{"id":6446,"date":"2020-06-16T13:20:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T11:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/?p=6446"},"modified":"2025-01-21T10:24:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T09:24:44","slug":"ama-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/ama-session\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow up after a AMA session: How to Convert Inbound Leads Into Sales Vol. 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Organizing an “Ask me Anything” session can give your brand recognition, but also help you grow. If you’re super selective (or at least, strategic) when inviting people to join the session, you may get a pretty good source of prospective customers. How to do an AMA session to find leads?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this blog post, I\u2019ll focus on a couple of things you should consider before and after hosting an AMA session.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is an AMA session and how to organize it?<\/h2>\n

Essentially, an “Ask Me Anything” session (abbreviated to AMA) means that you – a question taker – stay online for a defined set of time, answering all questions that come up from your audience on platforms such as Reddit, Growth Hackers, Quora or during live streaming on Facebook or YouTube. It’s a popular marketing strategy to hold AMA sessions with some well-known specialists and get leads.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you’re interested in hosting AMA session, I found a couple of guides for you, such as<\/span> this one<\/span><\/a> and\u00a0<\/span> this one<\/span><\/a>. Yet, what those guides fail to cover is that in order to convert those leads into sales<\/span>, you need to follow up with them once the session is over. Here\u2019s what you should consider and how to do that step by step.<\/span><\/p>\n

#1\u00a0Decide between hosting a live or recorded AMA<\/h3>\n

First, consider this, do you want to host a live session or will you ask people to email<\/span> you questions beforehand?\u00a0When you’re holding a live event, the question-givers might be more\u00a0engaged and attentive\u00a0until the very end of the event. The AMA event is going to attract more people because they will wait to get a chance to ask their question before anyone else.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, by asking them to send questions over the email<\/span>, you’re already opening up a conversation with them over that medium (email<\/span>), which gives you\u00a0a perfect pretext to keep talking with them over email<\/span>. Isn’t that clever?<\/p>\n

#2\u00a0Pick a platform that\u00a0respects your goal<\/h3>\n

You need to find a channel to host your AMA on. What is your choice? Well, to generate a buzz around your brand, you can pick one of your strong\u00a0social media channels\u00a0— let’s say Twitter. Yet, there’s a small concern – you don’t know exactly who will show up and how to get in touch with those people after the AMA is over. In other words, you\u00a0might not generate any leads.<\/p>\n

When you aim at getting leads with your AMA session,\u00a0organize the session on the medium\u00a0that you can gate the access to — preferably with an\u00a0email address<\/span>. In return, you will have a ready-made list of people to follow up with that you can put straight into Woodpecker<\/span>. What to use? Well, you can use your blog or a video streaming platform like Zoom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

#3 Find people to invite for the session<\/h3>\n

The way you source the prospective leads can affect\u00a0the end goal you’re trying to achieve. Your plan is to generate new leads from an inbound tactic, an AMA session. You can\u00a0put a pop-up on your website, blog or social media, yet if you care about laser-focused targeting, invite the attendees personally.<\/p>\n

Find a compromise between the accounts that fit your ICP and the ones who might be interested in joining your “Ask Me Anything”. That’s a fine line, but it pays back. That’s\u00a0what we did when we used Quora to invite people for a \u00a0webinar that\u00a0we were hosting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bear in mind that you need their email address<\/span> to convert them. If you’re in Europe or targeting Europe, remember that you need to respect GDPR<\/a> when\u00a0processing data in the European Union member states.<\/p>\n

#4 Choose\u00a0an AMA host<\/h3>\n

Now it’s a good time to choose\u00a0a person who is going to run the “Ask Me Anything” session you’re organizing. There are at\u00a0least three options you have:<\/p>\n