Webinar Spam – Can It Be Stopped?

There's many different forms of spam. 

However, I truly believe this one takes the #1 spot. 

As a marketer, this tool has been ruined by a handful marketers.

I'll explain my opinion on the matter throughout this post along with what  I think is going on.

First of all, I'm a huge fan of webinars - I don't believe there's anything better than having several hundred people on live to sell your products or provide an in-depth training event. 

It's still a solid method when used in the right context. 

However, what I'm going to expose in this post is something totally different. 

My hope from doing this post is to shed a light on what's happening and hopefully the folks at GotoWebinar and Zoom will take a look at some of the practices and shut down these loopholes. 

Also, you may see some people you look up to pulling this off and think it's a great idea - 

Just don't even go there.  It's not. 

Instead, it's my opinion that if you see this happening you should immediately unsubscribe, report them because they don't have your best interest at heart. 

It's nothing more than a churn and burn email campaign using webinars to blast it out. 

Webinar Auto Registrations - How Does It Work?

I'm not going into specifics because I don't want there to be a gazillion copycats doing this but here's the basic idea. 

They are taking their email list which is composed of active emails as well as old, unsubscribed emails using 3rd party apps to automatically register people to their webinar. 

In addition, some of these guys do list swaps and sell their leads.

They then send out emails through the webinar platform of choice. 

It's the same emails you'd get if you did register but in this case, there was never a registration. 

If they use GotoWebinar's email servers or Zoom's email platform and get hammered to death - it's no real consequence to them. 

Let me also clarify - I'm not referring to those that sell a product with a bonus training and automatically register them for the product. 

There's nothing wrong with that.

I'm referring to blatant spam where you can't get off the list. 

Or when you're added without registering. 

No email marketing provider would ever allow this, so why is it happening with webinar software platforms? 

They're Not Responding So Let's Hammer 'Em

That's where some of these go when they stop getting a response. 

Instead of working to cultivate new relationships, working on your messaging, and building something that gets people results, the outlook is this... 

"Well, they didn't respond to that, so we might as well beat 'em into submission!" 

I don't mind someone sending emails to me multiple times per day. 

If I get tired of it, I unsubscribe. 

End of story.

As a matter of fact, I think you should be emailing in most cases at least once per day. 

However, when someone clicks that unsubscribe button, you let them move on. 

They're tapping out. 

I'll touch on how to bring them back later on in this post.

However, emailing them after that point is a rather obvious, big no-no. 

16 Webinar Emails In A Single Day

For me, I don't like bringing this attention in a post like this. 

Normally, I like to focus on the positives. 

But I logged in one morning to an old email account and to my surprise I had 16 emails in a single day. 

Here's the deal. 

I NEVER REGISTERED FOR A SINGLE ONE! 

Take a look... 

That's all from 1 sender. 

But take a look at this one.

You'll see it's all the same webinars. 

Same emails. 

Your customers are wiser these days. 

They know they didn't register for these webinars, so regardless of what you may say, you're not "killin' it" with this strategy. 

If I didn't register, then how did they get my email?

Typically these are coming from when you previously bought something or signed up for something. 

In the cases above, I'd signed up for an offer about 6-7 years ago, then unsubscribed. 

All of a sudden, I began getting these emails from them sometime last year. 

In other situations, it came from signing up to JV list to promote people's products in the past. 

That means, they're even spamming their JV list. 

Can I Just Unsubscribe? 

You can but the issue here is they continue to add people back to their next webinar. 

So, you may unsubscribe from Dark Magic (whatever the hell that is) and then get re-added to the 'Make It Rain' webinar. 

That's when I got pissed. 

I know if it's happening to me it's happening to you too. 

Action Steps To Unsubscribe

There are a couple of steps to take in this instance, however I'm not sure how effective they are. 

I think if enough people began reporting this, then this will stop being abused. 

But at the bottom of the GotoWebinar emails are options to Cancel Registration and Report as Spam.

Supposedly, once you Report Spam, it prevents them from adding you again. 

I'm not sure how effective this is since some of the repeat offenders have re-added me. 

Hopefully GotoWebinar will be able to rectify this. 

But it was my VA or Affiliates...

This is going to be the excuse many use. 

"I had a Virtual Assistant that got creative and did that - I never wanted them to do that... I'm going to fire them." 

Or... 

"These affiliates (or jv's) are the ones abusing it... Not me." 

And then people wonder why responses and show up for webinars is less than stellar. 

It's my opinion this has hurt legitimate webinar players. 

How this hurts legit webinars

If you run webinars or have signed up for a webinar, then chances are good you've heard people not getting the invite or maybe you didn't get an invite when it was something you wanted to see. 

It's my belief this is all an impact from automated registrations. 

Picture this... 

If you have someone automatically registering thousands of people to these webinars they never signed up for - how many are going to report it as spam inside Gmail?

Probably a lot. 

As a result, this is killing the email delivery for Gotowebinar, Zoom, and whoever the platform of choice.

In some of these instances they're using Gotowebinar, then switching the next to Zoom, and vice versa.  

Notice, these guys aren't sending it from their own email providers using their own domain?

The Good News... 

If you're running webinars, you don't have to resort to this kind of behavior to re-engage your leads.  

It takes a bit more work, however I wanted to leave this post on a positive instead of just going all negative.

For starters, invite them into a free Facebook group and your Youtube channel early on in your sequence for additional content. 

This way you're not solely relying on emails. 

After all, email platforms change their algorithm all the time just like everything else, so you need to have a multi-channel approach anyway.

This only helps safeguard your business and in the event someone is turned off by you - it may just be temporary. 

You can bring them back with something cool you do inside your Youtube or Group. 

Next, you can always use ads to bring them back from your retargeting campaigns to get interest. 

Sometimes promos flop for whatever reason. 

You miss the angle or maybe there's something else going on in the world and they didn't see your stuff.  

Work to re-engage and stay in front of them. 

As Ben Settle says - "Don't treat your list like a booty call".  

Conclusion

If you happen to sign up for my webinar, there's not gonna be any of this shenanigans going on. 

I will try to sell you.  

I will email you unabashedly promoting my stuff.  (So should you if you have something that works) 

The reason is because it works.  

It's good. 

And I know it can help you too. 

However, there's always a way out. 

I don't want people on the inside that don't want to be there. 

I only want people that find value in what I offer. 

So, if you like what you see in this post and want to get on the inside, then learn my first steps. 

The first thing I do is use something call Brand Stacks that helps multiply my content to multiple channels while giving me that good SEO juice. 

Last and certainly not least...

If you enjoy this and are looking for a webinar platform, then be sure to check out our Webinar Platform review by going here https://thinktanklab.com/best-webinar-software/