How to Plan a Webinar: Creating Your Own Webinar Strategy
Just as physical in-venue events require meticulous planning, you have to plan webinars down to the last detail. An unplanned, impromptu webinar doesn’t stand much of a chance at success, since it will lack preparation and structure, both immensely important for a quality webinar presentation. You may be wondering how to plan a webinar that delivers the desired results? This is where a good webinar strategy is critical.
A sound webinar strategy lends structure to your webinar planning, providing you with an outline or framework to work with. If you want to find out how to plan a webinar and come up with an effective webinar strategy, keep reading.
What is a Webinar?
In order to learn how to plan a webinar, it’s essential to know what a webinar is and how it’s different from other forms of virtual communication. A webinar, at its core, is a virtual event hosted over the internet and attended exclusively by an online audience. It could be anything, from seminars, workshops, and video presentations to classroom lectures and training sessions.
A webinar consists of one or more speakers and an audience. Delivered via an online webinar platform or software, it’s usually a blend of various multimedia components such as a PowerPoint presentation, audio, video, and images. The main idea of webinars is to establish two-way communication between the speaker and the participants. As such, they feature several engagement tools such as surveys, polls, Q&As, quizzes, and so on.
Also Read: What Is An Online Webinar?
So, why host a webinar?
The benefits of hosting a webinar are many:
1) Time and cost-efficient: Because of its virtual nature, organizing a webinar is a significantly more time and cost-efficient alternative to an offline event. So, if you’re on a time crunch or have a tight budget, webinars are your answer.
2) Access to a wider audience: Attending a webinar doesn’t require one to be physically present at any geographical location. Since it’s all online, participants can attend the event from the comfort of their homes, which gives you the chance to target a global audience rather than restricting your marketing to a specific location.
3) Lead generation and retention: For businesses of all sizes, nurturing existing leads is just as important as generating new ones. With webinars, you can achieve both!
4) Boosting engagement: Webinars are all about interaction and engagement. If your audience is not interested in the content you’re delivering; they’re less likely to engage with your brand or show up for future events. Therefore, to have a loyal base of satisfied customers, leverage the host of engagement tools that webinars offer.
How to plan a webinar—Eight Important Tips
1) Have a clear goal in mind
An established goal is the first key component of an effective webinar strategy. It gives you a sense of direction. You can then direct all your effort and preparation toward the goal that you set for your webinar. Your webinar goal will keep you from getting sidetracked or distracted.
2) Establish a timeline
Create a clear timeline for your webinar planning. Start a couple of weeks in advance and set dates for when you want to start your webinar promotion. Keep track of when you’ll be sending out invitations, when you’ll be scheduling your reminders, and so on.
3) Identify your prospective audience
It’s imperative that you choose the right audience for your webinars. Pick an audience that is most likely to be interested in the products or services that your company brings to the table.
4) Pick a topic and speaker relevant to your industry
An industry-related topic is crucial to the success of your webinar. If you choose an unrelated subject, it will bring your credibility into question. It’s also critical to invite a speaker who is an industry expert and knows the subject inside out.
5) Draft an outline for your content
For each webinar, draft a clear outline of the content you intend to deliver. Jot down the essential points of your presentation and build on this framework for a structured, well-polished, and professional webinar presentation.
6) Create compelling registration pages
Your registration page plays a vital role in convincing your prospective clients to attend your webinar. Think of it as your last chance to turn your prospective audience into actual attendees and customers. Make this page minimalistic, but make sure that you’re providing all the important details about your webinar. Include the subject, date, time, and platform of the event in a prominent part of the page.
7) Plan out appropriate promotional content
We cannot emphasize this enough: promotion is everything! Leverage all your social media channels, email marketing, and blog posts to get the word out as much as possible.
8) Plan out a follow-up strategy
Plan out your webinar follow-up strategy in advance and put it into effect as soon as the webinar ends. Follow-up can be in the form of thank you emails or relevant materials that will show your audience that you care.
Keeping in mind these tips, you can take the challenge of webinar planning head-on and host winning webinars. Not sure how to plan an effective webinar? We can help. Contact Webinar.net today.
Just as physical in-venue events require meticulous planning, you have to plan webinars down to the last detail. An unplanned, impromptu webinar doesn’t stand much of a chance at success, since it will lack preparation and structure, both immensely important for a quality webinar presentation. You may be wondering how to plan a webinar that delivers the desired results? This is where a good webinar strategy is critical.
A sound webinar strategy lends structure to your webinar planning, providing you with an outline or framework to work with. If you want to find out how to plan a webinar and come up with an effective webinar strategy, keep reading.
What is a Webinar?
In order to learn how to plan a webinar, it’s essential to know what a webinar is and how it’s different from other forms of virtual communication. A webinar, at its core, is a virtual event hosted over the internet and attended exclusively by an online audience. It could be anything, from seminars, workshops, and video presentations to classroom lectures and training sessions.
A webinar consists of one or more speakers and an audience. Delivered via an online webinar platform or software, it’s usually a blend of various multimedia components such as a PowerPoint presentation, audio, video, and images. The main idea of webinars is to establish two-way communication between the speaker and the participants. As such, they feature several engagement tools such as surveys, polls, Q&As, quizzes, and so on.
Also Read: What Is An Online Webinar?
So, why host a webinar?
The benefits of hosting a webinar are many:
1) Time and cost-efficient: Because of its virtual nature, organizing a webinar is a significantly more time and cost-efficient alternative to an offline event. So, if you’re on a time crunch or have a tight budget, webinars are your answer.
2) Access to a wider audience: Attending a webinar doesn’t require one to be physically present at any geographical location. Since it’s all online, participants can attend the event from the comfort of their homes, which gives you the chance to target a global audience rather than restricting your marketing to a specific location.
3) Lead generation and retention: For businesses of all sizes, nurturing existing leads is just as important as generating new ones. With webinars, you can achieve both!
4) Boosting engagement: Webinars are all about interaction and engagement. If your audience is not interested in the content you’re delivering; they’re less likely to engage with your brand or show up for future events. Therefore, to have a loyal base of satisfied customers, leverage the host of engagement tools that webinars offer.
How to plan a webinar—Eight Important Tips
1) Have a clear goal in mind
An established goal is the first key component of an effective webinar strategy. It gives you a sense of direction. You can then direct all your effort and preparation toward the goal that you set for your webinar. Your webinar goal will keep you from getting sidetracked or distracted.
2) Establish a timeline
Create a clear timeline for your webinar planning. Start a couple of weeks in advance and set dates for when you want to start your webinar promotion. Keep track of when you’ll be sending out invitations, when you’ll be scheduling your reminders, and so on.
3) Identify your prospective audience
It’s imperative that you choose the right audience for your webinars. Pick an audience that is most likely to be interested in the products or services that your company brings to the table.
4) Pick a topic and speaker relevant to your industry
An industry-related topic is crucial to the success of your webinar. If you choose an unrelated subject, it will bring your credibility into question. It’s also critical to invite a speaker who is an industry expert and knows the subject inside out.
5) Draft an outline for your content
For each webinar, draft a clear outline of the content you intend to deliver. Jot down the essential points of your presentation and build on this framework for a structured, well-polished, and professional webinar presentation.
6) Create compelling registration pages
Your registration page plays a vital role in convincing your prospective clients to attend your webinar. Think of it as your last chance to turn your prospective audience into actual attendees and customers. Make this page minimalistic, but make sure that you’re providing all the important details about your webinar. Include the subject, date, time, and platform of the event in a prominent part of the page.
7) Plan out appropriate promotional content
We cannot emphasize this enough: promotion is everything! Leverage all your social media channels, email marketing, and blog posts to get the word out as much as possible.
8) Plan out a follow-up strategy
Plan out your webinar follow-up strategy in advance and put it into effect as soon as the webinar ends. Follow-up can be in the form of thank you emails or relevant materials that will show your audience that you care.
Keeping in mind these tips, you can take the challenge of webinar planning head-on and host winning webinars. Not sure how to plan an effective webinar? We can help. Contact Webinar.net today.
