The Road To Mastering Webinars

Here’s the thing about webinars — there’s a lot on the line. You’re entrusting your live presentation in a new tool that you may not have mastered yet, with hundreds of people attending, and a speaker who has spent months preparing for this presentation. Cue the pre-event nightmares.

After running our webinar series for about a year and a half now, I can now say that I have built a system that works for my team to deliver the best value for our audiences possible. It wasn’t easy and took a lot of mistakes to get here. I’m always trying to think of ways to improve the experience for our attendees, speakers, and logistics so with every new presentation I make sure to take away some of the ‘wins’ and apply them moving forward.

Here’s some of the big ‘wins’ and things I’ve learned along the way.

Cozy Up With a Solid Tech Provider

We’re using on24 and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t until we switched marketing automation systems and started looking at new providers did I realize just how good they were.

You have to really think about any and every detail around the webinar, areas for potential issues, and how the system can support you even in the stickiest of situations. This might sound like an advertisement, and maybe one day I’ll get paid to say these types of things, but the system has been able to support every step of the process. A big plus on our side is having something that can be easy for our presenters who may not be very tech-savvy, and almost every speaker I’ve worked with has been pleasantly surprised with the interface. Big plus.

DOCUMENT YOUR PROCESS

I put this in caps to emphasize my point. We have a master list that documents every step you should take pre, during, and post webinar. Here are just some of the things we document for our process to make sure we have everything covered.

• Schedule date and time with speaker
• Schedule dry run session with speaker
• Send speaker powerpoint template and key dates to remember
• Create presentation in on24
• Create form, landing page, and SFDC campaign in salesforce
• Make any integration updates where needed (webinar provided & marketing automation system)
• Create emails and confirm title and description with speaker
• Review pre-registration questions with speaker to prepare for presentation
• Review slides
• Promotion on social media? Schedule with your team and have description ready
• Does your sales team know when this is going to be? What is the lead score threshold for it? What is the handoff process?
• Set up operator for the live event
• … etc.

Make Sure Your Presenters Have Everything They Need

Your speakers have put a lot of time and energy in to this presentation, and it’s your job to make sure they feel good about their upcoming event. If the presentation is scheduled far in advanced, check in on them every so often where needed. Make sure they have the dates and times in their calendars, are comfortable with the messaging that you’re using, and ensuring that they’re comfortable with the technology that you’re using.

Remember, the work they’re doing should be directly correlated with the products and services your company provides, so this is great exposure for both of you.

Also, if they ask about the number of registrants — just don’t go there. In my previous experience, I’ve been told that they’re okay with hearing the number of registrants. After telling them the numbers, it only worries them more due to the large attendance our presentations bring in. Assure them that things are going well, and there has been a great response. You can chat after and reveal the final numbers after the stress of the live presentation is over!

Report Your Results

Make Salesforce your best friend. Being able to show the ROI on your webinar presentations benefits everyone — you, your boss, and the business KPIs. We use Salesforce campaigns to document the number of people who register, attend live, and attend on-demand. We can then directly attribute opportunities to the events and the influenced opportunities!

This is incredibly helpful for planning your budget, calendar of events, and any product promotions that might be coming up. One of the challenges we faced was scheduling time with our sales team to present on product updates due to their hectic calendars. When you’re able to show the impact that either their or a team members’ presentation had on the overall pipeline, you might magically be able to fit something in with them. Funny how that works ;)

Practice Your Public Speaking

I’ll be honest, I’m still not overly confident in my public speaking skills, and listening to my on-demand presentations still makes me cringe at times. That being said, I’ve grown a lot in my ability to communicate, enunciate, and manage my intonation through our webinars. No one wants to listen to someone who is boring on the line, and I’ve worked to keep my presentation style informative, welcoming, and fun.

I’ve got a LONG ways to go to kick the ‘um’ and ‘uh’ habit but I’ll get there. It’s something I’ve learned to be mindful of in everyday interactions.

Just for fun, here’s a promo video we did that put my presentation skills to the test. While it performed well and brought great feedback, I still cringe when watching this. What can I say, adulting is tough.

I could go on about my experiences with webinars, processes, and experiences. I always love hearing feedback on new engagement strategies so connect any time if you’d like to geek out over webinars with me.

- L