Making a successful webinar requires all the skills, planning and investment that you would deploy in a successful marketing campaign. This blog will not only expose the necessary ingredients that contribute to a successful webinar but also will address all the questions you need to ask yourself if you want to take your webinars from good to great.
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Making a successful webinar requires all the skills, planning and investment that you would deploy in a successful marketing campaign.
While it is true that a single webinar itself may not pay back, a series of webinar however may hold the key.
We must not treat a webinar in isolation, nor should we measure it based on immediate success. A webinar is a cost-effective way of reaching audiences that you would normally get to address in a convention or an event of similar magnitude.
While you should not give up on the format if your first webinar resulted in an audience of twelve of which four dropped out mid-way. However, the goal of a webinar is to gather a larger audience. Otherwise, we are better off holding online meetings.
A larger audience though is not a regular phenomenon, only 2% of webinars enjoy audiences that would exceed the 200 mark.
But again, do not hold the number of attendees as the sole criteria of success. At least this blog will not only address the question of audience building but also mention other goals that you could achieve with a successful webinar.
Let us look at a very broad list of elements that contribute to a successful webinar:
· Definitions and alignment
· Audience
· Speakers
· Content
· Format
· Gear
· Pre event
· Event management
· Post event
· Conversions
Any action without a clear understanding of its purpose and goals would struggle to be productive. Before you consider a webinar, ask some questions:
Why a webinar?
What else could I do instead?
What do I want to achieve with this webinar?
What is that I want to talk about and why?
Who do I want to talk to and why?
Prepare a written statement and this is important. If you cannot articulate a statement of purpose for the webinar, you still lack clarity. Once you have your first draft in front of you, give it a critical look.
Does it resonate with your thoughts?
Does the statement reflect what you want from the webinar?
The moment you have defined the webinar, you shall find it easy to build a road map and get on with the next elements. This will help you clarify the value that you intend to bring for the audience, our next element.
Who do you want to be a part of the audience? Take some time to write down an ideal persona. While building your audience persona please avoid thinking in terms of who would convert. Try to identify who would benefit most from the content that you intend to share, or the topic that is going to be discussed.
Have a clear understanding of the audience also in terms of demographics. You will need this information to align your content and the language it speaks. The importance of targeting is not to go too narrow, you will end up in a echo chamber.
Broaden your targeting and build an audience that may not convert right away but is a good investment for the future.
Who are going to be the main speakers at the event, you could find an audience for the speaker or a speaker for the audience, we prefer the latter. A speaker should be qualified not only on the basis of knowledge of the subject matter. What is equally important is delivery and personality.
You can have a webinar that is mostly about conversations with little text or graphics as a part of the visual or you can have a webinar that employs slides, and the visuals are text heavy. In either case get your content right.
There may also be situations when you have a senior speaker who is a master in the topic and does not require a script. Even then, you should plan a structure around the delivery. This will help you make good use of the allotted time. You will have to prioritize sub-topics that shall deliver more value for your audience. Your content should be tailored to the needs of the audience. It should be updated, well researched and proofed.
Ensure that the key visuals around the event are designed well, a short intro video adds a lot of value and sets the mood.
Based on the topic of discussion and the availability of the speakers you need to choose a format that serves your audience the best. It could be a single person talking or a two-speaker event. It could be an entire panel of speakers moderated by an anchor. You could choose an interview format or bring to a Q&A session between the expert and audience. There is no right and wrong here.
However, it is always a good idea to create space for interaction in the format for the audience. This holds their interest, allows the audience to express their views, provides satisfaction and builds credibility.
A great tip is to break down the flow of the webinar occasionally, get a member of the audience involved. It breaks the monotony as most webinars keep the Q&A last. While deciding on the time, do not follow an ideal suggestion. The best time is the time required to deliver value without boring the audience.
While you do not need to invest a lot, make sure you use a good camera, microphone and take care of the proper lighting. A richer, distortion free visual would add tremendous value.
The digital age calls for zero budget marketing, but this may not always be a good idea. Intelligent investment done well will get you good returns.
Invest in building a dedicated page for the webinar and there is no harm promoting it with paid media. Your pre-event marketing should be able to give a sense of what the audience can get from the webinar, and how the time spent will add value. Give them a taste of things to come. If you have a speaker or a panel who are well known, use their personal brands to promote the event. Counting on organic reach to get the audiences may not work out as planned, so please do allocate some budgets for promoting your webinar.
If your webinar has a panel of speakers, an interview or some sort of an active format that requires a moderator, allocate resources that will assist her during the event.
Ensure that a technical resource is on the standby just in case of a glitch. Confirm bandwidth availability and keep alternate sources on standby – we know of an event that was saved by a hotspot from a mobile phone. The router developed a snag and internet connectivity failed.
It may happen that you will face questions to which you don’t have an answer. It is okay to admit that and promise a revert soon. Remember you are being recorded, it is better to maintain honesty and transparency, we would not recommend trying to outsmart the audience.
After the successful completion of the webinar, don’t forget to reach out to the people who attended. Send them a link where they can watch the recording. Slice the interesting bit and repurpose them for social.
Ensure to revert if you had promised someone more information.
It would also be a good idea to sit and review the webinar. One can always learn to do better.
While it is important to convert and drive your core objectives, do not underestimate the importance of soft selling through community building.
Do not measure success or failure through immediate results. It may take some time to build an audience, but once you develop your playbook and follow an active and involved process conversions shall come through.
If you are planning to build a community, gain rich audience and make an impact through webinars feel free to write to us at hello@allinmotion.com
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