Best Practices for Hosting a Webinar
If there’s one tool that every business should keep under their belt, it’s a webinar. This is a powerful way to connect with your audience and educate them on your products and services—without breaking the bank. That’s one of the many beauties to hosting a webinar; you can essentially retrofit your virtual event to accommodate more participants, conflicting schedules, and so on.
👉 Before you send out a meeting link and hit Start, check out these tried-and-true techniques for making your webinar a success.
You have the power to decide whether your webinar will be live or pre-recorded. Both options have their benefits, and what’s best for you really depends on your goals. Live webinars offer the thrill of real-time interaction, where attendees can ask questions and join in on the conversation as it’s actually happening! These spontaneous sidebars, responsible for the dynamic atmosphere that fosters a deeper connection between you and your audience, help to enrich the overall webinar experience even further.
Pre-recorded webinars, on the other hand, are best for on-demand viewing—and meeting the demands of a busy schedule. If your speaker is unable to host a live webinar, pre-recording their talk at a time/day that works for them still gets the job done. In fact, this route may even be the least challenging; pre-recording also avoids technical difficulties, resulting in a polished, glitch-free presentation.
If you choose to pre-record, you can use your webinar as an educational resource that gives clients exclusive, on-demand access to valuable information.
Leading up to the day of your webinar, it’s important to send out a series of email reminders. You can incorporate this into your usual strategy by creating e-blasts that specifically promote your upcoming event, generating excitement by reviewing who the speakers are, key learning points, and any possible incentives for attending (e.g., special product discounts, exclusive access to the webinar recording, downloadable resources). Or, you can plug your webinar on other platforms via SMS, social media, or website marketing.
Ensure high attendance rates by sending out e-blasts the week before, day of, and the hour before your webinar goes live!
A successful webinar doesn’t end when it’s over, because follow-up is what makes the real impact. The time and effort you’ve spent promoting and hosting your event can only be fruitful if you continue to engage with your audience. Leveraging this new traction, we recommend the following strategies.
Extending limited-time access to the webinar recording for those who couldn’t attend
Addressing any lingering questions in a live Q&A session on Instagram
Discounting products or services for a select audience or time period
Repurposing webinar clips as promotional material in email campaigns or social media posts to showcase the community you’ve built, your expertise, and to create a sense of FOMO for your next event!
There’s definitely a lot of planning that goes into hosting a webinar. And while it brings a professional feel to the table, this isn’t something that fits every brand. Instagram Lives offer all that a webinar has to offer. (Minus the prep time, add relaxing vibes.) You can still have speakers discuss different technologies or business practices, perform treatment demos, etc., but IG Lives are more casual, and they foster direct connections with your online community! If you’re specifically looking to attract more leads or boost engagement on your social media, going Live is a great way to build your business in the place where it matters most.
