Be Your Own Webinar Ninja

Over the past few years, I’ve been privileged to work for and with several companies who are webinar rock stars.  In other words, they pump out exciting, relevant webinar content and attract hundreds or even thousands of webinar attendees – on a regular basis!  And while other companies are happy with 30 or 50 attendees, these companies are struggling to accommodate all the registrations – and adding sessions to meet demand. 

While working on my next webinar concept, it occurred to me that there are very specific success factors common to most of these webinar rock stars – and better yet, they are repeatable, simple, and easy to learn.  So, I put together a list of rules for developing a webinar.  There are absolutely going to be webinars out there that were hugely successful that broke these rules – but in general, a record-breaking webinar starts with the following:

• HOT topic – not lukewarm, not important to vendors or salespeople, not “a few people are talking about this.” I mean you must have a topic that a significant percentage of your target audience is concerned about.  This means they will be eager to open your email – and lining up to register for your webinar!  And this does not mean that you will share with them your latest sales promotion, product, etc., thinly veiled as a “hot topic” webinar.  To find legitimate hot topics, you’ll have to be dialed-in to the breaking news in your field – not getting it second-hand through the typical industry publications, newsletters, and emails.  It means you’ll need to get close to the people in your organization who are already experts, and create a method of picking their brains on a regular basis for hot topics.  You should make it a habit to call your customers and ask them for the three things they’re most concerned about right now in their professional role.  Trust me, if you do this regularly, you will find the hot topics.
• TIMELY topic – On several occasions, I’ve broken records by being the first to announce a webinar around a particular topic. Once someone in a particular industry hosts a webinar around that topic, every other webinar on the topic will play second-fiddle and have fewer registrations.  This means you must sometimes sit down immediately and write a webinar outline and invitation – yes, before you have all of the details and content finalized!  It means that, when there is a big announcement in your industry with far-reaching implications, your webinar invitation should go out the next day.  You don’t need to have it all perfect – in fact, you may not even need to know the exact speaker for your webinar.  But you’d better have a plan to deliver what you’re promising in the invitation – and a back-up plan if your best-case scenario doesn’t pan out.  And, just like finding hot topics, you’ll need to create a process for learning about these timely topics immediately.  Once other vendors in your industry are talking about this topic, it’s already too late.
• AUDACIOUS asks – Sometimes, a fantastic webinar isn’t about the content or the topic, but having the right speaker. If you’re already running regular webinars, and recruiting others outside your organization to speak on them, there are probably a few people in your industry that you would never consider asking to do a webinar.  Why?  Because they’re too important, too high-powered, too expensive.  In short, they’re you’re pie-in-the-sky ideal speaker, but you really doubt they’d agree to do a webinar for you, a vendor.  Guess what?  About half of the time, I’ve gotten these people to do a webinar – just by asking!  And no, I’ve never had to pay them for their participation – because these high-profile experts are really good at getting exposure, and a webinar is free exposure.  So go ahead, send an email to that high-profile expert’s publicist, or admin, or directly to them….you never know what might happen.
• WIN-WIN scenarios – If I’m creating a one-hour webinar, that means I’m asking thousands (maybe!) of my customers and prospects to give me one hour of their day. We’re all busy, and dedicating 12.5% of your workday to a webinar is a big request.  So you absolutely must ensure that when someone signs up to attend your webinar, they will be getting value in return.  The information they learn must impact their day-to-day activities, ongoing projects, or professional successes.  You must be prepared to deliver content that is valuable, so that they return again and again to your webinars.  For a vendor, that can be a challenge, because our ultimate goal is to sell our product or service.  But think about the long-term impact: if all you do is try to sell something, people won’t come back for your next webinar.  And, even worse, they won’t think of you when they need what you’re selling.  Instead, they’ll look for experts in the field, those who have already established their expertise before trying to sell them something.  So, when creating your webinar, look for those questions or concerns that are coming up over and over again in your industry – and strive to answer them, offer solutions or clarifications.  Work on creating content that legitimately adds to the overall knowledge of the professionals in your industry.
• HELPFUL information – if there has been a major recent announcement or change in your industry, there’s typically a lot of confusion about how to interpret, what this means, etc. This is a perfect opportunity to help!  But what if you don’t know how to interpret the announcements, or what this means for organizations?  You can help in that case too – perhaps by conducting a survey around how to interpret this, and then presenting the results on the webinar.  Or perhaps by hosting a forum for professionals in the space to discuss the announcement, ask questions, and share.

When you’re creating a webinar, ask yourself if you’ve included all of the above.  If not, course-correct!  There are many other factors to creating a highly successful webinar, but following the suggestions above will get you on the path to success.