It sounds like a wonderful idea – a multi-speaker webinar event. And yes, it is a great idea, but it’s not as easy to arrange as you might think. Recruiting speakers is tricky because you want to find people who market to your niche but who aren’t necessarily direct competition with you. Plus, you want them to be good, honest people who offer amazing value to their audience. After all, you’ll be introducing them to yours.
Here are some tips for recruiting speakers so that you and they get the most possible out of the webinar.
- Choose the Topic in Advance – Don’t invite anyone into your circle until you’ve already chosen the topic. That way you remain in control, and it makes it easier for those who wish to participate to create a presentation. People don’t want to do more work even though it will provide benefits to them; they want to do what seems most easy.
- Define the Goals and Purpose of Your Webinar – In addition to the topic, it’s important to show them what your goals and purpose are for the webinar. This will help the speakers that you invite know whether or not they want to participate.
- Know Who Your Audience Is – Not only should you have a good understanding of who your audience is, but you should also share that with the speakers that you invite. They need to know who your audience is exactly, so that they can choose whether or not to speak at your event.
- Find Speakers’ Bureaus in Your Niche – There are speakers’ bureaus in every niche so that you can find the right people to speak at your event. Find the people and send a formal invitation with all the information.
- Create a Temporary Agenda – Just so that the potential speakers know you’re on top of things, show them a temporary agenda. This will ensure that they’ll know how the webinar will unfold and where they might fit in to the event, and it will help them see how professional your event will be.
- Explain the Benefits for the Speakers – Always lead with what the benefits are for the speaker to participate; larger reach, audience ready to become customers, or whatever other benefits you can identify for them.
- Create Preliminary Sales Pages – You want to show them examples of how you’ll market the event by showing them that you already have the online real estate to market the event. When they see this attention to detail, they’ll want to participate.
- Directly Invite the Speakers You Want – Finally, always give a personal invitation to the speakers you want. Give them all the information, an application to participate, an agreement, and a time limit to respond.
You can have an amazing webinar and reach far more people when it’s a team effort. Don’t be afraid to give people direction as to what to do to make the webinar amazing and profitable for everyone. Having guidelines set up before you invite the speakers, marketing materials created, and preliminary marketing collateral developed, will make it a no brainer for those you invite to participate.
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