Webinars have become increasingly popular with the rise in online interactions. At the same time, the traditional practices of seminars have lost their touch. Today, businesses set up live webinars and address a large number of audiences joining in from different parts of the world. However, the success of a webinar depends on how captivating the presentations are. These webinars help strengthen your brand identity, attract global leads and win you a place in the marketplace.
Previously, the seminars hosted at physical locations posed many challenges of presentation materials, comfortable seating, security, food, and equipment. Do you remember panicking over the mic or speaker malfunctions? For instance, there were a lot of technicalities and functionality involved when hosting an on-site seminar. To overcome this, organizations now host webinars online and follow the best practices to create a beyond-reality virtual experience for their audiences.
Here’s a set of tips for you to follow to host a great webinar.
Partner with Virtual Events Platform
To begin with, hosting webinars online through virtual events platforms works best. The platform helps through planning, strategizing, and hosting a successful webinar and presenting live to a global audience. Generally, the platform is a 3D virtual space for you to sign in and easily address a large number of attendees available online. A global audience is attracted to an interactive 3D environment that allows live chat, quizzes, Q&As, and polls. All in all, a seamless digital experience is promised when partnered with a virtual platform. In addition, the platform is feature enriched as it offers the following:
- Customizable environment
- Company representative avatars
- Audio/Video presentations
- Zoom Integration
- Chat and networking
- Global Keynote speakers
- Multilingual platform
- Visually rich graphics
- Multiple presentation options
- Social media integrations
Open For All – Globalize
A virtual platform allows you to create a webinar agenda that welcomes a global audience. Anyone from anywhere can join in the webinar sessions and educate themselves on the topic in discussion. For instance, a university holds webinar sessions to offer orientation to its students. The students join the webinar sessions from far ends of the world. In a matter of seconds, they are familiarized with the campus life, its facilities, faculty, and the administration. In addition, the live presentations engage students at the webinar sessions and help them request meeting slots with faculty and administration.
Thus, a webinar works best when open to a global audience. Likewise, links to the webinar sessions and login credentials are shared with the interested audience.
Arrange a Webinar Host
The best way to go about a webinar is to have a well-informed host. It is important to have somebody available at all times to attend to the speaker and audience. Moreover, the host can keep the audience informed and entertained on the front. The host keeps an eye on the entire event and keeps checking the webinar segments. However, partnering with a virtual platform has many benefits in store for you. For instance, the tech team looks after all the technicalities and functionalities of the webinar sessions. This allows the host to focus on the segment and specifically on speaker sessions.
Add Informative Content
A great webinar is defined by the rich content presented to the audiences during the live or recorded sessions. This content is either a graphical representation or pre-recorded videos. Generally, a webinar session is educational in nature. From an introductory session to individual speaker sessions, a webinar has a lot to offer. Therefore, it is important to streamline content to grasp the attention of audiences and educate them thoroughly. Most audiences are attracted to video presentations, whereas some prefer documents or speech. So, it is highly important to know what your audience expects of you. The more informative the content, the more chances you secure to have the audience hooked till the end of the session.
Here’s an example of how you can streamline content for your webinar sessions:
- Present slides with text
- Use graphics, images, and charts
- Create compelling introduction
- Add engaging questions
- Provide downloadable files
- Add videos and brochures
- Address main points in order
- Offer motivating closing
- Close with CTAs
Create Engagement Opportunities
When hosting webinar sessions through a virtual platform, the networking and engagement features help establish a good connection with the audience. For example, in-built chat boxes enable attendees to leave their queries throughout the sessions. Moreover, attendees easily engage in live text, audio, or video chat with the speakers or fellow attendees. A meeting scheduler option works best when hoping to engage with someone in a 1:1 discussion.
However, the best way to engage the audience within the webinar session is through live Q&A sessions, polls, and quizzes. On the other hand, some organizations prefer to gamify their webinars to offer a refreshing break to the audience. All in all, a single webinar session may include:
- Live polling
- Q&A sessions
- Games
- Chat options
- Scheduled meetings
- Live quizzes
Offer Tea or Lunch Break
One of the keys to host a great webinar is to offer short breaks within the sessions. You can spice things up by scheduling a tea or lunch break within the sessions. This allows you to prepare for the next speaker session. These breaks act as a breaker between sessions. New keynote speakers join in and replace the previous speakers within these breaks. Also, the tea breaks are a good chance for the audience to rejoice and freshen up. For instance, some webinars go on during the day and may cause fatigue to people facing the screens all day long. Just so you can save them from this tension, schedule tea or lunch breaks within the sessions.
The breaks relax the audience and buy you some time to prepare for the next presentation.
Stream Across Channels
To ensure the success of your webinar, it is important to stream it across channels such as social media or websites. The live webinar has the potential to attract most attendees when paired with a social media platform. Like, most people are available online and are ready to join in the sessions. Undoubtedly, most of the audience is won from social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram.
Personalize Webinar Experience
Another important factor to consider while setting up a virtual webinar is to fully customize the experience for your audiences. The best way to go about it is to create a branded environment with the company logo, colors, theme, and representative avatars. The more personalized the experience is, the more chances there are for the audiences to turn into potential leads. Also, you can personalize the experience by adding branded standees and creating branded booths and branded exhibition halls. All in all, a personalized webinar experience helps showcase your brand within the marketplace and helps you win global recognition.
In Conclusion
In 2022, the most effective way to educate and inform people is through webinars. It helps engage a large audience and address important matters or discuss new business strategies. The highly interactive environment allows you to indulge audiences in Q&A sessions, polls, quizzes, or live chat. Generally, the tips mentioned above work wonders for starters hoping to embark on great webinar experiences. However, it is best to plan, organize, and execute the process efficiently.
The platform of Virtual Days leverages its services for organizations and individuals to host a great webinar. Follow the tips mentioned above and watch your webinar become the talk of the town!
