KEY QUESTIONS TO SUSTAIN HEALTHY WEBINARS

You want to know how good your webinar was. After all, a crowd of prospects, clients, and customers watched (and critiqued) your live event.

From the audience’s perspective: How engaging was the content? Was there superior audio quality? Did the visuals complement the presentation? From your own organization's perspective: How well did you market the webinar? Is your firm ready to follow up with each registrant?

These sorts of questions fall nicely into five categories. Answer the questions in each of the categories below for a sense of where your events sparkle and where they could use some shine.

MARKETING:

Your event impressed guests one way or the other before it ever started. How the webinar invitations looked, what they said, and when they were sent gave invited guests the material they needed to judge whether your event was relevant, professional, and, ultimately, deserving of their time.

What kind of judgment did guests pass on your event’s marketing? Ask yourself:

• How many email invitations did we send to each contact?
• What was the ROI on your advertising budget?
• Was the email marketing cadence correct?
• How effectively did salespeople and client-facing team members generate registrations?
• Did we provide a sample of the webinar content in podcast, article, or handout form?
• Was our subject line effective? Could we have brainstormed a shorter, clearer, or pluckier one?
• Was the invitation relevant to recipients and did it accurately describe and properly weight the items in our presentation?
• Could the marketing copy have conveyed the same information in fewer words or with greater specificity and appeal?
• Was the email invitation easy to read and attractive?
• Did we send (enough) timely reminders to registrants?
• Was the registration page converting visitors at a benchmark rate?

Your answers to these questions will help you determine whether your webinar marketing could improve its appearance, message, timeliness, and helpfulness.

PRODUCTION:

Your live webinar can experience audio problems, bungled poll questions, technical glitches, and other issues. To set and maintain a high-quality bar, ask yourself:

• Could our attendees clearly listen to our webinar by phone and over the Internet?
• Did our conference line chime every time someone joined or left?
• Did we keep our attendance numbers private?
• Could our attendees call and reach a tech support line?
• Did the presenters feel at ease presenting? Or were they stumbling and uncertain, or reading from a script (while audibly shuffling papers)?
• Did we properly encourage attendees to participate in poll questions and give them enough time to vote?
• Did we have a dedicated person to proactively chat with attendees and promptly reply?
• Was the webinar experience bumpy or rushed for those producing and presenting it?
  
• Was there audible background noise during the presentation?

Bottom line: You want to take every measure you can to ensure your audience and speakers have a high-quality experience.

SUBSTANCE:

The best webinar content leaves attendees better able to perform their jobs. These well-received presentations are insightful, topical, timely, and engaging, rather than dull, scattershot, impractical, or irrelevant. Ask yourself these questions to see how yours faired:

• How many anecdotes or stories did our presentation include?
• How many case studies and real-world examples did our presentation include?
• Have we given attendees practical information they can apply directly to their day-to-day work?
• Did our presentation give the big picture and context as well as the details?
• Did the presentation have a terrific introduction (hook) and powerful conclusion?
• Was the presentation constructed to help the audience understand the material, instead of focusing on what the presenter found easiest to present?

All of these questions will help you assess the quality of the presentation from the viewers’ standpoint—the one that matters most.

SLIDES

Every webinar has the obligatory presentation slides. However, you want yours to be exemplary. Go beyond typing out the script. Illustrate key points with graphs, charts, cartoons, pictures, news clippings, screenshots, quotations, art, animations, and more. The key concept is to have slides that supplement the oral presentation, instead of regurgitating it.

With all that in mind, you can assess your slide deck by asking:

• Do our slides have an attractive template?
• Do our slides avoid spelling out what the presenter is saying (lest the audience read ahead)?
• Does each of slide have no more than 3-5 lines of bullets or text?
• Have we thought of how to best convey the information in a visual way, via graphs, charts, etc.?
• Have we thoroughly copy-edited the slides?
• Have we added enough formatting elements, such as fonts, colored bullets, and animations, without going overboard?
• In the end, did we succeed in making our slides pleasing to look at?

Too many slide presentations repel the eye. Remember the audience will be looking at your slides for 30-60 minutes. If they have the visual appeal of a tax form, your attendees may choose to just listen as they sort through their inbox.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Webinars require an investment of money and time. Don’t let your attendees waltz in and leave without providing anything in return. Specifically, your webinar marketing and live event team can gather certain information to position your salespeople for a successful follow-up campaign.

Ask yourself:

• Did our registration form request the necessary information?
  
• Could we have increased registration numbers by making the form shorter or easier to complete?
• Did we post a live poll that asked attendees if they would like additional information?
• Did the topic of our presentation align with our services or products?
• Did the presenter spend at least several minutes at the end sharing what kinds of companies benefit from our services or products, and how?
• Were attendees asked to submit feedback and (quickly) directed to an exit survey?
• Have we collected the live webinar chats for our salespeople to see who had what concerns?

While webinars provide expert advice, they are not a charity event. Make sure your team has done everything it can to support the sales team.

How Did You Do?

Questions about audio are easy to evaluate. Whereas questions about design and sales success vary from organization to organization.

For each answer you are happy with, implement A/B testing to see how you might improve. For each answer you are dissatisfied with, brainstorm new approaches and seek out advice. 

The point is never rest! Both webinars and webinar audiences are ever-changing. Use these questions to regularly assess which of your webinar elements are sparkling and which ones could use some shine.