Last Updated on January 17, 2022
Disclosure: We may be compensated via the links clicked in this article at no extra cost to you. The opinions expressed are our own and stand by our recommendations. Please read our disclaimer for more info.
In this post, I will show you how to create a webinar in a few simple steps and host effective webinars for your business.
You are probably here because you already know about the webinar’s relationship-building capabilities and want to create one for your business. But in case if you are not familiar, let’s know about it in a few words.
What is a webinar
A webinar is an online seminar where you can virtually present yourself to anyone in the world. You can invite people to attend your webinar in real-time or provide a replay for those who cannot attend the live event.
You can collect your attendee’s information or start a Q&A session to address the queries and concerns of your attendees.
Now you may thought why you need to host webinars.
Why host a webinar
Webinars are one of the best ways to interact with your prospects and customers and build long-term relationships with them. With the increase in remote work culture, the need for online interaction and education has increased significantly.
Through webinars, you can nurture high-quality leads and convert them even after the webinar. Also, you can reach a larger audience in real-time without having any geographical restrictions. It isn’t possible with a person-to-person meeting.
With proper planning and the right tools, you can create a highly effective webinar that can positively impact your business.
If you are ready to host a webinar and plan to engage your subscribers, go through these steps to create your webinar more engaging and successful.
How to create a webinar presentation
Select your team
A webinar can be done individually or with a team. However, there are four key persons in hosting a successful webinar:
Organizer: An organizer is the one who develops the content of your online meetings. The organizer is also responsible for finding the right expert for the webinar and promoting it. Organizers also communicate with the attendees and take care of the webinar registrations.
Presenter: A presenter is an expert in the subject and delivers the presentation flawlessly. The presenter is responsible for engaging the audience and also looks after the programming of the webinar.
Moderator: Panel discussions require a moderator, but presentations by single speakers do not. The moderator will stimulate the discussion among the panel members. The moderator can also be assigned if you expect people to ask a lot of questions.
Assistants: Assistants are the ones who answer the attendees’ queries which are unattended by the presenter. They also help in answering the technical queries of the audience.
Once you have selected your team members, assign them individual roles. Now it’s time to choose the webinar topic.
Choose a webinar topic.
Before you host a webinar, it is important to brainstorm an engaging webinar topic. The topic should be highly specific and relevant to your audience, which keeps your audience engaged.
For example, suppose you are running a digital marketing agency and hosting a webinar on email marketing. In that case, you can cover a webinar on “how to write compelling subject lines” in particular. It helps you get more engagement during the webinar.
Also, think about how you can provide value through your webinar. I recommend choosing the topics that are educational because they are performing very well. You should highly align the webinar content with your sales team to drive quality leads for your business.
To choose the right webinar topic for your audience, ask yourself a few questions like
- Who is your audience?
- Which type of information is your audience looking for?
- What can you teach them, or what problem can you solve?
- How do you provide them value from your webinar?
- What are your goals and objectives from this webinar?
Below are a few webinar topic types that are proven to get results
- How to webinars
- Onboarding webinars
- Trends and data webinars
- Interview webinars
- Case study webinars
- Product launch webinars
- Feature release webinars
Select a webinar format
There are multiple formats for hosting a successful webinar: single-speaker presentations, Q&A webinars, interviews, and panel discussions. Choose the webinar format according to your business goal. For example, If you are launching a new product, you may conduct a product launch or demonstration webinar.
Let’s understand some popular webinars formats
Presentation webinar
It is one of the most popular webinar formats in which a single presenter provides a powerpoint presentation. This format is best suitable for targeting a small audience. To keep your audience engaged, try to provide a visually appealing and interactive webinar.
Interview style webinar
For the interview-type webinars, a subject matter expert acts as an interviewee, and the speaker acts as an interviewer. These types of webinars are very interesting because your audience sees an expert answering the questions.
Q&A webinar
In the Q&A webinars, you need the subject matter expert to answer the audience’s queries. To make your webinar more successful, give the commonly asked questions to the expert before going live and ask them to prepare the answer.
Product webinar
Product webinars are best for product launches and demonstrations. You can show how to use your product or service more effectively to your customers. If your customer has some queries related to a certain feature of your product, you can also address them in your webinar.
Create webinar content
Creating engaging webinar content requires a lot of effort. Try to use creative ways to make your webinar interesting so that people can stick with you through an entire webinar. Here are the required pieces of content for a webinar:
Script: Script is needed for reference if you forget any important point to discuss during the webinar.
Presentation: Though you have experienced presenters during the webinar, you need to have impressive slides in the presentation to keep your audience hooked to the webinar. So, try including infographics, statistics, polls, and surveys in the slides. It helps the audience interact with the presenters in a better fashion.
Pick a webinar platform.
Many webinar platforms are available online, and most of them provide impressive features to host a successful webinar. You can opt for any popular webinar platforms like Zoom, Demio, Livestorm, ClickMeeting, etc.
Personally, I am a fan of Demio because it is super easy to use and has all the features to create a perfect webinar.
However, before purchasing the subscription of these webinar platforms, consider them based on factors like how many people are likely to attend your webinar? What is the pricing of the plans? How easy is it to use the webinar platform?
Also, check if the webinar platform supports features like surveys, polls, offer display, chat, Q&A, etc. If the platform satisfies most of your webinar requirements, go ahead and subscribe to the premium plan.
Build a registration page
After choosing the right webinar platform for your next session, it is time to build an impressive registration page that helps capture more leads.
The final goal of every webinar is to get as many people to sign up as possible. Nowadays, most webinar platforms provide the feature to create impressive webinar landing pages. But if you don’t, you can use a landing page builder as Leadpages.
On the registration page, give a short detail about the information you will share in the webinar, information about the presenters, and the date and time of the webinar.
Also, try to include key elements like the webinar’s agenda, the presenters’ professional experience, and what they have achieved in the past? It is followed by a registration form with the perfectly optimized Call-To-Action button. It will help in gaining more registrations for your webinar.
Below are some best practices to create a perfect landing page for your webinar
- Write a clear and attractive headline and body copy
- Use scarcity and a deadline to show urgency for registrations
- You should clearly show event details on the landing page
- Use images or videos to make it visually appealing
- Implement relevant call to action strategically
- try to show some social proof for authenticity
Arrange webinar equipment
It is unnecessary to invest a huge amount in webinar equipment, but some required devices are important for a webinar to be successful. So make sure you have access to the below equipment at a minimum.
Microphone: Consider using good-quality headset microphones to cut off the background noise while interacting with the audience during the webinar. It is not advised to use the inbuilt microphone of your computer to record webinars.
Camera: If your webinar requires a video interaction, it is suggested to have a good quality webcam for better interaction with the audience. You can also use the inbuilt camera of your laptop if it has a clear video, but try to test it before live.
Also, make sure to have your laptop fully charged and have a data backup in case of an unexpected system crash during the webinar; it helps a lot.
Choose a place for recording.
It is essential to record your webinar in a room free from noises and disturbances to make your webinar effective. It will improve the quality of your webinar and provide a great experience for your audience.
Choose a silent place for recording the webinar. It is suggested to select places like a conference room or any other room where there is no background noise. Also, while recording the webinar, keep your phones in silent mode. It will keep you away from distractions and let you focus on delivering an engaging webinar.
Do a test run before live.
Before you deliver the real webinar, it is recommended to practice multiple times and do a demo webinar. Check where you are making mistakes while doing a test webinar.
Use the same equipment and place to record the webinar as you would do for the real webinar. Identifying the minor issues in your test webinar and ironing them helps you perform better in the real webinar.
Pick the right day and time.
Since all the registrants will not be from the same location, it is important to identify the right day and time for hosting the webinar. If you conduct a webinar at 4 PM for people living in New York, it might be late for people living in India.
According to a survey conducted by ON24, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the best days to conduct a webinar. However, the best time to conduct a webinar depends on the target audience of your webinar.
So it is best to figure out your audience demographics before selecting the time for your webinar. You can also conduct a small survey to know the most preferred time your attendees want from you.
Send webinar invitation
Send out invites to your email list and let them know about your webinar. Include important information like what benefits does the audience get out of the webinar? When is the webinar being hosted? And who is the presenter?
At the end of the email, include a clear Call-To-Action button so that the reader can click on it and redirect to the landing page to sign up for your webinar.
Promote your webinar
Once the landing page is designed, you can promote the webinar in several ways. You can leave a link to the webinar landing page on your website, post the link on your social profiles, and run ads on platforms like Facebook, Google ads, etc. It will help you to gain more registrations for the webinar.
Host your webinar
On the final day, host your webinar. Make sure to start the webinar on time so that your audience will not miss out on the focus. Keep them engaged by allowing them to participate by asking questions during the webinar.
Also, record the webinar so that the registrants who did not show up for your webinar can go through your webinar whenever they get time. It helps them understand more about your product/services in a better manner.
Follow up attendees
Once the webinar is done, try to reach out to the attendees through email. Send them a thank you mail for joining your webinar. Also, send out a quick survey to know what the attendees liked or disliked about your webinar. It helps you to deliver better webinars next time.
Send a link to the recorded webinar to the people who have signed up but did not show up for the webinar.
Analyze the results
Once the webinar is done, you will have plenty of results to track. Some of the key factors to track from your webinar are:
- How long did the audience stay in the webinar?
- Where did the registrations come from (social, ads, etc.)?
- How many registrations have been done?
- How much engagement did you get through the surveys and polls?
