5 Point Checklist For Hosting A Perfect Business Webinar

Business webinars do a lot more than just revamp your static content, and move the buyer from researching to making the actual purchase.

They’re affordable, help you develop authority and trust, promote your business, create business relationships, reach a larger audience, and are an added revenue stream.

A State of Webinars Report by ClickMeeting reveals that video marketing and webinars have changed the rules of the game when it comes to content marketing.

About two-thirds of B2B marketers are using webinars and 66 percent of them find the tool to be very effective. Similarly, a report by Wyzowl shows that 41 percent of video marketers have used webinars as a marketing channel.

If you want to be a business webinar hosting champion, here’s a checklist of what you need to host the perfect business webinar.

1. Identify webinar objectives, desired outcomes, webinar tools and skills required

Image: Web Insight

This is the first stage where you’ll identify the key objectives of your webinar, such as lead generation, and the kind of outcomes you desire from it.

If you know the type of content you’ll be using in the webinar and your target audience, prepare a tentative title, and identify the main customer pain points it’ll address. Next, jot down the main sources of your content plus the call-to-action you’re going to use before, during and after the webinar.

You’ll also need to identify the kind of tools needed for a smooth production including an internet connection, a webinar hosting platform, speakers, a mic, and other audio requirements.

If you have a large team in your business, choose people with the skills required for webinar production, and these will form your project team. When you have a formidable list, bring them together through a kick-off meeting to set the agenda and tone.

You’ll also need a subsequent meeting in order to get buy-in from the team ahead of the project, determine the webinar timelines like when to do rehearsals, and going live.

2. Develop the audience attraction campaign

This stage involves planning how to attract your target audience for the webinar. If your objective is lead generation, create an appealing topic that’ll attract them at the first instant, and make them want to sign up for it.

Prepare an audience profile that matches your working webinar title, and your business or brand’s value proposition.

This profile will include the demographics of your main audience such as their location, job functions, the industries they’re from, revenues, among others so you can meet your webinar registration goals.

Image: Pinterest

Next, identify where you’ll pick your audience from, now that you know the participant profile you’re working with. Such sources can be example trade associations, media sponsors, purchased lists, or even social media channels like LinkedIn.

Now that you have your list, the next step is to create and develop your email campaign invitation. It can be in text or HTML or both formats, but the main message should address the problem statement, and what your audience should expect to learn.

Alongside the email invitation, develop a landing page where your audience will land and sign up for the webinar. Check if your webinar hosting platform offers this as some do, otherwise you can create your own.

Image: Kissmetrics

Once you have an email invitation and landing page, create an email campaign drip schedule that’ll determine how many emails to send and the time to send them. Make sure you establish the daily registration tracking metrics, and that your emails are CAN-SPAM compliant before you send them out.

Finally, test your email and social media platforms before launching the campaign, and only execute it when you’re sure and ready so you can start tracking the daily registrations and metrics.

Metrics to check for include open rates, sent, hard and soft bounces, delivered, click rates, spam complaints, and unsubscribes or opt-outs.

3. Prepare engagement metrics

At this point, you’ll gather the audience registration data into reports with actionable intelligence that you and your team can use for decision making.

Specifically, you need to monitor the email invitation metrics for your webinar, especially the click-through rate or ratio as it’ll show you how many register and how many don’t complete the process.

Image: Newton Software

It’s a good place to hold meetings to brainstorm the structure and flow of the webinar and perform the first rehearsal for the initial webinar walk-through.

Plus, you can send your key speakers and organizers the webinar agenda, and hold another meeting to check the content matches the email invitations, flow, timing and structure, and finally develop your production script.

Once everything is in check, hold the first rehearsal with the slides and webinar template. You can also develop seed questions for the Q&A and online polls that you can use to start and end the webinar.

Image: Newton Software

Next, create PowerPoint slides for your webinar that’ll include the splash screen, introduction of the speaker(s), webinar norms and housekeeping, calls-to-action, and a Q&A section.

When that’s done, create a survey that’ll measure audience satisfaction and other qualitative feedback, draft thank-you emails to send to the participants, and a link for no-shows to view the webinar later if possible.

If your recording software is working properly, hold a second rehearsal to perform timed run-throughs of the slides and the online polls, and create Q&A seed questions.

Image: Livestorm

4. Go live

You’re just about to go live at this point.

Meet your project team an hour or so before the webinar to perform the final sound check and final review of the slide deck.

Check that all the surveys, polls, and seed questions are loaded in the webinar hosting platform, and have a contingency plan for your network and audio equipment, and then record your webinar. Make sure your team creates a backup of the recording.

The next step is to launch the webinar splash screen 20 minutes before you go live, and ensure your devices and ringers are off or in silent mode to avoid distractions.

Image: Unbounce

You’re now ready to go live, so make sure you start at the time you scheduled the webinar for so your audience doesn’t get agitated, and then welcome your audience to the webinar.

While you’re at it, monitor the audience engagement metrics using real-time tracking, and end on time with a vote of every participant and your key speakers and organisers.

Once you’re offline, debrief with your speakers and edit the webinar recording to remove any unnecessary sounds and housekeeping instructions. Remember to send a thank-you email to your audience after the webinar.

5. Audience Conversion

You’ve probably collected analytics and metrics from your business webinar, so the next step is to convert them into a report for actionable sales follow-up and measure the success of the webinar.

Image: Venture Harbor

The report will help you pick which prospect or lead isn’t a fit, who needs nurturing and who is sales-ready. The sales team can handle the sales-ready leads, while you embark on creating a nurturing campaign for the leads who need nurturing, after the webinar.

It’s also a good place to draw lessons you’ve learned, and determine whether you need a new webinar or create a series based on audience feedback.

Conclusion

With this comprehensive checklist, it’s easy to create a successful business webinar and add value to your audiences.

 

 

Tulip Turner –

Tulip is a Content and Inbound Marketing expert at Snewscms. Over the years, she has helped dozens of businesses in defining their content strategy. She believes that creativity doesn’t inspire customers anymore. A true story when recited well, is enough to build a connect.

Twitter – @snewscmss

Facebook – @snewscms