Create your own webinar with ease: 10 practical tips

More and more companies choose to use webinars in their marketing strategy. A webinar is usually very interesting for the viewer, and they’re relatively cheap to produce. Moreover, a webinar will help to promote your product or service quickly and easily. But what’s the best method to create a webinar and what should you look out for?

In this article: "Create your own webinar with ease" we share 10 practical tips to make your own webinar from scratch.

Tip 1. Create a webinar: "the idea"

Every successful webinar starts with a clear idea. Identify a problem your audience faces and offer a solution through your session. Ask yourself: What main challenge does my audience face? And how can I help solve this? Focusing on these questions can guide you to an impactful topic.

Tip 2. Translating an idea

The best strategy for starting a webinar is by simply asking your target market what their challenges are. Instead of a direct question, phrase it as, “What’s your biggest struggle with [your expertise]?” Most potential customers don’t exactly know what they need. By allowing them to reflect on certain questions, you can find out what it is that could help them solve their problems.

Discussing this with your target audience can be done in different ways. The best method is using your email list(s). Send out a survey, this will often result in pretty accurate answers. You can also try using social media. Ask around on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, or join a niche-related Facebook or LinkedIn group and try to get insights here.

Another method is using your own website. Use a pop-up or a call-to-action field on your blog, where you ask people for comments on a specific topic. Or contact users of your product directly, if possible. In this way, you are able to collect valuable feedback, that will help you translate an idea into a solution.

Tip 3. Creating an engaging title

A good title draws people in, but make sure it’s realistic and reflects what you’ll deliver. This can be done by making a promise. Do make sure you can live up to this promise. For example: “How to create awesome content in 5 practical steps”. And don’t title your webinar: “Learn to write the best content in 5 practical steps”. The entire purpose is to choose a title you can live up to and that is valuable for your target market. Create a title that appeals to people and always make sure to deliver the promise you make in the title.

Tip 4. Define the outcome of the webinar

Before organizing your webinar, you should be able to answer this question: by the end of my webinar, my viewers can…? Make sure to pinpoint this learning goal at the very start of your webinar. This ensures that the topic is clear to everyone, but will also emphasize the things participants will have learned by the end of the webinar. This allows viewers to check if they’re on track with the learning goal.

At the end of the webinar, you could ask participants for feedback, using the practical WebinarGeek marketing tools. You could do this through a poll or call to action, but also by asking questions during your live webinar. Participants are able to answer questions directly through the live chat functionality.

Tip 5. Find the right length

To teach your target audience something, you have two important factors to keep in mind. First, people should be able to understand the presentation. Always make sure to use clear and concise language. Secondly, participants should be able to remember the provided information. Viewers should be able to repeat the things they have learned. Viewers should understand a concept and know how they should apply and repeat this over and over.

Having new knowledge about a topic without actually being able to actually implement it, would be utterly useless. You want to have taught the viewers something by the end of the webinar, and this should be something a viewer can benefit from directly.

Tip 6. The five steps

When you want to teach the viewers something, use the 5 step principle. This means that you’ll use a maximum of 5 steps to teach viewers something of value. Remembering more than 5 steps is simply too hard for most people. Viewers don’t only need to remember the steps, but also the order in which they were provided.

Tip 7. Pick the optimal day

Choosing the optimal day depends on your target market. When is your target audience online and when do they have some time off?
Generally, the following rules apply for creating and hosting webinars:

• Tuesday until Thursday are the best days to organize a webinar.

• Monday usually is a catch-up day.

• Friday is the day to start the weekend early for most people.

The exact time to host the webinar is hard to pinpoint. This depends on your target market. When you serve a business-oriented market, remember to avoid giving your webinar between 1 PM and 2 PM when most professionals are on their lunch break. So always make sure to be mindful of the regular schedule of your target market and the times that are most optimal for their schedule.

Tip 8. Create engaging slides and visuals

Use slides to keep attendees interested. Don’t use slides with large amounts of text. When you want to use slides for your webinar, make sure of the following:

• Use an introductory slide with the date, time, and title of your webinar.

• After that, you can show a slide that sums up the learning goal.

• Follow up with a slide that gives a short overview of the 5 steps for reaching the learning goal, like explained earlier.

• The final slide should explain what the viewer has learned, a quick recap.

Besides slides, it is important to keep the attention of the attendees. This can be done by being interactive: ask questions and use polls. Prepare your slides on time and make sure they look professional. Put plenty of time into making and preparing your webinar.

Tip 9. Filling the virtual chairs

Good preparation is the start of a successful webinar. That’s why you should start promoting your webinar at an early stage.

It’s important that you won’t start too early or too late with the webinar promotion. When you start too early with the promotion, the attendees might have already forgotten about it before it has even started. When you start promoting too late, chances are most attendees already made another appointment at the exact time you will be giving your webinar.

The optimal timeframe to start promoting a webinar is three weeks in advance. Don’t promote it in the last week before you host the webinar. The last week should be used to send reminders to people who have already signed up.

Tip 10. Promoting your webinar

Promotion of a webinar can be done in several different ways. It’s important to think about where you could best reach your audience. This can be your own website, social media via email list. You can also cooperate with other people in your niche. You could co-create a webinar and host it with someone else, or agree to promote someone else’s product during the webinar, in exchange for promotion on their website. It’s important that the webinar and the product are compatible with the potential co-presenter and it will provide participants with real added value.

Any more questions about organizing your webinar?

These ten practical tips for organizing your webinar can help you make your webinar a success. Would you like to learn more about the marketing-aspect of your webinar? Feel free to ask us about our practical stepwise marketing plan. Or contact one of our Geeks directly.

Host your first webinar within 7 days!

Sign up for the challenge