The Cold Hard Truth About Creating A Successful Lead Generation Webinar Program

Webinar lead generation works, but not for the reason you think. Most coaches and consultants obsess over their presentation when 80% of conversions happen before and after the live event. Be Known, LLC in Knoxville, TN has built webinar systems that generated 77,000 registrants in one quarter and $1.7 million in revenue over 18 months for clients.

• Conversions happen at touchpoints, not during the webinar itself
• Email follow-up and strategic CTAs drive 10–20% of registrants to book calls
• Webinars deliver the highest ROI when you already have product-market fit
• Live webinars validate your message before automation scales results

What Do Webinars Bring to Your Marketing Strategy?

Webinars scale lead generation for coaches and consultants who already have steady revenue. They’re not a starting point. Think of webinars as a supercharger for an engine that’s already running.

If you are new to lead generation, start with simpler methods first. Webinars work best when you have proven your offer and want to scale beyond organic growth.

Here is why webinars outperform other paid acquisition for coaches and consultants:

• One-to-many format lets you engage hundreds at once
• No shipping costs or in-person event fees
• No need to play the low-ticket arbitrage game
• Speeds up the sales cycle by showing your process live
• Cuts down on follow-up emails and sales touches
• Low-risk way to move prospects through your pipeline

Webinars deliver the highest ROI of any lead generation method. According to ON24’s Webinar Benchmarks Report, the average webinar generates 500–1,000 registrants. It converts 20–40% into leads.

Registrants from webinar campaigns have the lowest acquisition cost and highest intent. Once you prove your webinar converts, you simply pour more fuel on the fire. You do this by increasing ad spend or inviting referral partners.

When Should You Use Webinar Content for Lead Generation?

Do not launch a webinar to replace your current lead generation methods. First, understand what already works. Which campaigns bring high-quality leads? Which channels perform best?

Once you are clear on what moves the needle, consider webinars if you:

• Tried many funnel types but saw poor ROI
• Are stuck in launch cycles, spinning up new products every few weeks
• Have limited time and want maximum return-on-time

Webinar lead generation isn’t passive income. Most work happens upfront. You must validate that your webinar drives leads. It requires live presentations. You’ll also need to monitor performance and fine-tune your approach.

Who Should Use Webinar Lead Generation?

Webinars are not for brand-new businesses or people who want a four-hour workweek. They are for business owners who:

• Already have steady lead flow
• Built a healthy email list
• Hit a growth plateau
• Are ready to scale aggressively

The most successful webinar clients fall into two camps:

• Camp A: You have a funnel and run ads but break even. You don’t know how to scale it.
• Camp B: You are stuck in launch mode. You launch once a month, quarter, or twice a year.

Webinars work best as a growth tool for businesses ready to scale. Maybe you run ads to an application funnel. Or perhaps you use a VSL or book funnel. Webinar marketing will quickly beat those efforts. You’ll see lower costs to get each lead. You’ll also get higher lead quality.

7 Common Webinar Mistakes and Misunderstandings

Many myths surround webinars, including the idea that “webinar marketing is dead.” We will address that later. Spoiler: they are not dead.

Here are the seven most common mistakes we see with clients. Avoiding these saves you from headaches and wasted time.

1. Relying on the Actual Webinar as the Only Conversion Point

Most conversions happen before and after the webinar, not during. We use a “book a call” CTA at every touchpoint, stage, and page of the campaign.

2. Not Using Email to Its Fullest Extent

Most clients send the invitation once and don’t follow up. You don’t have to spam your list. Switch up subject lines and opening paragraphs. People forget emails quickly.

This is such a big emotional hurdle that I posted about it on LinkedIn with a video on how to automate the process using A/B split tests.

3. Not Leveraging Strategic Partners

Most coaches hesitate to ask their network for help because they don’t want to be “that person.” Here’s what they miss: people actually enjoy connecting others. When you skip asking, you lose referrals, free traffic, and event registrants that cost you nothing upfront.

4. Not Knowing How to Run Ads to a Webinar

Some clients tried and failed at running webinar ads. This usually means a lack of technical skill or not understanding the target market’s pain points.

Having only one or two people show up discourages people from trying again. The webinar itself is not the problem. Nine times out of ten, low attendance happens because you didn’t leverage your email list or advertise correctly.

5. Over-Teaching During the Webinar

If you have a huge list of things to say, shorten it. Speak to pain points. Explain how your solution solves them. Give enough of your process that they see the connection.

Do not “over teach” and make them feel they can do it on their own. Walk the line between valuable information and compelling them to buy.

6. Following a Template or Methodology Too Rigidly

This wins the award for worst best practice. Don’t follow what people like Russell Brunson say too closely.

His frameworks work, but only for you if you craft them with your target market in mind. Use the template as a starting point. Adapt it to your audience, your offer, and your brand voice.

7. Automated Evergreen Webinars Are Difficult

Everyone loves passive income. If people understood how much work automated webinars take, they wouldn’t try.

Automated means you are pre-recording based on assumptions. That makes the following steps harder:

• Talking to your audience
• Testing
• Iterating
• Fine-tuning the message

Webinars created in a vacuum almost never work. We have a saying: “Validate before you automate.”

About Webinar Best Practices

Instead of generic best practices, test for yourself and come to your own conclusions. In marketing, once everyone does something, it loses effectiveness.

That doesn’t mean email, paid ads, or webinars won’t work. It means simple rules should not be followed as rigid pillars.

Two best practices stand above the rest:

#1: Start with a flexible structure for your lead generation webinar and tailor it to your target market.

If you are selling a course about digital marketing, your audience is probably already familiar with the “epiphany bridge” or “secrets” from famous marketers. Avoid them or put your own spin on them.

#2: Be natural. Present your story with case studies or proof. Lead them to the close. You don’t need to be a master storyteller or a college professor. Keep it simple. Let the offer speak for itself.

What You Need To Know Before Launching a Webinar Campaign

If you base your webinar on assumptions and feelings, you will fail. You need to know your customer base and have experience selling to them.

Selling something for the first time is unlikely to happen through a webinar. You need to know what you are selling and who you are selling it to. The test for this is consistent lead flow.

If you are not comfortable letting anyone else write your copy, even professionals, that is a good sign you know your target audience well enough.

When your webinar is based on an existing stream of leads and research you have done on them, it has great potential to amplify your funnel.

Here are some commonalities we see mark the beginning of successful clients:

• You don’t know how to scale your business
• You don’t know how to run webinar ads successfully
• You don’t know what a good marketer or agency can do for your business

The key is you need to know your customer, have sold to them, and have enough customers that scaling is possible. From there, you can start preparing and planning for a webinar campaign.

How to Launch a Successful Webinar Campaign for Lead Generation

Below is our webinar blueprint. It gives an overview of the exact process we show clients:

• Webinar lead generation strategy and planning
• Marketing asset creation
• Complete technical setup
• Promotion and advertising
• Event execution
• Post-webinar follow-up and remarketing
• Performance analysis and reporting

The blueprint gives you a basic idea of how a webinar campaign should look and feel. Let’s start with the most important step: planning.

Plan Your Expectations and Budget

When we say “planning,” we mean setting clear and realistic expectations with a budget that makes sense.

This is the secret to success and the most overlooked step. Define your own goals and expectations. Know that not everything will work right away.

This may not be the most exciting way to launch a campaign, but it is why our clients stay with us for so long. Most marketers promise the world and make excuses when results fall short.

Having realistic expectations from the start positions you mentally, strategically, and financially to play the long game.

Once you figure out what you are going to sell in the webinar, set a budget. Calculate an ad budget that makes sense over a set number of weeks. Solidify your content ideas, budget, and expectations into a single clear roadmap.

Create Content Around Pain Points

Regardless of trending tactics or thought leadership, always tailor the webinar topic and presentation to your target market.

Think bottom-of-the-funnel. For example, the entire presentation can be a case study about “How you achieved [amazing result] without doing [xyz].”

You could take a middle-of-the-funnel approach with a more educational angle. Make sure you are not explaining the process in a vacuum. It should always be given in the context of the audience’s pain points and how you solve them.

Do not use top-of-the-funnel strategies to “build brand awareness.” You want an audience that is problem aware, and ideally solution and product/service aware. You should know your audience and they should have some idea of who you are. The content should be built around their pain points and how your product or service solves them.

By keeping it simple and bottom-of-the-funnel focused, you will produce content that drives conversions instead of hollow, low-quality traffic.

Keep Your Pages Simple

In this section, I will go in the order that prospects typically encounter the pages. The visuals come mostly from Brad’s webinar campaign.

The webinar registration page should headline with an outcome or benefit. Here is an example:

How I Raised BILLIONS In Capital Using Family Offices, Brokers/Dealers & Private Wealth Management Firms

If your headline reads like a case study or process overview, that is a good sign.

After the headline, bullet point what they will learn in the webinar. Here are the bullets that follow the above headline:

• Connecting w/ High Net Worth Investors
• Investor Kit/Materials Creation & Legal Review
• Done-For-You Investor Marketing System
• 1:1 Consulting Directly From Brad Blazar
• High-Level Masterminds/Networking Events
• And Other Value-Packed Services

Keep it simple, easy to read, and easy to opt in. Demio has a simple page builder and high-converting page layout for this.

As soon as they register, push them to take action immediately on the 1st confirmation page.

Normally, we invite them to book a call at this point. Most of our clients sell higher-priced products and services that warrant a call. But if you are selling a digital product, like a course, give them a splintered-off piece you would normally give them later.

You could also give them something free just for opting in. Make sure it doesn’t cannibalize your core offer. The key is to have them take action on something that moves them along in the process.

Here is some of the verbiage we use in our confirmation emails for clients:

Before you leave, want to take action right away?

It seems a little direct, but it works very well.

The webinar room or video page is simple. This is where you give the presentation with a call to action of some kind.

The replay page should only include the video with a button/call-to-action to book a call or buy your product. This is a good place to test different button styles, between static, pop-up, or delayed. You can test the verbiage on the button, too.

The next steps or book-a-call page is where you present your actual offer. Use a benefit-based headline. The CTA should not be pushy. Use a variation of this example:

Book a no-pressure discovery call. If we are not the right fit, we will point you in the right direction.

For the book-a-call page, load it up with testimonials, reviews, and case studies.

The 2nd confirmation page follows after they book a call. Start by giving a heartfelt thank-you. Prime them with a video about who you are and what they will experience during the 1:1 call.

Talk them through the call schedule, loose agenda, and what kind of Q&A they can expect during the call they just booked.

The 3rd confirmation page follows a purchase. This can be simple with any needed tracking or access details, or as complex as the start of your onboarding process.

Clients are typically most happy right after they buy something from you. This is a great time to upsell them into something else that complements what they just bought.

Present Your Genuine Self

Many clients interested in webinar lead generation do not have a decent camera, microphone, or have a spotty internet connection.

Do yourself a big favor and invest in these tools beforehand. The quality of your production speaks to the legitimacy of your offer and your competency as a professional. These things are not expensive. Slightly above-average production value goes a long way in winning trust. Here is a document we refer clients to when choosing equipment.

Our main tip for giving good presentations is to have good energy. You don’t need a trampoline or an extra-large energy drink. Simply sit up straight, act genuinely, and give a real smile.

Don’t stress over the presentation. Just be yourself and make your sales pitch. If you trip up or make mistakes, don’t sweat it. If you mess up, own it. It adds authenticity.

Above all, show your audience you are genuinely happy to be of service to them.

It doesn’t need to be more complex than that.

Also, don’t look at the comments during the main part of the real-time presentation. Checking audience engagement often distracts people from their performance. Trust that people love you. You can refer to the comments during the Q&A.

Promote Through Your Email List First

Your email list is often the lowest hanging fruit for promotion. Always start here because the acquisition cost is $0.

If you have never emailed your list, prime them about your upcoming webinar before you invite them. Build the pressure before talking about the webinar.

Email promotion puts cash in your business most directly. You should also think about strategic partners and affiliates. They can send you registrants for no upfront costs.

If you don’t have any referral or affiliate partners, ask yourself: who in your network has a business that complements yours? What kind of kickback could you give them for helping you out?

If you already have a sales team, pipeline, or list of leads, start reaching out directly. This is very effective for people selling high-ticket packages between $3,000 and $60,000+. It only requires a simple invitation:

Hi Sally, I would love to personally invite you to this webinar I am doing…

After you have used your email list to the fullest, it’s time to run paid ads to your webinar.

Tip: If you are already hosting webinars and have ads running to them, we would love to talk to you because this is an area where we crush it for our clients.

Beyond using your email list, we put together this article to help you promote your webinar.

Follow Up Through Emails and Ads

Email and ads will serve as your main way to follow up with registrants to your webinars. We also use SMS when needed, but sparingly, to avoid being intrusive.

If you have a sales team already in place, you can put leads into a CRM like HighLevel.

Also, we put together this guide on post-webinar marketing to help you get the most of your campaign.

Your Webinar Marketing Tech Stack

Popular choices are Demio, LiveStorm, WebinarJam, or Webinar Kit.

However, most people don’t have these connected to their other platforms. That is a huge technical mistake.

Manual work doesn’t scale. You can’t hold a presentation and then download a CSV file each time. Don’t import attendees by hand into your CRM. That’s not realistic. You need automation.

You need a webinar platform that connects to other tools. Platforms like Demio work well. You can also use Zapier to link everything together. This setup keeps your systems in sync.

Below is a list of the kind of tech stack you need, along with recommendations:

Be Known also has the ability to move you to our preferred all-in-one marketing and sales platform. The move will cut out many of the above program costs.

Webinar Lead Generation For Those Without the Time or Energy

Webinars can be as simple as inviting people to a Zoom call. But if you are willing to build a webinar campaign in levels, stages, and layers, you can use them to an exponentially higher degree.

If you don’t like doing webinars or have the time to set them up, that is why Be Known exists. Especially on the tech side, we handle the following:

• Strategic planning
• Tech setup and support
• Business automation and optimization
• Advertising (to inject early results and later to scale your webinar)

We can also handle creating all of the copywriting (like the email sequences, on-demand registration pages, etc.). However, we don’t need to be the ones who write all the copy for you if you prefer to handle that yourself.

We’ve found it’s best if you write the webinar yourself. We provide strategic insight. We also help with graphic design. This approach works best for every client.

You can think of us as “the tech team that helps you make money.” Or to get a little fancier: the operational professionals behind the curtain of your digital marketing and sales funnel.

Are Webinars Dead?

Let’s address the elephant in the room for many folks. We remember when the internet was full of pop-up webinars. We have all been through those pages and funnels. They are a thing of the past, right?

In marketing, the right message to the right audience works every time.

Your webinar won’t convert 100% (because nothing does). But there’s a reason we got over 77,000 registrants in Q1 of 2024 for one of our clients.

To answer the question, “are webinars dead,” we present to you the following brief case study.

Our client, Michelle, sold digital training products via webinars and virtual events that earned about $52,000 in one weekend and led to $1.7 million more in 18 months.

Michelle’s sales training company grew fast through webinars and virtual events. She used her existing email list and social media following. We promoted a new webinar through a targeted email campaign. That’s how she did it.

She made over 250 sales in a single weekend, and the aforementioned $1.7 million into her business over the span of a year and a half.

How?

Michelle already knew her audience. She’d proven she could sell to them. Like the conditions we detailed above, Michelle had a successful business. But she was working constantly. She wasn’t sure how to scale to the level she wanted.

She was not the only person we helped to this degree.

Brad gained 3,312 registrants, 321 high-quality calls, and $1.6 million in new revenue over 12 months for his coaching and consulting packages.

Dan brought in 10,500 registrants that turned into 328 new customers for his training business.

Those are just a few examples of people we have used webinar lead generation for. If you want to get a better idea of the kind of candidates we are most effective at helping, you can read more of our case studies.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a lead generation webinar?

A lead generation webinar is a live or recorded online presentation. It moves qualified prospects into your sales pipeline. You offer educational content that addresses specific pain points. Then you invite attendees to book a call or buy your offer.

How much does it cost to run a webinar campaign?

A basic webinar tech stack runs $150 to $300 per month. Add $1,000 to $5,000 in monthly ad spend to drive registrants. Most coaching and consulting businesses see positive ROI within 60 to 90 days if they already have proven offers.

What is the average webinar conversion rate?

According to industry data from ON24, the average webinar converts 20 to 40% of registrants into leads. For high-ticket coaching offers, 10 to 20% of total registrants book calls before, during, or after the event.

Should I use live or automated webinars?

Start with live webinars. Live events let you test messaging. You can gather real-time feedback. You’ll iterate quickly. Only automate after you’ve run several live sessions. Make sure your webinar converts consistently first.

How long should my webinar be?

Most high-converting webinars for coaching and consulting run 45 to 60 minutes. This includes 30 to 40 minutes of content, 10 to 15 minutes of Q&A, and a clear call to action at the end.

What webinar platform should I use?

We recommend Demio or LiveStorm. They connect easily with CRMs, email tools, and automation platforms. Both offer simple page builders. You’ll also get high-converting registration templates.

How do I promote my webinar?

Start with your email list. Send three to five emails leading up to the event. Next, invite strategic partners and affiliates to promote to their audiences. Finally, run paid ads on Meta or Google to cold traffic once you have validated the webinar with your warm audience.

In Closing

There are 250+ ways you can “market” your business, but you need to pick one that works for you and stick with it.

Cold email can work. So can LinkedIn messages, low-ticket offers, and challenge funnels. But they’re much tougher to get working. They’re also more costly. A well-run lead generation webinar program beats them all.

Trust us. We have tried them all. That is why we are the top webinar marketing agency for consulting and advisory firms.

If you are someone who knows your target market, has a great offer, and is ready to scale but doesn’t have time to learn and manage the entire webinar marketing system, we would love to talk to you.