When MPi (which is recognized by Inc. 5000 as the 63rd fastest growing software company) approached me about helping them create, produce and market a demand generation webinar that shows dealers, GMs, sales directors and service managers how they should be selling 20 to 25 additional cars each month from the service drive – I promised them 80 to 120 webinar signups.

The actual number of registered webinar attendees: 337

Now, I know, as webinar audience recruitment is your #1 challenge (40% of my recent webinar attendees admitted this in one of my live polls) – you want to know how and why we were able to beat our audience recruitment goals by 217 to 257 people.

Reason #1: The webinar was based on a specific challenge that car dealerships were experiencing right now

The focus of the webinar and all communications was on how car dealerships are spending a minimum of $400 per car sold to advertise their businesses online and offline. Yet, they were failing to capitalize on the prospects that are already in their dealership getting maintenance or service repairs.

Our content and communications with the car dealers also addressed the concerns that car dealers have with selling cars from the service drive. Through talking to MPi’s sales executives for their “Service Turn” product we uncovered that many dealers are afraid to sell cars from the service drive because they don’t want to make their customers angry as they’re not there to be sold. The service drive is extremely profitable for dealerships so they don’t want to lose repeat customers.

So, in our invitations and in the content we created for MPi we had to show them why they only converted one-half percent of their service customers into a new car sale and what they did wrong. We had to educate them on a process that not only sells 20 to 25 additional cars per month but also increase the customer care index and customer service index numbers. Then invite them to the webinar to learn more.

Reason #2: The webinar, the webinar invitation and all webinar communications were case study driven

In MPi’s webinar, one of the panelists was the former GM of Kelly Nissan – a dealership that was closing at least 4% to 5% of their service customers on new car deals. During the webinar, they revealed how they were using an 8-step quality assurance process that was supported by MPi’s Service Turn technology to improve the customer experience and increase sales immediately and permanently through the service drive.

Within our invitations and within our call-to-actions with our LinkedIn marketing and content marketing activities, we emphasized the fact that attendees will learn from an actual real-life case study. This meant that attendees would not just get theory, but they’d also see exactly how a client implemented a system to get increased results.

Reason #3: The webinar featured a recognized industry leader

MPi’s webinar guest expert was writer, magazine columnist, professional speaker and super performer Jim Ziegler. As a record-setting manager with some of the top automobile dealerships in the country his credentials include:

  • Worked with 15,000 dealerships nationwide – Very few people in the world can pick up a phone and get more automotive decision-makers to answer.
  • 100,000 dealers, managers and executives attended his seminars
  • He’s worked in more than 1000 showrooms in 200 cities in 49 states
  • Featured keynote speaker at 79 State Automobile Dealer Association Conventions
  • Rated in top ten workshop speakers at 12 National NADA Conventions
  • Widely read columnist for Automotive Retail, Wards Dealer Business Magazine, F&I/Showroom Magazine,ADM Community and Dealer Elite
  • Respected industry futurist and forecaster – His future forecasting has accuracy in the 90% + category for predicting industry trends and events before they happen. The      best record in the industry.

By featuring a 3rd party guest expert, that’s respected within the industry, we were able to attract immediate attention as webinar attendees knew up front the value they’d receive. In fact, just by mentioning Jim’s name in the email subject – we attracted more opens.

The email that had one of the biggest opens had the subject line:

“Free Webinar: Jim Ziegler Reveals How You Can Sell 20 to 25 Additional Cars from the Service Drive”

Reason #4 – We integrated a number of webinar marketing strategies to attract the most amount of car dealers, sales managers & service managers

Along with targeting new car dealerships in North America (opposed to used car dealerships) that have a service drive and have high sales revenues with a multi-touch email lead generation program we also:

  • Gave Randy Kobat(VP of Strategic Initiatives) a LinkedIn profile makeover. My strategic partner, Kristina Jaramillo and her LinkedIn marketing firm GetLinkedInHelp.com, turned his boring resume-looking profile into a marketing tool that would help us with our LinkedIn marketing initiative. When Kristina reached out to prospects on LinkedIn about the MPi webinar, they checked out Randy’s profile and they automatically saw how he could help them. From there, they accepted the invitation to register for the event.

 

 

  • Promoted the blog content through social media. Kristina researched and joined Randy inside LinkedIn groups like Car Dealer that has 6,875 members who are in the business of running or working for a dealership, Automotive Dealers Network that has 13,340 and Automotive Management Professionals that have over 100,000 car dealer decision makers inside the community. We created thought provoking conversations that added value within each LinkedIn group and invited prospects to read the blog post (which had a call-to-action at the end to register for the free webinar) for even more information.

 

  • Engaged in a LinkedIn lead generation email campaign – By joining 31 targeted LinkedIn groups, it gave us immediate access to decision makers that we should be emailing and inviting to the LinkedIn group. For this webinar, we did a test of 250+ LinkedIn lead generation emails to GMs, service managers, and sales managers at car dealerships. Within the invitation, we explained why they should register for the free webinar and gave them a link to sign up. Plus, we provided prospects with a link to blog post so they can learn more about MPi’s 8-step quality assurance process and how their dealerships can be selling 20 to 25 additional cars per month without spending more money on advertising.

Through our social media and content marketing efforts, we were able to get at least an additional 10% more webinar registrants. Now, I’m saying at least because 10% of those who registered for the MPi webinar self-identified themselves as a social media prospect. We believe that an additional 5% to 10% of the attendees also came from social media.

By combining the actions above, we were able to produce attendance results that were more than double the registration goals.

Now, within this case study, we focus on the “before the webinar actions.” In my FREE E-BOOK – Managing the Webinar’s Life Cycle – I share with you the actions you need to take “BEFORE”, “DURING” and “AFTER” the webinar if you want to host a demand generating webinar.

Download My FREE Webinar Ebook Now!