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.
