Part III: After the Webinar

Congratulations, you just completed a major webinar event.   You had reasonable attendance, there were no technical glitches and the audience was engaged.   You should be able to relax, but here are a few other things you may want to consider:

1. Tell your audience about upcoming webinars. Before you sign off and before you take the last question, pause to thank them and also tell them about the next upcoming webinar.  It often helps webinar attendance to schedule two or three webinars in a row, and allow prospects to sign up for more than one with a single visit.

2. Conduct a post-webinar survey. This is conducted in a screen before the webinar closes.  Ask them what other subjects they’d like covered in upcoming webinars.   Perhaps list some suggestions. Make the survey short.  Avoid questions on how well they liked the webinar.  It doesn’t provide much useful information and it looks like you are asking for a complement.

3. Send the immediate follow-up email. This consists of one of two emails; a) “Thanks for attending, you’ll receive the links to the slides and replay shortly, or b) Sorry we missed you.

4. Track attendance in your CRM, Email, or Lead Scoring system. Capturing a prospects attendance at a particular webinar provides a data point on a prospect.  Attendance patterns may give you valuable interest information.  Too often, this information gets lost if there is no automated way to capture it between systems. Fortunately APIs are becoming prevalent for the exchange of registration and attendance information.

5. Send other relevant materials. For those interested in the subject, send them other relevant materials. For example, a whitepaper or a reference to an industry survey.

6. Answer the unanswered questions. There are often unanswered questions that can’t be addressed during the webinar session. If you send an answer, it provides another positive and trust building interaction.

7. Call to make sure their questions are answered. Avoid stalking your prospects, but you might consider calling them to make sure they did have an opportunity to get their questions answered.  It’s a good conversation opener.  Another possibility is offering a free assessment or evaluation during the webinar.   For example, “Have your landing page evaluated.” Or, “Get your complementary security check.”

8. Track returns and forwards. Statistically, I find that 95% of attendees and non-attendees will not listen to a replay of your webinar.  However, they often download the slides.  This way they can skim the subject quickly.  Making sure you can track this opens and also see when your email is forwarded gives you an idea of their perceived value in your material.

9. Repurpose your material. Turn your webinar into a whitepaper, blog post, newsletter or virtual seminar.   Repurpose, repurpose and repurpose.

10. Get Ready for your next webinar. Making sure you have a regular heartbeat with prospects can be accomplished with a webinar series.  Prospects learn to expect the fourth Thursday of the month as a time when they can learn about your subject.

As mundane as these thirty suggestions are, they form the basics of a successful webinar.  They provide a starting place.   So, I have a request.  If you have tips or suggestions on how you run your webinars, please add them as a comment.  Thanks.

Do great things.

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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Part 1: Before the Webinar

Webinars or web clinics are ubiquitous.  Their growth is a result of automation, the need for cost effectiveness, and our limited bandwidth.  I think they also are a way for prospects to get information without having to face a sales person.  As effective as they are, I’ve been an attendee at many webinars that just don’t cut it.  Either there were technical issues, or the subject matter was too dull, or they had some other issue.  Putting on a good webinar takes skill.  Here are a few tips to help.

1.     Research your subject. This is the single most important step.  Will the subject be of interest to your prospects?  It doesn’t have to be interesting to everyone and cover everything, but take time, talk to prospects and test your ideas.

2.     Capture their attention. I’d rather hear about “Not Charlie Sheening My File Storage” or “Five steps to Never Losing Data” than “Self Redundant Cloud Array Storage Systems.”  Think like your prospects.

3.     Let people know the when, what, who and why. Be brief. Be compelling,

4.     Make registration easy. Too many times I’ve had to fill out ten form fields in order to register.  The most pleasant experience I’ve had recently was to simply “click here” to add to my calendar.

5.     Limit registration if appropriate. Would you rather have a handful of very interested prospects, or a lot of prospects of which many are bored, and only a few are interested?

6.     Rehearse the technical aspects as well as the content. They first rule of webinars is the same as Murphy’s.  I’ve been on two webinars recently with hundreds of participants when sound failed, or slides failed to advance, or some other problem prevented a good experience.  It’s going to happen so be prepared for it.  Content rehearsal is even more important.  The optimum length is covered in the next section, but I guarantee the attention span of those giving the webinar is often more than those listening.  It’s why we like to hear ourselves talk.

7.     Cut five slides, and then cut ten words from each remaining slide. This step is key whether you are speaking in person or during a webinar.

8.     Call your attendees in advance. I once received a call from a person at the webinar sponsor asking me if I had any specific questions I would like answered during the webinar for which I registered.  I felt special.  There was no sales pitch.

9.     Give prospects multiple invitations. There is a debate on how many emails one can send in advance of a webinar.  Conventional wisdom is you get one or two shots.  A recent trial by Steve Kellogg at Astadia followed registrants against the number of emails and time before a webinar.  With increased urgency, 43% signed up the day of or the day before the event.

10.   Make sure you have three really beneficial “take-aways.” What are the three things that your prospects can really use?  Give these to them.  Be explicit.  Be generous.  They will remember.

Do Great Things!

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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