Hosting a webinar is not an easy job and is not like taking a stroll in the park. While talking about the popularity of online events, we all know how extensively organizations have started to host webinars. If we go by the data, webinars are the most popular of the online events, and they are here to stay for a longer time than we imagined.
When it comes to planning the webinars, there are many things that the organizers take care of, except a few. Now, it is all up to the organizers and hosts to overlook them, but these are the factors that have the biggest impact on the success of the webinar.
One of those factors is presenting a webinar. The presentation of your content will be the only thing your audience will see, and if that is not up to par, nothing else is going to make sense.
If reports are to be believed, as many as 48% of the attendees felt that they enjoyed a webinar less when the presenter wasn’t good. You now understand the significance of presenters and presentations in webinars and other online events.
If you are planning a webinar in the near future, here are a few tips that you should take care of. These pointers will assist you in making the most of your webinar and our webinars.
1.Be Passionate
32% of attendees said they felt most engaged when the webinar host was passionate and energetic, so start encouraging your webinar presenters to show who they are while speaking.
You could ask them to begin by being more natural and speaking in a more conversational tone while presenting the webinar. Remember that webinar scripts were written to be read aloud, so make sure they sound natural. You can accomplish this by writing your script in short sentences, adding punchy bullet points, and reading it aloud so it doesn’t feel like you’re speaking someone else’s words. Bring some energy to your webinar presentation to increase audience engagement and prevent attendees from dropping off the webinar due to boredom.
2.Share Real-Life Stories
Webinar presenters are chosen for their real-world experience on the topic of their choice, so if you’re presenting a webinar, try to share some of your own personal experiences and real-life stories with the audience.
For example, you could start by discussing the application of the theory you’re discussing in the workplace and how it helped you achieve the results. This is information that attendees cannot learn from a textbook or a blog post, which will increase interaction by prompting questions from the audience. Just make sure your stories don’t veer too far off course, and if they do, try to bring them back as soon as possible.
3.Engage the audience
The attendees will have their opinions formed the minute they join the webinar. Hence, it becomes necessary for you to capture their attention and encourage engagement in the first 60 seconds to make sure they attend the complete webinar.
If your webinar is for 30 minutes or more, try your best to keep your audience engaged. You can accomplish this by incorporating interactive features such as live polls, live chat, and a live Q&A at the end, allowing your audience to interact with you in real time. It will boost two-way interaction and help break down barriers between the audience and the presenter, increasing viewing time and improving attendee satisfaction.
4.Meet Your Attendees’ Expectations
The key to a great webinar is meeting your attendees’ expectations. You will want to ensure that the attendees leave the webinar with valuable takeaways. Make sure that they don’t regret the 30 to 60 minutes they have spent in your webinar. The next thing to consider is whether your webinar delivers on its promises. For instance, if your webinar talks about helping the attendees with a workshop, make sure you deliver the same.
5.Keep Calm; It’s Just a Webinar
The next, and probably the most important of all, is that you need to calm down; it is merely a webinar. You are a human being, as are those who will attend the webinar. Though it is necessary to prepare yourself for the worst, it is also important to expect nothing but the best. Since the webinar is being hosted on a webinar platform, things are partially out of your control. One thing with technology that you need to know is that it can go wrong at any point in time. Your internet connection might stop working, you can face technical issues with your online webinar platform, and so many other things can happen.
To save yourself and your webinar from such situations, you should always have a few backup plans ready. Have Plans A, B, and C ready for all the cases.
Not only that, but you should also have printouts of your presentation ready in case the presentation stops working. The key to a great presentation is staying calm, even in panicky situations. Whenever any mistake happens, accept it, apologize for it, and handle it calmly.
6.Practice and Practice
The key to a successful presentation is efficiency, and you can achieve efficiency only with practice. It might sound cliche, but practice does make perfect, and there is no substitute for it. It goes for everything in life as well as your webinar presentations. Therefore, make sure that you start practicing for your presentation a few days before the webinar. It will help you familiarize yourself with the webinar platform. Practice a few times before the presentation, and host a few dry runs before the main webinar. It will help you get a hang of the agenda and everything else.
Hosting a webinar isn’t a new thing; however, it has been noticed time and again that the organizers don’t pay enough attention to the presentation. Always remember that content is indeed king, but how you deliver it makes a significant difference. Therefore, ensure that you prepare your presentation wisely; you can take help from the tips we have shared with you in this blog.
