Do you have tips and advice you’d love to share with potential clients? Do you wish to share these tips with your prospects in a step-by-step, visual process? If so, then you’re the perfect candidate to host a webinar.
A webinar is beneficial for all parties involved. Participants benefit from your valuable tips and advice, while you benefit from interaction with potential clients and position yourself as an expert. Hosting a monthly web conference doesn’t have to cost you a ton of money, cause you stress, or take a lot of your time.
See below for what you’ll need to host a successful webinar:
A Webinar Hosting Platform: There are many great web conference hosting platforms to choose from, including GoToWebinar, Glance, Yugma, AccuConference, WebEx, and even Skype, which works for small meetings.
Many business owners prefer GoToWebinar since it offers a variety of easy-to-use features including full-service registration, automated email templates, prewebinar practice sessions, audio conferencing via phone and computer, recording, drawing tools, chat, and much more.
A Topic: If you don’t already have a topic in mind for your web conference, do some market research on social media platforms, blogs, discussion forums, and news hubs to see what your target audience is in need of / interested in. Ask questions on these platforms, and observe what your market is talking about. Your conference topic should help your audience solve a problem they are currently facing.
For example, if you own a travel company that specializes in planning African safari vacations, you might consider hosting a webinar on “Where to Go on Safari,” “What to Pack on Safari,” or “Inaccurate Myths about Safaris.”
An Outline: Once you have your topic, it’s time to create a detailed outline. Break your topic discussion down into sections, and add discussion points below each section. I recommend writing notes for yourself in the outline and staying away from scripting your webinar. When you read from a script, it sounds very unnatural and rigid. An unscripted—yet directed—web conference allows you more freedom to expand on a topic and perform comfortably without constraints.
Webinar Slides: When creating your slides for your web conference, try not to overcrowd them with words. The goal is to show your audience what you are referring to, not repeat what you’re saying in words. Images, screen grabs, and graphics enable participants to visualize what you are referring to during your talk and have an attention-grabbing quality.
For example, if you want to break down a process to your viewers, using graphics with arrows and charts is a great way to orient viewers and help them to visualize the process.
Below are two slides taken from our Love Your Blog webinar:
Thank-You Page / Email: After people have signed up for your event, they should see a thank-you message appear after they have submitted their registration form. Your webinar hosting platform most likely has features that automatically pull up a thank-you page after participants register.
In addition to a thank-you page, thank participants via an automated thank-you email that also includes webinar access information, which your webinar hosting platform should also generate.
Reminder Email: 24-hours before your webinar goes live, send out an automated reminder email to participants. This automated email will be generated from your webinar hosting platform, providing participants with their webinar access information.
A Phone: Your phone is the communication device you use to do your talk. Webinar participants usually don’t have to dial into the talk. Most webinar platforms enable participants to listen and view the webinar at the same time, all from their computer.
Have a question about creating a successful webinar? Let us know in our comments section.
