Part II: During the Webinar
There are hundreds of people on standby waiting for your webinar to start. Are you really ready? Will you forget some critical detail? A power cable for your PC and its finicky battery? Maybe you’ve nervously downed a glass of water and now wonder if you should have gone to the bathroom. This is the point at which something could go wrong and most likely will. Some things to think about:
1. Set up in advance. If you do your log-on, sound checks, and slide loads starting 30 minutes early, you’ll reduce the chances of something going wrong. Give yourself plenty of time. (PS: If possible, avoid speaker phones. VOIP is good.)
2. Have a moderator. I recommend at least three key positions. 1) someone to run the webinar from a technical standpoint. This person coordinates questions and tweets. 2) The speaker or speakers. 3) A moderator to help direct the flow, timing and direct questions.
3. Stand up… speak to an audience… enjoy yourself. It’s necessary to project extra energy when you can’t see your real audience. Standing up, walking with a wired mic and speaking to an audience, even if it is just a few colleagues, is important and will help the speaker focus.
4. Get right into it. Keep introductions to less than two minutes, one minute if you’re really good. Your webinar will speak for itself. No one except you cares much about the fact that your company is a world leader or that your speaker has three cats.
5. Make it interactive. The best webinar I’ve attended took its first question within three minutes of starting. This established an intimate and interactive exchange that made the event seem spontaneous and involved the audience. Take questions as you go.
6. Use surveys if relevant. I’m not a big fan of surveys because they are almost always about the company putting on the webinar. For example, “How many of you are using cloud storage today?” So what? If you run a survey, make sure you ask a question that everyone can learn from, and for which you might be surprised by the answer.
7. Limit it to 30 minutes. It’s hard, but very possible. Make your content so precise and paced that you can cover your key points and questions in thirty minutes. Few people can entertain for more than this time. Did I say entertain? There’s a concept!
8. Involve a client or user if possible. It’s nice to hear from the experts, but it’s also good to get validation from the trenches. I like web sessions that involve end users, clients and others. It helps break up the monotony of listening to one person for thirty minutes.
9. Thank your audience. The first thing many stand-ups do is complement their audiences. If this is genuine and you respect your audience then you’ll be a long way toward a successful interaction. Thank them. Lastly tell them there is follow-up and where else they can go to get additional information.
10. Record it. Make sure audio-visual boy pushes the record button. Damn, this should be the first item on the list. Hmmm…maybe there should be a checklist?
Do Great Things!
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)