Hosting a Great Webinar. What You Should Know

Hello, my friends. These are really some tough times ahead of us, especially for business, and I love business. So I wanted to offer this Creating a Great Webinar PowerPoint. It's actually missing about half the slides because I have a lot of questions and answers, and I also have the set of speaker notes for you. So for free, I'm not gonna charge you the $499. If you are interested in getting this webinar along with the PowerPoint full with speaker notes, along with the instructor's guide, along with the training manual workshop program, I am absolutely happy to send it to you. It's adrienne@professionalglobaleducate.com. Call me if you have any questions. This is something that I feel like every business can use. A lot of employees that we think may know how to do it, there's a lot of information on the web. This is nice, really tight information that makes it nice and easy to learn. So have a good day and I hope everyone stays healthy. Webinars are staples of modern business. Anyone can create a webinar and reap the rewards. And when webinars are done well, they can increase your customer base and grow the knowledge of your brand. When webinars are not done well, then they can decrease the customer base and they can ruin your reputation. By following the advice that I share with you in this course, you'll understand the necessary steps to create a successful webinar. I hope you join me now more than ever during this time with the coronavirus, and many companies are having their employees work from home, and the need to communicate with your employees is so important, understanding how to do a webinar will make a lot of sense. We may think that you— that we all know how to do it, but there's plenty of employees that you have working for you that have never created a webinar. So I'm pleased to do this at no charge, and I hope you enjoy it. Webinars must provide high-quality information with credible teaching and training techniques. Typically, there are two methods of webinar training. There's the in-house or the for-hire. For-hire training, it's easy enough to navigate. It requires you to work with other training professionals. It is often more cost-effective, however, to implement in-house training which simply means that everything is done in-house. And in-house training, it also allows you to personalize the information. So it requires you to complete the following for in-house. You're gonna write the script, you're gonna set your dates, you're gonna do your invites, you're gonna record and edit, you're gonna upload, and you're gonna send out links so others can follow. When sharing information with potential customers, it's important not to send one too many communications. This is a fine line. People need reminders, however, too many reminders will annoy people and turn them off. Some experts argue that you should not communicate more than twice a week. You're going to announce the webinar, use your website, social media, and other venues to make the announcement. A keynote speech. Use keynote speeches to share information about your company. Share information about webinars and meetings and attempt to arrange meetings with new people. And offers. Share offers with potential clients and customers using websites, social media, and other venues. Anyone can create a webinar, but not every webinar is successful. There are basic criteria that are essential to making a successful webinar. No matter how technically perfect your webinar is, you must include passion and value that directly translates to your target audience. By implementing the criteria outlined in this workshop, you'll be able to make your webinar successful. I'm excited for you. Let's begin. I love the word passion and enthusiasm. Those words make me happy. I often hear people tell me I'm very passionate and enthusiastic. Well, they are also the main components of every successful venture. If you do not have passion for a subject, why should your audience? Above and beyond everything, you should make sure that you're picking a topic that ignites your passion and your enthusiasm. Ask yourself if you're passionate about the topic for your webinar. I'm passionate about teaching everyone how to create a great webinar because right now I know that it's important. It's going to be the number one way that we have to communicate with our staff and with our employees, clients, team members, you name it, during this time of the coronavirus. So why wouldn't I be passionate in sharing this? And I'm so happy to give it away for free. So if you're not passionate about your topic, then you better use something else. Also, make sure that you use personal stories, smile. I got a big one on now even though you can't see me. Vary the tone and pitch of your presentation. And gesture and move while speaking. You can imagine I'm doing a lot of moving right now. Now don't forget, we absolutely must create value. People are constantly inundated with sales pitches. When it comes to hosting a webinar, you must deliver value. The value that you offer needs to resonate with your customers in order for them to choose you. In order to provide value, you need to understand what motivates your customer. For example, people purchase certain items based on quality, others solely based on price, and these choices vary with each individual. So when you're presenting value to your customer, you need to understand your customer's needs and wants. Then you'll be able to identify exactly how your product or service addresses the needs and wants of your customer. When you have the answers, you must show how your product or services will be able to benefit your customers. Creating a webinar is marketing, so you absolutely need to know your target audience. Knowing how to deliver value requires you to understand your target audience. It's impossible to please everyone, which is why you need to know who your customers are, This will require you to conduct some research, gather some information. Begin by identifying the age, the gender, the income level, the education level, and the location of your customers. Once you have this basic information, you must determine how they interact with the world. What do they read? How do they share information? This will allow you to tailor your webinars to your customers as well as advertise in all the right locations. Again, this will take a little work on your part, but it will be worth the effort. Trust me. Oh, the grabbing and keeping attention. Don't we all wish that we could just have someone listen to webinars all day long? It's important that you grab the attention of your audience immediately. I hope I did. It's just as important to keep their attention. After a strong opening, you need to keep the momentum going. Many professional presenters follow the 10-minute rule. The rule is based on the understanding that attention begins to drift after 10 minutes. This requires a simple change of course every 10 minutes, such as switching to a demonstration or a slideshow. And there are other ways to keep the attention of your audience. Use slides in moderation, use animation and images, use demonstrations, and limit your information. How many times do you think to yourself, "Oh, that's a lot of information in that one PowerPoint." Don't be that person. Oh, this poor man Alex, he thought he was prepared but it just wasn't enough. He prepared as much as he thought he could. Nope. He had some problems. Let's go over some of the things that we could help Alex with next time he tries to make sure. Alex likes to call himself Alex and Alec. See, sometimes you may have a little slide issue, but don't let it ruin you. It's okay. We're only humans after all. Tailor it to your audience. Remember, your audience would benefit from a live webinar for more complex topics that are likely to cause questions and require direct interaction, and this will require your entire audience to access the webinar at the same time. On the other hand, a pre-recorded webinar similar to what I'm doing right now, are useful for simple topics such as explaining the different uses for your products or how to create a great webinar. Pre-recorded webinars also allow your customers to access the information at their convenience, which is one benefit live webinars do not provide. Again, your topic and customer needs will determine which style of webinar works for you. In this case, I am doing all audio though you may see me pop in for a few minutes here and there. But I think that you may want to be able to hear this webinar and not necessarily read it, even though my PowerPoint slides also offer important information. A prerecorded webinar is fairly similar to what I'm doing right now. I've created a presentation on how to create a webinar and then uploaded it to YouTube so that you can view it, see it, or listen. They're very easy to create. You record your material, you post it online. This way I have the opportunity to go back and edit and revise the webinar before you actually view it. If I make a few mistakes here and there, I'm letting it be because I'm human. Once you post a webinar, the public has the opportunity to view it at their leisure. So prerecorded, remember, that's one side form of communication. When you're hosting live, you're able to have the Q&A sessions, which are really important and very nice to have, and you can actually answer questions right there on the spot. Let's talk more about the live webinar. So the live webinar. Not everyone can do a great live webinar. They require greater preparation than prerecorded webinars. When you're live, you must expect the unexpected. Be prepared to answer questions, expand on the information that you present. No matter how confident you are in your material, you must practice your presentation and rehearse the process. This is particularly important if you're not accustomed to public speaking. The live webinar needs moderator and facilitator, tech support, interaction tools, and a live event sponsor. For me, everything is better for two and in two and with two. That's why I always like double mint gum. A two-person team will help ensure that your webinar runs smoothly, and this is particularly true of the live chat webinars. These teams include a presenter and a co-presenter, or moderator and a facilitator. Two-person teams allow you to divide the work and maintain focus on the topic at hand. For example, a moderator or co-host can address the chat questions and the technical problems, and then this allows the webinar itself to keep moving forward by preventing the host or facilitator from getting sidetracked by other duties. I don't know about you, but I've seen that happen often. The host or facilitator needs to focus on the goals of the webinar and work to achieve the objectives. Poor James. Do you think he's ever gonna recoup? I don't know. Not good for James, not good for the people watching, not good for his brand in general. Just not good. Marketing and social media, that's what I love. They're fully intertwined in the modern world. Webinars are no different than any other product that you advertise using social media. By utilizing social media and marketing strategies effectively, you'll drive traffic to your webinars. Blogs, white papers, emails, hashtags are all useful in attracting more viewers to your webinar. And because I sell promotional products, it's a great way to have promotional products go with your webinar and you can use that for creating contests, getting people to use their promotional product right there. You can send out notes, notepads, I mean pens, there's just so many different things that you could do. So make sure you talk to your local distributor on how you can create a great webinar while also incorporating promotional physical products in with the mix. Blog posts and white papers are useful methods of marketing, and they should be familiar to most people who have a business background. White papers are longer and certain facts and statistics that prove a point to the benefit of your organization. You can easily include in your webinar topics in your white papers. They should be used to guide blog posts on the same topic. You need to simplify and condense the material to a post of roughly 300 words. Which is a recommended length for articles and blog posts. And you know, did you know that people are more likely to read a blog post and white papers when they have a high ranking on search engines? This actually will require you an understanding of SEO or search engine optimization. SEO is complex and you need further training on the subject. I have wonderful, wonderful people that know their SEO, so if you're interested, please let me know. I have someone that will be perfect for you. Your content, make sure your content is consistent with the search terms and well-written and informative throughout. Links, you need your links to other sites that are authoritative on the subject. And your website should attract the right traffic and be easy to navigate. By creating quality content that supports your webinar topic, you'll increase your marketing and social media presence. Never, ever, ever, ever underestimate the importance of email marketing. This method is cost-effective and provides a large ROI when it's implemented correctly. Effective email marketing is not useful when it resembles spam, and the key is to communicate with customers and build relationships. Here are my tips. Create an effective subject line. It should provide an accurate description of your topic and create a sense of urgency. Make your incentive clear. Incentives should be easy to read and identify. Get to the point. Write brief emails and try to have the entire email be visible without scrolling. Provide links. Offer links to webinars, signups, and connect with the customer. Try to make an emotional connection with personal antidotes. If you have any questions on this, give me a call at 386-631-4577. My number's on the front. I'll work with you and help you so that we can help you create an effective email marketing campaign. Who likes deals? Well, if you saw me right now, both hands are raised. I love deals and offering exclusive deals is a tried and true method of marketing and many people follow companies and subscribe subscribed to emails simply for the purpose of receiving exclusive deals. That's me. When offering exclusive deals, you need to avoid sounding like you're offering a sales pitch. It must feel like you're exclusively catering to your customer. Provide a sneak peek, discount offers with social media updates. Knowing your client base will help you better tailor your exclusive deals to what they find relevant. Remember, that something that you make available to the general public is not an exclusive deal. Your audience needs to feel special. I don't want to assume that you know hashtags. They're a group of words or a single word that's followed by the hashtag. They're used to promote brands, trends, promotions, If you do not have a business hashtag, make one immediately. This will promote your brand and product. Once you establish a hashtag, use it. You must update your Twitter regularly to maintain the interest of your followers. Hashtag is now on Instagram and on Facebook. Next, you need to implement live tweeting, which is really fun. It will require a Twitter moderator. Use a hashtag to tag a conversation with your follower. For example, you could use #AskAnExpert. The point is to create a conversation that promotes your brand and your webinars. Like a live webinar, you must be prepared for anything. The more people you follow and get to follow you, the more people you'll influence. When you're tweeting anything important, you should always ask your followers to retweet or retweet your posts. This will increase exposures and sales. Be careful not to overuse a hashtag. Also, there are ways that you can see how many people are using hashtags and Instagram is great at that. You can look at the hashtag. You don't really want to use hashtags that have over a million people following it. So learn hashtags. It's worth a little Google or call me at 386-631-4577. Let's talk hashtags today. Things are getting exciting. Your webinar is just a few weeks away. So what do you do now? Well, as the date of the webinar grows closer, you must remain vigilant. Increase your work. Success requires that you send reminder emails, practice, rehearse, and test your technology. With hard work and determination, you'll find it possible to host an effective webinar. It'll improve your company image and increase sales. It's perfect. What do they say? Practice makes perfect. Practice, practice, practice, but have fun too. Oh, technology. Test your technology. You have to before hosting a webinar. Failure to run tests can result in a disaster that damages your reputation and your bottom line. It's important to test all technology, not just your recording devices. Test the audio, the visual, the communication system, how you're sending it out, any technology that is involved with props or demonstration. The programs and systems that you will use will determine exactly what you need to test and how it will be tested. Most systems come with testing instructions. So if you're not sure how to test everything, consult an expert. That would not be me, actually. Did you know that asking your audience for questions ahead of time will both involve them in a webinar and provides you with the opportunity to address questions and maximize audience understanding? It's essential that you manage to insert some of these questions into your webinar presentation. A good rule of thumb is to include questions if more than one person asks them. Any question that you choose must enhance the webinar and be relevant to the points you are trying to make. If questions should be better addressed in a separate Q&A meeting, schedule one. You cannot spend all your time answering questions or you'll never finish your presentation. Grant's got a great voice. Grant's got a great face. Grant's got everything. The only thing Grant didn't do was test his technology. Poor Grant. Don't be a Grant. Don't take creating a great webinar for granted. Oh my gosh, why do you need to know my brother's sister's mother's name? Make your registration easy. It will really help determine how many people will be signing up for your webinar or watching you. I've seen way too many complex registrations and it's just too frustrating. People who do not complete the form create an abandonment rate. A high abandonment rate indicates that your form is too long. Take a look at that. The important thing to remember about your registration page, keep it simple. Don't clutter the field with all kinds of things. You don't need to know your customer's birthday and the day of their wedding and all of that. Only include the information that you absolutely need on the registration form, such as name and email. If you fill the page with qualifying questions, such as how long a customer has been in business, you risk losing a customer. Your goal: quick registration. There'll be another chance for you to get some of your other questions answered. Webinars are similar to other presentations. The main difference is that your audience is not physically present. Even though you cannot see your audience, you need to give the presentation the same level of attention as you would a physical meeting. By following a few presentation tips, you'll be able to maintain the interest of your audience and create a successful presentation and draw viewers to your webinar. When it comes to presentations, the key is to show the information, just don't tell it. The goal is to create an emotional connection with your audience, which will increase both buy-in and improve sales. Simply stating facts and figures will not engage your audience at all. You will be much better using visual aids that show the audience the supporting facts. Demonstrations are useful for showing how to do something. When you do have physical demonstrations, try to include the visual images. For example, a slideshow will have more of an impact than showing a single spreadsheet. Regardless of the technology you use to share information, you need to make it visually appealing. Include high contrast colors and make sure that text is visible and easy to read. Whoa, I have seen some people sharing desktops and, whoof, I would say you make sure you turn off anything that can pop up. You need to prepare for this before the day of the webinar. Here's a few ideas. Take a few basic steps to prevent any embarrassing moments during your presentation. Turn off systems that will create pop-ups such as IM. I've seen a lot of that, and unfortunately, kind of funny. Turn off autocomplete. Do this when using a browser. Remove embarrassing or inappropriate content or images. Mm-hmm. And make sure that confidential information is not accessible. I have seen that too, passwords popping up. Once you've checked your desktop to make sure that it's safe to share, make sure you follow directions to share your desktop with others and complete your online presentation. Have you ever been where, "Can everyone see my desk? Can you see it now? Can you see it now?" Don't be that person. You know, so what is a strong visual? So you're going to limit your words. Each slide should resemble a billboard. Make sure your font matches the tone of the presentation. It should be changed as the tone changes. Images stand out and express ideas. Use symbols when appropriate. Diagrams should be creative and beautiful, and your images should tell a clear story. When you have strong visuals, your message will resonate with your audience an emotional connection will be made. I've got a good memory, but I still need to script it. When you're preparing for your presentation, use a script. The beginning and end of your presentation particularly must be clear and concise. You should completely script your introduction and your conclusion, and the rest of your presentation, however, should have a more conservational tone. Yeah, sometimes our mouths get all mixed up, especially if you're hosting a live event. In order to stay on topic, make a bullet-pointed list of the topics you need to address. The list will help you stay on track with your talking points and images. Since you're going to rehearse the presentation, there's little chance that you'll wander off topic or lose track of your slides. Who's the most important person during your presentation? It's not you. It has to be the audience. They're the focus of your webinar. Ignoring your viewers will guarantee that they take their business elsewhere. It's essential that you interact with your audience at every opportunity. Whether your webinar is live or pre-recorded, you should find ways to interact. Polls, surveys, activities, solicited questions, and Q&A sessions all will help you interact and connect with your audience. Did you know that the question and answer session are the mainstay of an effective webinar? The type of webinar you present will determine how you handle your Q&A. You may choose to dedicate a few minutes at the end of the webinar to answer questions, This is useful for simple webinar topics that are likely to generate, you know, basic questions. If, however, you are asked questions that require detailed responses, it's a good idea to schedule a separate Q&A session to take place after the webinar. You may choose to conclude the webinar with a Q&A and then schedule another one, like a follow-up, right after. Try to address every relevant question that your participants ask. And if you do not know the answer to something, promise to find out and follow up with the participant and do it. Leaving questions unanswered implies that you do not possess the expertise that you claim and/or you just don't care enough to address their concerns. When it comes to webinars, there's going to be a number of mistakes just waiting to happen. Fortunately, you can avoid many of them if you're prepared. Being aware of common mistakes such as your technical difficulties, ignoring your audience, lack of participation, and poor timing will help ensure that your webinar is successful. Pay attention in the following module and you'll learn valuable tips to help you avoid common mistakes. Let's address the technical issues. They're very common in webinars. While it's not possible to predict every possible outcome, most technical issues are preventable. Simply checking everything beforehand will greatly improve your odds of a webinar running smoothly. Test, retest every piece of equipment and system you're going to use. The days leading up to a webinar can be stressful, and it's easy to overlook something in the testing. Make a checklist to keep you from forgetting to test everything. So here's the common things to test: your login, It's often complicated or not working. Microphones, video equipment, links, make sure they're not broken. Oh yes, ignoring your audience is surprisingly easy to do. You need to reach your audience on a personal level, which is actually difficult to do online. This means that you need to include your audience in order to make your webinar a success. This may seem like an unnecessary reminder, but I'm still gonna do it, because you can easily forget about your audience while you're moving through your presentation. Do not forget to provide a way for your audience to contact you during the presentation. Take advantage of social media, online chats, or allow your participants to call your moderator. Great to have a two, two-person team. Besides asking questions, your audience can tell you about any technical difficulties that are not occurring on your end. Don't ignore your audience. Uh-oh. Is your audience not participating? In every presentation, you run the risk of the audience not participating. Many people are being the first to speak in a room full of strangers, and this is particularly true online. It is your job to encourage audience participation. You must ask for participation. Do not simply assume that people will feel comfortable jumping in and asking questions. One tip that is useful encouraging participation is to plant a ringer. Plant someone in your audience to begin the questioning process. It's a good idea to have some questions scripted ahead of time. This tactic is particularly useful in Q&As, but ringers can be placed in any interactive webinar. Do it, do it, do it. Betsy was prepared for a webinar. She tested her tech, she rehearsed her presentation. What she didn't do is do her call to action. You should provide a call to action with every webinar. Your call to action is your invitation to take the next step and to make the purchase. This can be done before the Q&A, at the end of the webinar, and in follow-up emails and other communications. The call to action you create will depend on what you have to offer. Poor Betsy, she didn't create that call to action. Very important to do that. Also, Betsy had a wonderful webinar, but besides her call to action, she didn't make it easy to share. So when you post your recorded webinar, you need to make sure that it's visible and easy to share. New people will not be able to view your webinar if they're hidden away. Unlike me who created the webinar and then did not send it out in the right format. Don't be an Adrienne either. I now learned my lesson and I have it on YouTube which almost everyone is able to go onto YouTube and find this webinar. Also, look for shorten the URL code. People are very unlikely to remember long URLs. When the domain is easy to remember, your customers will have no problem telling their friends where to find it. Make it easy, easy, easy so that people know where to get your webinar. Let's all have the best webinar ever. Thank you, everyone. I wanted to create this webinar because I was talking to my son, Alex, and we realized that not everyone really understands how to create a webinar. So I wanted to give you this as a gift on how to create a webinar. Share it with your employees. If you would like the whole workshop presentation, which includes the training manual, your workbook, and a lot of other information, I will be happy to give it to you. You can reach out to me at adrienne@professionalglobaleducate.com. My phone number is 386-631-4577. During this time right now where it's tough to get out there and have meetings, webinars could be the answer along with live Zoom Messenger. Find what works for you and use it. You could take many of the tips that I've included here on this how to create a great webinar and use that for your Zoom video. Thank you. Please stay healthy and I hope you give me a thumbs up. Subscribe below. Thank you.