Webinars are a powerful way to showcase your expertise, share your insights, and connect with your audience. But how do you balance delivering your message and responding to questions and comments in a webinar? In this article, you'll learn some tips and best practices to help you plan, present, and interact effectively in a webinar.
Before you design your webinar, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and who you want to reach. What is the main problem or challenge that your webinar will address? What is the value proposition or benefit that your webinar will offer? How will you measure the success of your webinar? These are some of the questions that will help you define your goals and objectives. Next, you need to understand your audience. Who are they? What are their needs, interests, and pain points? How familiar are they with your topic? How do they prefer to learn and communicate? These are some of the questions that will help you tailor your content and style to your audience.
It starts with knowing the WHAT & WHO, to help more effectively plan the most relevant HOW to deliver the message. Some additional things to consider include: - Is the audience clear on your WHAT? (ex. if they aren't, it's ok to clarify what today's webinar objective is) - Ask WHAT ELSE (ex. helps to review your objectives first AND open it up to chat for 'was this what you were expecting' or 'what else were you hoping to get today') -
Once you have your goals and audience in mind, you need to structure your content and time accordingly. A typical webinar format consists of three parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction should capture the attention of your audience, establish your credibility, and preview the main points of your webinar. The body should deliver your message in a clear, concise, and engaging way, using relevant examples, stories, and data. The conclusion should summarize the key takeaways, provide a call to action, and thank your audience. A good rule of thumb is to allocate about 80% of your time to the content and 20% to the interaction. For example, if you have a 60-minute webinar, you can plan for 48 minutes of content and 12 minutes of interaction.
For the 80-20 rule above, while it makes sense in preparation mode, some others things that you might want to take into account to determine your balance of content vs interaction: - Demographic of the audience (are there language & cultural considerations? ex. Global audience might require fewer texts and speaking at a slower pace) - Personal preference for how information is consumed (people are visual - text or pictures, auditory, tactile (more interactive/using senses) - And finally, a rule of thumb I always use is: Ask yourself what are the top 3 takeaways you want the audience to leave with - and is that clear, reinforced, etc.
Your slides and script are the tools that will help you convey your message and connect with your audience. Your slides should be simple, visually appealing, and consistent with your brand and tone. Avoid overcrowding your slides with too much text, images, or animations. Use bullet points, charts, graphs, or icons to highlight the main ideas. Your script should be conversational, natural, and respectful. Avoid reading from your slides or notes verbatim. Instead, use them as cues to guide your flow and transitions. Practice your script aloud several times before the webinar to ensure that you are comfortable with the content, pace, and tone.
Practice Practice Practice! I might even say 'several times' is not enough! - Actually practice delivering it, not just reading the slide notes. - Memorize your speaking points/script so that it comes more natural to you and you can deliver it more conversationally. - Asking 'what are the top 3 takeaways for the audience' usually helps to refine/reframe/reorder/reinforce key points more than others. - Use STORIES - especially personal or relatable ones - as the stories are what help the audience leave with their key takeaways.
One of the biggest challenges of webinars is to keep your audience interested and involved. You don't want them to tune out, multitask, or leave your webinar. To prevent this, you need to engage your audience throughout your webinar. You can use various techniques to create interaction, such as polls, quizzes, surveys, chats, Q&A sessions, or breakout rooms. These techniques can help you gather feedback, check understanding, spark discussion, or generate ideas. You can also use verbal and non-verbal cues to establish rapport, such as asking questions, acknowledging comments, using humor, or smiling. The key is to balance the amount and timing of interaction, so that it supports your message and goals, rather than distracts or interrupts them.
It also helps to reference the name of the person asking the question or making a comment - it pulls them into the session in a virtual manner and gets them to pay attention and lean in. - Thank someone for the question they asked - Reference a comment someone made in chat, at the right moment/section, to reinforce a point - Call on the audience, by highlighting some of the names of people who added comments/questions in chat, when you have another open ended question for the audience. They already contributed, so most likely they will have something else to add if you ask them virtually!
Questions and comments are an essential part of webinars, as they allow you to address the concerns, doubts, or opinions of your audience. However, they can also be challenging to manage, especially if you have a large or diverse audience. You need to decide when and how to handle questions and comments, depending on your webinar format and objectives. You can choose to answer them during or after your presentation, or use a moderator or a chat function to filter and prioritize them. You can also prepare some FAQs or common objections in advance, to anticipate and respond to them effectively. Whatever method you choose, you need to be respectful, concise, and relevant when answering questions and comments. You also need to acknowledge and appreciate the input of your audience, and encourage further dialogue or follow-up.
You can always start out by noting that you will address questions at the end of the section or session. However, you can also pivot mid-stream, especially if you see alot of questions in a particular section, and go off script for a minute and: 1. Acknowledge you are seeing alot of good questions and comments 2. So we will take a few minutes now, versus wait until the end, as there seem to be quite a bit of interest in the current topic being discussed 3. Take the key ones that are relevant and you an answer. You don't have to feel pressured to answer all or in order it was asked.
The last step of delivering a successful webinar is to review and improve your performance and results. You can use various sources of feedback, such as surveys, evaluations, analytics, or recordings, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your webinar. You can also ask yourself some reflective questions, such as what went well, what didn't go well, what surprised you, what did you learn, or what would you do differently next time. Based on your feedback and reflection, you can identify the areas that you need to improve or maintain for your future webinars. You can also use this opportunity to thank your audience for their participation, share any additional resources or information, or invite them to take the next step in your relationship.
Pay attention to questions asked during Q&A. If you see a theme emerge over several webinars, review and revise your presentation to provide more background, or add to FAQs in advance.