t know you yet, I don’t trust you with my number. (Of course, the “you” there is a general “you,” not “You, personally, Danny Iny. 😉

Second, I’ve attended quite a few webinars over the past year. As a freelancer with a pretty flexible schedule, I’m usually able to attend all of the webinars I sign up for. I’ve been missing more of them lately, though, for some of the reasons cited above: 1. Other things come up and I’m not able to attend (which is when, as Gary mentioned, it would be nice to be able to download a recording later. The live replay doesn’t always work with my schedule either).

And 2. There are a LOT of crappy webinars out there. I’m talking about the ones that promise to give you all kinds of real, actionable advice…and then give you one or two tips and spend the rest of the hour on the sales pitch. There are a couple of fairly high-profile marketers out there from whom I will never, ever buy anything. Not so much as an ebook. Because they didn’t deliver what they promised in their webinar, and instead used it as a lure to get me to a pitch session.

I think that’s part of the reason I jumped on the Audience Business class after your webinar, Danny – you delivered on the promise to provide great information, and kept the pitching to a minimum.

And there’s my long-winded two pennies’ worth. 😉

Danny and Megan,

First off, I so agree with the folks who left comments above. I especially resonate with the ideas of Michal.

It’s all about the individual webinar “goer” and what they need and want and when they need and want it. I myself am an unusual case, in that my students tend to come after work, and thus, I’m usually busy in the evenings! Still, my webinar attendance has fallen off cause many are what I suspect are lies.

“It’s easy,” is something most of them say. I don’t find it easy at all. Day after day, I awake to find that no one has responded to my online promotions. Thus, I suspect that those that say it is are lying through their teeth. Or they are busy lying to customers. I say “lie” knowingly cause I’ve seen many of these folks. They KNOW what they say is untrue but say it just to make a buck. That’s not how I am, which is why I continue to read these blog posts from Megan and Danny. Honesty! Good stuff, in my book. You make no bones about being an Internet Marketer but you are NOT liars.

Yep, I agree with the above. Every man (and woman) and their dog are talking up and peddling their webinars. I get INUNDATED with offers every week.
Personally I like webinars that I can download and watch at my convenience. Period.
I don’t care what sort of call to action hype or scarcity tactics that are used to compel me to watch them.
My time is valuable. I want to watch things when I want to watch them. I have a hard drive recorder on my TV and I download movies and shows on my apple TV so I can watch what I want when I want. In the rare times I’ve been excited about a particular webinar I’ve even been known to get my video camera out and record it. I like to stop, take notes, get screen shots, rewind and repeat things especially if there are technical points or resources. This is not possible on live webinars. What’s the harm in a downloadable webinar? It might take me a while to watch it however if it’s good I might bounce back to the site and if the webinar points to things I can download, great! If a webinar is useful I don’t mind listening to a pitch at the end and if it’s good I might even buy. That’s how I enrolled in the Audience Business Masterclass. I do agree with Michal where I get so many emails from you guys I often don’t read them. Respectfully, in my opinion I think you send too many.

I’ve stopped signing up to them for a number of reasons –

* the sheer number of people running webinars these days means that my inbox is full of emails about them. I suppose that I’m sick of the ‘sales pitch’

* the fact they go for an hour and you just know the first 15+mins is going to be the usual ‘housekeeping’ (turn off distractions, blah, blah, blah) and then the presenter’s background. It feels like a huge waste of time when you’ve only got a limited amount of time each day to spend on learning or study. I think a 30mins webinar would be awesome; I’m never going to watch a replay when it goes for 75mins!

* time zones are probably the biggest issue. US day time is obviously out. But then the US night time webinars are out too because I have clients during the day here. This is why a replay has always suited me best – and why I no longer sign up to them since the latest ‘fad’ of not offering any replays.

I wonder – of those who do / don’t watch the replays, have you looked at where they are located?

Hi Danny, For me, part of the problem is time difference. I am situated in Denmark, and a webinar has to sound pretty darn interesting for me to lose out on sleep! I love when there are replays, because that’s my chance to catch up.

But I also agree with some of the other comments here that a lot of webinars out there are simply too lousy. Several of them run for almost 2 hours and when you look at how maybe 1 hour is pure pitch, it seems like a waste of time to attend. I know there are popular “formulas” for how a webinar should run, but when you have heard a couple in a row, where the superlatives are flying around, you get really annoyed. Less selling and more content would be a nice change.