Webinars present a great opportunity to engage and promote interactions between presenters and participants and can accommodate more participants than a physical conference room setting, limited by space and accessibility.
Webinars provide participants the convenience of attending a presentation from the comfort of their offices or homes while multi-tasking. A successful webinar session is strongly dependent on the planning activities prior to the session.
To deliver that perfect webinar, here are 10 rules you should follow:
1) Assemble an effective events management team
Just like you would organise a conference, hosting a webinar requires the involvement of a dedicated group of people. The role of the webinar coordination team is to assist with all the planning, marketing, and actual delivery of content. The presenter must align the webinar theme to the expectations of the audience.
2) Choose your platform wisely
Find what technology platform suits you the best for your webinar. Based on the number of participants that will be attending, the type of audience engagement software supported by the software are some areas to consider. The host and speaker need to be aware of all functionalities of the platform so as to not run into any technical difficulties during the webinar.
3) Prepare-Practice-Present
It’s best that one doesn’t go impromptu for webinars. Prepare your slides, prepare your speech, be thorough about your topic, and ready for any audience questions. Practice as much as you can. If it’s your first time hosting, have a mock webinar with your friends or colleagues tuning in so that you can get the right feedback.
4) Check audio quality and lighting
While giving any sort of talk be it in person or virtually make sure you are not only heard but you reach the audience clearly. Even if your content is top-notch, webinars often fail because the hosts can’t be heard well. So before starting make sure your intended viewers are satisfied with the sound. Lighting should also be checked in advance. A brightly lit room helps in audience participation.
5) Have a moderator or a host
The host/moderator will assist the speaker and break the monotony of one person speaking for say, 45 minutes.
6) Marketing campaigns
With each webinar, it is important that you have enough time to promote the event. You can do so on social media, PR, email campaigns, and spreading the word to your network. A teaser video campaign helps register partcipants.
7) Be engaging
The audience wouldn’t want to just sit and listen during the entire duration of the webinar. Ask questions, give them a chance to speak, have polls in between, add polling, and snap survey elements to make your webinar more interactive. Let the chat section be an open floor for everyone to interact and engage.
8) Set a calendar and remind
After registering some people always forget about the date and time for the webinar. The onus is on you to send them a friendly reminder.
9) Record the session and share with registrants
Due to various reasons, some registrants may miss out on the webinar, hence it’s important to record and share the content with all the documents, slides, and materials used. In order to assess the webinars, a post webinar survey should be shared with all attendees. Such a survey could also ask for suggestions on themes or topics to be included in the webinar series.
10) Enjoy and repeat
More than anything enjoy yourself, be confident and that will truly reflect in your session. In time you will master the skill of presenting virtually.