Hosting a Perfect Webinar

A web-based seminar is slowly becoming an essential tool to people who have a need for online lectures, workshops, or even simple presentations. It’s a great way for socially anxious people to overcome their fear of public speaking, or standing in front of a crowd.

Tips to Prepare for and Host a Flawless Webinar

A webinar is designed for those who want to choose when and how they’d like to learn or participate in work-based seminars. The only problem with hosting a webinar is that people tend to lose interest when they can check their email or Facebook at the same time as the webinar. Hosting a perfect webinar may help you avoid a problem like this in the future, and here’s how!

What Should You Do Before the Webinar?

First and foremost, while creating a webinar, you should think about various discussion topics you could use to talk about your brand, or your company, or even about lectures you would like to cover. A discussion will spark an interest, prompt new questions, answers, and a great deal of attention. The webinar has to be motivational, not promotional. Advertising your product or lectures isn’t the best way to grab attention - discussion is.

Another way to avoid email checking throughout your webinar, is inviting a co-presenter with you! Partnering with a brand that is similar to yours is a quick way of making the discussion go forward, because people would have both sides to choose from.

Once you have the attention of your webinar participants, reward them. Even small things like free ebook gifts, pamphlets, praise can be the change that you need. It’s easy to get a win-win situation out of a webinar when the customer is happy to know you really care about them!

If you like creating webinars that are interactive and video-based, you could make it easier for your customers by transcribing the videos beforehand, for accessibility. A great website for this is GoTranscript, a professional transcription company based in Scotland.

Another really important tip is to host only a few topics at a time. Too many topics in one webinar might confuse the customers, or make them regret their time and their money spent on a webinar. Keep it simple! Plan everything in advance. The content of your webinar should be outlined in the summary and advertised beforehand, so people would know what they’re going to get instead of going in blindly. You should also find a webinar tool that can be accessed through multiple electronic devices: smartphones, laptops, tablets.

It’s also essential to pay attention to the time spent on the webinar. Be sure to tell your customers when the webinar starts, and when it ends, so they could plan their own time accordingly. If you’re timestamping all of the activities, and doing them on time, the customers will be happy that you’re organized and well-worth the money!

How to Connect With an Online Audience?

An online audience usually consists of people who don’t know you as a person, and cannot connect with you right away. There’s some necessary steps to reach your customers, and have their full attention on you!

The first, and definitely one of the more important steps is to create unique content for your webinar. A catchy title, a witty summary and a friendly approach always helps with an online audience.

Remind your audience about the webinar they have registered for a few days before it happens. Let them know they can download any content you’ve provided for the webinar beforehand, be it pdf’s, or ebooks. Send them all of the content again after the webinar, as well, along with the presentation slides.

Make your webinar interactive! Send out some questions, hashtags, let the attendees give their own opinions on different topics. Plan the questions along with the topics you’re going to choose for the webinar, consistency is key to success!

The Most Important Technical Tips

Once you’re comfortable with making webinars, professional equipment is needed to make your future webinars even better.

Buying new equipment is extremely important when it comes to creating the perfect webinar, because even a good microphone might make a vast difference. The attendees will be able to hear you more clearly, and if you get a great camera - even better! Video and audio quality makes up half of the preparation for a webinar, so be sure to please your customers.

As mentioned before, a transcript of the webinar is a definite must. Having a recorded session of a webinar is really important, because you can reuse the footage on your website, or even Youtube. A transcription attachment is a great way to make sure your customers can get maximum benefits out of the webinar. GoTranscript offers an extensive list of languages to choose from, and professional services from a talented team.

What Should You Do After the Webinar?

Once your webinar is done, you should keep a record of all the attendees from all of your webinars. Keeping up with your customers lets them know you care about their needs and their time. A strategic follow up is also very important after the webinar is done, so be sure to send emails with information from the webinar, to keep the information fresh.

Use the content of your webinar everywhere: don’t bury it under a layer of dust, and forget about it. Put the transcription and the recording up on your social media, your website, make sure to advertise! Show how unique your webinar is by compiling an ebook, or write a few articles with the same topics you covered in the webinar. Be creative!

Create a webinar, and make it a great experience for your customers, and be sure to use all of these tips to create a perfect environment for your business, school, or brand to grow.