#6 Steps to plan a Worthy and Successful Webinar An effective Webinar can help in enhancing brand awareness, growth and exposure in the market and create business deals.
By Avijit Arya
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
A Webinar is usually a seminar which is conducted over the internet to an audience who may be sitting in the comforts of their offices or their homes. The key feature of a webinar is the interactive feature that it provides. People can receive, discuss and give information in real time. If the webinar host is conducting out an informative session, then it is very effective as the attendees can share documents, audios, etc. An effective Webinar can help in enhancing brand awareness, growth and exposure in the market and create business deals.
Below are some of the key steps to organize a worthy and affordable webinar:
- Ask Yourself whether a Webinar is a Correct Tool for Your Needs
A webinar is a very powerful training plus outreach tool, but the choice to use that particular tool depends upon the goals and target audience. While figuring out if a Webinar is the best medium for your necessities, consider your audience, subject to be discussed and the time in which you'll have to cover your subject as onlookers have a tendency to lose enthusiasm after an hour or maybe even less.
Casual discussions, formal get-togethers, and overviews can all help to do an intense survey that whether a Webinar is ideal for you and your target audience is right or not.
- Recruit speakers and a support team
There are foremost three main players in a webinar: the organizer, the presenter(s), and assistants.
The Organizer is the individual who is responsible for building up the pointers for the Webinar, finding a speaker, showcasing the occasion, setting up the enlistment, talking with participants prior and afterward the event.
Presenter(s) (Topic Specialists) must be able to emphasized their efforts on preparing and delivering the presentation. Stressing over the Webinar programming, event registration, investigating, and other strategic points of interest to connect, time commitment etc.
Assistants can support by replying to those inquiries that the organizer or the presenter don't have time for that. Assistants are mainly helpful for responding to technical and logistical queries (For Example: "I can't hear the audio").
- Determine the format
Webinars are planned in an assortment of organizations to suit unique purposes. Below are some common formats you might want to consider to prepare for your Webinar:
- One speaker format - where a single person speaks, demonstrates and answers the questions raised by the attendees.
- Interview technique format – In this format, a set of predetermined questions are asked by the speaker.
- A moderate panel discussion format - In this format, several people are on the line at the same time, with a moderator enabling the conversation.
- An Interactive technique format – In this type, the audience takes part entirely via instructor-led exercises and assisted conversations.
- Design Visuals for Your Webinar
As Webinar relies on audio and visuals to explain its message, so both should be very appealing. Slides with a lot of text don't work very well to explain the message. Therefore, It should contain the following things:
- Introductory slide, having the information about when the Webinar will begin, key points about the webinar, a slide introducing each presenter, their job title, affiliation, their photograph etc.
- Display of Web sites or tools inculcated in the presentation (if possible, try to show the sites and tools in action rather than just the image stills) for more active participation.
- Set up Registration and Charges for the Webinar
Before you begin to market the webinar, it is important to choose the tool to register the event and also plan, whether you will charge for the webinar (if so, how much will be the charges).
With a free webinar, chances are that even more than 50 percent of the folks who signed up will not join. A great benefit of charging for your webinar is that it offers a reason for participants to show up.
- Publicize and market your Webinar!
Make your Webinar acclaimed a little while before its scheduled date to get live. Good places to promote your occasion are your website, bulletins (on the web and printed), Twitter, Facebook. Dropping emails to people, uploading videos and including a verbal call to actions in those. One of the ways to publicize and get more registrations for your webinar is to run a contest or include giveaways for the same.
Webinars are the new classroom where we get an opportunity to clear our doubts about any subject matter and learn about the latest trends. So, they are a good way to engage and convey the message to a geographically dispersed audience in a low budget as they help to save cash.
