The Issue With Webinars & Potential Fixes
Webinars have a bad rep. Whenever I consult or coach CMOs, VPs and CPOs I always tell them to rebrand the webinar, don’t call it a webinar as they are mostly broken.
I bet you joined a webinar (most likely live) and you waited 5 minutes for it to start, and then for the first ten minutes it is intro, intro, intro, promote product, intro.
If you were to watch a YouTube video and it offered nothing for the first 5 minutes you would leave, let alone the first 15 minutes.
Likewise in a podcast you wouldn’t waste ten minutes with ads and promotion…
Webinars were designed for the viewer, give value as quickly as possible. Most people attending aren’t there for the logos, they want to know something they didn’t already, they want to understand if they are on the right track or want a nugget to implement in their own work to make them feel like they are the hero in their own story.
So rather than bash webinars too much, here are ways to improve them:
Short Sharp Intros: Most attendees will look up the speakers/hosts/guest, give the audience something not everything - use ice breakers if need be
Ask Hard Questions: Unless it is a presentation give a hard-hitting question early, grab the attendee’s attention, and make them want to share the answer early
Give Value ASAP: Say what it is, give a few takeaways in the first few minutes and link to the takeaways ideally the cheatsheet
Engage The Audience: The webinar needs engagement, it needs Q&A, if you are running a webinar ask questions, prep questions just in case of low engagement or low attendance and help create a safe space for questions
Expert Recap: The host’s job is like an expert panel moderator, offering expert recaps and reminding the audience of key takeaways, don’t be afraid to use notes and share nuggets as you go
Remove The Panel Problem: Some professionals don’t prep, even with a prep call they don’t feel like they need to prep or have anything ready, if a panel member is struggling to offer something, ease them towards an answer or ask them to tell a quick story
Better Landing Pages: Offer something post-event, ideally a landing page not just an email to be filtered with takeaways, links mentioned, links to LinkedIn and interactive content - so many webinars don’t think about how to engage post-event and allow the landing page to gain shares (sharing your content and your brand/platform is key)
Do Post Edit: If you have a team definitely do a few quick edits, remove long pauses, and remove the 5 minutes of set at the beginning, the post-experience is key to attendees sharing and wanting to attend another event or use your product
Reward Audience Participation: Simple and low cost, reward those who offered a question, a different point of view or shared an experience, this is easy, low cost and scalable.
And remember, yes you have a number of goals associated to your event/webinar, however, if your live audience and post viewership experience is poor you will lose any chance of building an engaged audience of potential customers or potential repeat customers.
My Recent Recommendations To Coaching, Consultancy And Advisory Clients
Here are the most recent pieces of advice I have given my coaching, consultancy and advisory clients over the last six months.
Learn The Tools: Learn the comms tools (especially new tools) - Gmail, Slides, PowerPoint, Slack/Teams. The tools will help you do more in a quicker time (here are my 7 ways to get the most out of Google Workspaces)
Use The Tools Your Customers Use. That means Discord, Snapchat, and TikTok. That could also mean Notes app, Excel, Sheets, Strava or Pendo etc
Understand AI - I will not tell you to learn every prompt and every tool, however, understanding how ChatGPT works, playing with Claude (Claude is better output than ChatGPT IMHO) and using the new features inside work tools are going to be a competitive advantage for you and cut through when your team might be just using AI tools
Reverse Coaching: Team members will know the new tools, they will know the newest tactics and tricks to help improve the performance of your department or company, set up sessions where the team can officially coach you and reverse coach you, make this their session and help them set out the training. Offer this as a two-way street, they coach you, and you then coach them.
Culturalise Frameworks: Other people’s frameworks and templates only work if you customise and culturalise them for your business. If you don’t you’ll have to teach everyone how it works and then they fail.
OKR Struggles: If you are struggling with OKRs (most people do) look at think BIG, act small by when as an alternative. Here is a free Think BIG act small by when template for you to use. If you’d like to read more about this framework read my think big act small by when post.
Refresh: Get into a fresh environment when you’re stuck. Outside in the garden in the sun, if you’re working from home get a commute and walk for 10-15 minutes, block out time for lunch and break down the days to recap the day and write down the good, the bad and the ugly to give you chance to attack the next working day
One More Question Podcast
This is my One More Question Podcast appearance, Ross and I broke down the modern-day Marketing world, what the business impact of Marketing is really and how the creator space is leading the way for brands to improve their products and the connection with their customers.
So Why Listen?
Why being a brand and standing out is an active business decision
Why Performance Marketing vs Brand Marketing isn’t versus it is and always has to be and - if it’s not you are building a brand ready to disappear
Grasp the importance of your utility level as a company and develop this out within your messaging and growth action plan
Understand that the delivery company you choose to deliver your customer orders is a reflection on your company and your brand, your first experience will be your last if your delivery is impacted
Why my coach+ product is popular and why coaching is critically important to Marketing and Growth team successes
Nostalgia is always going to be essential in Marketing but many overlook it or don’t see the power of the archive
Understand the power of generational brands
Why being a brand not a bland is critical in winning your customers
Learn why brands can go hyper-personalised to beat out competition (a handwritten thank you note will scale for you to win and stand out)
“Brand” is a tribe and tribal - it is critical to understand when to build a tribe or ask customers to join your tribe
Be bold to win - that has to be a business decision
Why community brands could be the next big
Or listen on your podcast player of choice ↓
The Importance Of Audio & The Connected Attention Needed
The Power Of Audio Is Still Underrated
Have you ever had a jingle stuck in your head?
Have you ever heard a song and thought that’s the x advert? (Thanks to being stuck on a Jet2 flight Jess Glynne is forever burnt into my brain - enjoy her song at the bottom of this post)
Audio is often overlooked as an important component of Branding, Marketing, grabbing and holding attention.
TikTok managed to nail this so much that it is now driving huge success for artists and their songs.
A quick story from my past, I worked at a company and we had an app, the best feature reported by users was the money fall noise when someone donated to their page, it was that dopamine kick, that reward we crave and gave the fundraiser the celebratory feedback they needed.
When it comes to audio you need to remember the attention needed for each format, the way I frame this:
Medium To % Attention Needed
Jingle - 10-15%
Radio - 25%
Music - 25-35%
Podcast - 65%
Phone Calls - 70-80%
Audio Note - 80-85%
Audiobook - 95%+
Jingles from TV ads or a sound from an app require 10-15% of your attention to stick into your mind (a few times and it’s embedded in your brain), ask any artist how important TikTok and music in Reels are for them at the moment.
Likewise, with podcasts, you need something from an intro, the outro, to a slogan you repeat to hold someone’s attention and build affinity with the audience. Once you have this and some repetition it builds a deeper affinity, alongside the para-social relationship that can be formed with the host(s)
My recommendation to many of my clients (coaching or consulting) is to select your mediums and create a jingle or a sound that you will be forever connected with you or your brand.
The same goes for brands I advise, I recommend owning a sound on social and an emoji that you are instantly associated with.
Go and own a sound, a jingle and an emoji.