Webinar Tips #10: Follow Up After Webinars
I’d like to expand on the follow up discussed in Webinar Tips #9. Follow up emails should be carefully planned. First you need to decide what you want to achieve or what information you’d like to gather from these follow ups. Most webinar vendors, Citrix GoToWebinar and Webex, for example, have features to send emails to attendees and those who didn’t attend. You populate the text and information and on a predetermined day it will send the emails out. This is a good feature to use because the email will be in a format that visually reminds them of your webinar. Some things you might want to choose to include in your follow ups are: A thank you note, link to the webinar’s recording, a survey, information about upcoming webinars, or promotional information about your products or services.
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You don’t want to pass up the opportunity to profit from your event. This includes being clever with your email campaigns to those who register for your event. You should create a confirmation email, a reminder email, a post webinar email for those who attended and for those who didn’t.
When delivering successful webinars you have to remember the webinar doesn’t start when the Presenter introduces him or herself it starts when the first participant logs on. You’ll want to capitalize on the participant’s attention when they first arrive. I have seen people sign into webinars up to 20 minutes early; rather than having them stare at 1 screen with the presenter’s bio, you should have a rotation of slides that offers information and prepares your audience for the webinar. There are many things you can present here but I would focus on providing general information about the webinar, sound check, questions, and ads.
One of the most important tasks for delivering a webinar is to keep your audience focused on your presentation. There are many office distractions that can take away from the effectiveness of your webinar if you aren’t keeping the audience’s attention on your message. In order to keep participants focused on your webinar and not their email, the daily news, or colleagues you will need to: identify with the audience, engage your participants, and articulate your message.
Select a Webinar Delivery Style
Each webinar has four human elements: Organizer, Moderator, Presenter, and Technical Support. Though it is possible for 1 person to run the show I strongly suggest using more than one staff member for these varied tasks. You always want to appear professional in the eyes of your participants so they will attend future webinars or be more likely to purchase from you.
When delivering a presentation in a classroom or office you want to appear cool, confident, and collected, right? Well a webinar is no different and if you start your webinar unprepared you might appear unprofessional to your audience. By making a checklist or a “to do list” you can ensure your webinar will start smoothly. You may even want to create several checklists for your event. Here are some examples:
Audio quality is extremely important when you are delivering a live event; you want to have the best possible audio so your audience can hear your presentation clearly. The latest technologies for webinar delivery have made it much easier for us to record the sessions (both audio and video); however there are some things you can do to help improve the quality of these recordings (aside from being inside a recording studio) by improving the audio quality.
Have you ever sat in a class or training seminar that was over 3 hours long? Did you leave that training feeling like you were going to retain all the information only to find that days later you only remember a few points? For some it is very hard to stay focused in a long class or training whether you are sitting in front of the instructor or your computer. Kelly Kirkpatrick writes “people become apathetic in the face of too much information.”
Over the past several years our company has delivered and assisted in the delivery of over 1,000 webinars and online trainings. In that time we have learned several do’s and don’ts of webinar delivery. Over the next couple of weeks we are going to pass some of these tips on to you. It is no accident as to why we are so successful in delivering and assisting in the delivery of web based trainings. It was through trial and error that Live Online Learning developed its process. We hope these helpful tips and tricks will assist you in elevating the quality of your live online webinar programs. Enjoy!
