17 Ways to Profit from Webinars

I’ve been doing webinars since 2010, and I love them! I credit webinars for:

• growing my list from 300 to 2000 subscribers in 10 months
• making $1,000 in affiliate commission in six weeks
• earning hundreds of dollars with my own information products
• developing relationships with other entrepreneurs, some of whom have become my clients, JV partners, and real-life friends

There are so many ways you could use webinars in your business. Below, I’ve listed 17 ways you could profit from webinars (in no particular order). I don't think any other business tool has as many applications as a webinar! Read on:

1. List Building

Organize a free webinar and provide access to the live webinar and recording in exchange for participants’ contact information.

2. Product Creation

Turn your webinar into a paid product. You can charge a small fee for access to the live webinar and its recording. Or give away the live access (to help build your list), then upsell the webinar recording, transcript, and additional materials (resources and cheat sheets are good).

3. Product Launch

Organize one or a series of webinars leading up to your product launch. This builds excitement and anticipation for your product and usually converts very well. This works for service-based businesses, too. I used a webinar to relaunch my copywriting services and converted one participant into a retainer client.

4. Perpetual Product Sales

You don’t have to be in product launch mode to use webinars to sell a product. You can record a webinar and use it as part of an “evergreen” sales funnel, where you get people interested in a particular topic to sign up for the webinar, provide content in the webinar recording, then upsell to your paid product.

5. Affiliate Product Promotion

If you don’t have your own products, webinars also convert well when promoting affiliate products.

6. Virtual Coaching

If you’re a business, life, career, health, or other type of coach, you can use webinars to provide your coaching services. They’re more effective than a phone call, because of the added visual element. You and your coaching client see each other, which aids in communication. You can do physical demonstrations as well as share content from your computer.

7. Software Demos

If you want to promote software, there’s no better way than to show what it can do. Webinars are excellent for this, because you can show your screen to participants.

8. Getting Feedback

Get real-time feedback through webinars. I’ve used webinars to present draft web copy to clients. You can also get feedback from your participants by posting live polls, or having them submit their questions and comments during the webinar.

9. Connect with Influencers

Interviewing experts and authority figures in webinars is a great way to begin building relationships with them. The A-listers may be too busy to grant webinar interviews, but try anyway. You'll be surprised with how many say “yes.”

10. Increase Authority

You may not feel like an expert yourself, but just hosting a webinar positions you as an authority in your niche — even if all you may be doing is interviewing others. Eventually, you'll be confident enough to be your own resource person.

11. Customer Support

This is particularly relevant to businesses that provide software or physical products. Get on a webinar with your customers to see exactly what issues they’re experiencing. Some webinar platforms even let you control the other person’s computer remotely, so you can fix things right then and there. (Speaking of webinar platforms, I use WebinarJam.)

12. Virtual Class

With your web camera on, you can teach certain skills remotely through a webinar. Great examples of webinar classes I can think of are: meditation; Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT); reflexology; exercise; and cooking – why not?

13. One-on-One training

Got a new assistant or VA? Train him or her through webinars. It’s almost as good as being in the same room.

14. Team Meetings

Remote or distributed teams (where team members are located all over the world) can use webinars for weekly pow-wows and onboarding new team members.

15. Collaboration

Webinars are also great for working with someone on the same project. On some webinar platforms, you can share and edit a white board together in real time. Sure beats emailing documents back and forth!

16. Proposal Presentation

Got a big proposal to present? If an in-person presentation is not possible, do it with a webinar. It’s a lot more effective than merely emailing your proposal. You can see your prospective client’s reaction instantly. They can ask questions right then and there. You can address objections right away. You can sell your proposal more effectively, in other words.

17. Virtual Parties

Are you in direct sales where parties are one of the main strategies for selling? With webinars, you can host virtual parties and reach more people from more diverse locations. Participants won’t be able to touch and smell the products, but you’ll be able to do almost everything else. Plus, you can record the webinar and use it to continuously build your list of prospects and promote your products.

Can you think of other ways you can use webinars in your business?

Do share below! I’d love to hear about creative and lesser-known uses for webinars.

PS: I've used many different types of webinar platforms, from free to $49 a month. Finally, I decided to purchase Webinar Jam. I get to host an unlimited number of webinars for an unlimited number of webinar participants, without a monthly subscription. It's not perfect, but I highly recommend it. Learn more about Webinar Jam here.