Webinar Best PracticesOvercoming post-covid industry saturation and avoiding death-by-PowerPoint.

The Team

Director, NCA Events

Events Coordinator

Housekeeping

Best Practices from the Best:

Best Practices from the Best

ContentPlanning & Promotion

LiveExecution

Follow-up& On-demand

Content Planning

● Define a problem, solutions and actionable next steps

● Compelling title + 3 - 5 key learnings/takeaways

● Bring in subject-matter experts

● Provide resources that drive leads down the funnel

Presentation /Slide deck

● Finalize the deck in advance

● Design matters

○ Keep copy short + Leverage images

● Check all slide builds, videos and links

● There is ALWAYS a typo...

Plan for Engagement

● Include polls (that help tell your story), show of hands

● Encourage use of chat and questions (at any time)

● Promote prizes for live attendance

Registration: promote takeaways or prizes

Directly related to the topic

Registration: Add Teaser Video

Include link to Request a Demo (on the same page or after registration)

Optimize page with a 30-60s video

Registration: Countdown + Repeat CTA

● Repeat CTA● Form Pre-fill● Limited Navigation

Add Urgency

Promoting the Recording/On-demand

● Overly promoting webinars are recorded can kill attendance

● Promote Recording only as a pop-up if prospects bounce without converting

Promo Roadmap

● Schedule 2 or 3 emails, starting two weeks prior to the webinar○ Last chance: Dynamic countdowns clocks

● Support with Social Promo ○ Organic + Paid

Customize Confirmation Email

● Custom Image● CTA button with join link● 'Add to calendar' feature

It’s easy to lose your audience.

● Experiment with different durations.

What drives most registration/attendance?

● Start on time!

● Keep the energy level high

Aim for Spotless, but keep it human

● Acknowledge and have fun when things

don't work as planned. Now, more than

ever, people understand tech issues happen

LiveExecution

● Planning call/ Dry-run

○ Review the content, discuss the flow, handing off-points, practice controls

● Practice Mode: Speakers online 30 minutes before scheduled start time

○ Check tech

○ Enough time to get into the zone

● Open the room early and start right on time

No Rockstar Arrival

1

● Quality camera (Full HD or 4K),

at eye-level

● Consider and external mic: poor audio is extremely distracting

● Use a green screen or a neutral background.

● Have a second monitor with your

notes and controls

Video isn't optional, it’s the expectation

1

Upgrade your gear

Lights, camera, action!

● Control your lighting conditions with external lights

● Avoid backlights

Optimal 3-point lighting setup

Check your video settings

● Keep your audience paying attention to what matters

● Come across as professional and reinforce your brand

Virtual Background

The Webi-nerd: talking Bandwidth

● Schedule your session for times you have predictable bandwidth

● When you host webinars, your family shuts down. Sorry!

● Always have someone watching you live, to report trouble

Splash Screen:

● Standby Music

● Relevant info (pre-requisites)

● Start time, audio options

Housekeeping

● Review any tech that will be relevant to the presentation

● Recording

● Q&A, Chat , Live Polling

● Prizes

Control Audience View

● Stop your screen share to make it personal full-screen video

● Gallery view / Highlight speaker (especially during panels)

Conversational and Engaging

Polls / Show of Hands

● Use it to prove your points● Read results out loud for the recordings ● Using the native poll as a hand-raiser

Instead of an one-way message, bring the audience in

Conversational and Engaging

Using Polls for lead qualification

Conversational and Engaging

Chat

● Encourage and acknowledge chat conversations (ice-breakers, fun comments, different perspectives)

● Add value (share resources, sources, poll results)

● Have a support person /moderator monitoring it

Conversational and Engaging

Q&A

● Encourage people to ask at any point (otherwise they forget or get disengaged) ● Allow attendees to upvote questions (and start with the most relevant questions)

A little bit of bribing...

Running Video?

● Power-Point is slow and leggy

● Apple Keynote and VLC as smoother alternatives

● Using Youtube? Careful with Ads and Browse history

● Wistia or Vimeo render better (with no ads)

Retain your audience

● Promote upcoming webinars

● Post the links in the chat

CTA Slide● Stay on that slide for Q&As, give the audience time to respond.

● Tease takeaway file and webinar specials

● Post any links in the chat

Push Redirects

● Leverage your platform redirect capabilities to push attendees to a post-webinar page

Follow-up

● Prepare follow-up tasks in advance

● Process recordings timely (within less than 24h)

● Score on-demand viewers (Wistia)

● Reiterate actionable downloadable/ takeaway file

Design Follow-up Emails

● Custom message for Attendees / No-shows

● Short copy, to the point.

● CTA front and center

● 1-paragraph recap

Design Follow-up Emails

● Dedicated nurture, resend to people who still have not watched the recording

● Chapterized clips for top performing content

Resources Page

● Leverage previous sessions, to be watched on-demand

● Recycle top-performing webinars, sending them to new leads in the future

● Nurture on-demand leads with additional resources

Performance Metrics

Monthly/ quarterly review recent webinars to identify what worked best

● Topic / Presenter

● Total Registrants/ Attendance rate

● # of leads / Cost per lead / # of MQLs

● Conversion rates

● Total # of Opportunities created

● Total # of Opportunities Won (with win-rate and $ value)

Thanks for attending!

Recording and slides available at itglue.com/webinars-playbook