Creating Effective Webinars
We have all listened in on boring, ineffective webinars. What are the keys to creating a truly effective webinar? Would love to here your comments on what is key. Here are my thoughts:
- Voice Inflection – One of the pieces of advice I was given when I first started delivering webinars is to have a mirror in front of you when you are speaking. People can hear when you are smiling/showing emotion; it is important to not become monotone when the audience cannot see you.
- Interaction – My greatest concern when I started delivering webinars is I would not be able to interact with the audience as I like to do live. During our webinars, I engage attendees as much as possible and not just through CPE questions. We have many informal polls and try to answer questions real-time throughout the presentation. The interaction is not the same as live but we still strive for a high-level of interaction on our webinars.
- Quick Moving Subject Matter – We try to keep the subject matter constantly moving, capturing key points but not dwelling on any slides for very long. I utilize the same methodology (to a certain extent) in live classes; if the slides do not keep flowing, you risk losing the attention of your audience. I tend to have more slides for webinars when compared to live courses as well.
- Dialogue – As we spoke about previously when we discussed Interaction, we strive to make each attendee feel like they are in a live course or they are in a 1:1 coaching session. We implore attendees to ask questions and lend their experiences to the topic at hand. This perspective adds significant value to all attendees experience.
- Take breaks (if over an hour) – We currently conduct webinars that run from one to eight hours; we break up the eight hour courses into fourths or two four hour sessions. Regardless, if you are hosting a webinar over one hour, take breaks. Take five minutes at the top of each hour. It is difficult enough sitting through live training but sitting in front of your computer, hour after hour, trying to focus on listening? Very difficult to do, even for the most focused attendee.