Hosting webinars is one of the best ways to engage with your audience anywhere in the world. It also helps you drive lead generation and build your brand authority.
You need to thoroughly prepare before holding the live event or launching an automated webinar. A successful webinar is planned strategically, has a solid tech setup, and delivers engaging content.
Read this ultimate webinar checklist to create the best webinar experience for all of your attendees.
1. Have a Webinar Strategy and Goals
Before you host a webinar or create slides for the presentation, know your strategy and objectives for holding the event. These will guide your decisions as you make the webinar.
With your webinar, you can aim to:
- Drive lead generation
- Increase brand awareness
- Showcase a product or service
- Build a community
- Educate a broader audience about topics that matter
These goals and strategies are the foundation of successful webinar planning.
2. Determine Your Target Audience
Understanding the people who will attend your webinar can help you tailor the content, tone, language, and visuals to their level. You need to determine their pain points, the questions they want to be answered, and why they’re attending the webinar. Answering all these questions can give you valuable insights into your audience’s preferences.
3. Choose the Best Webinar Platform
All platforms have their own benefits and quirks. Select a webinar platform that can cater to your needs, whether you’re using it for a live webinar or a paid webinar.
Consider the following features:
- High-quality webinar recording
- Reliable screen sharing
- Integration with marketing automation tools
- Interactive features, such as polls and chats
- Global audience support
Most webinar platforms today can support a hybrid of live and automated webinars for better reach and flexibility.
4. Prepare Pre- and Post-Webinar Checklists
Create a pre-webinar checklist to ensure you won’t miss a single thing leading up to the event and a post-webinar checklist to do after the webinar wraps up.
Pre-Webinar Checklist:
- Confirm your guest speakers, schedule, and the platform you’re going to use.
- Finalize all sides and the webinar recording.
- Test all tech setups before the dry run.
- Schedule emails and reminders that you’ll send to all webinar attendees.
- Post promotional content online.
Post Webinar Checklist:
- Share the webinar recording online or put it on demand.
- Send post-webinar email campaigns.
- Analyze webinar analytics to see areas of improvement.
- Gather feedback by launching a post-webinar survey.
Go back to your webinar checklist just before you run the event. Tick off boxes of anything you’ve done in the list.
5. Come Up with the Perfect Webinar Topic
Your topic should be specific, relevant, and interesting to the audience. Align your topic with your business goals and address the questions your audience needs answers to.
Check social media and community forums to find trending topics you want to make webinar content about. You should also brainstorm with your team and focus on the subjects you or your presenters know really well.
Create an outline for your presentation’s flow and research areas that need hard facts. Write a draft of the content and have it fact-checked by your team.
6. Draft Webinar Slides and Plan Your Presentation
Use a great design for your slides to keep the audience engaged. As you draft every slide, you should make each one visually appealing and rich in content.
To avoid overwhelming the audience, focus on a single idea per slide. Support the content with graphs, charts, and photos whenever possible. The final slide should have a call to action (CTA) and the next steps the audience should take.
If you have multiple webinar presenters, assign segments to each of them throughout the webinar presentation for a better flow.
7. Create a Well-Converting Webinar Registration Page
Your audience should find the webinar registration process easy. Create a registration page with an attention-grabbing headline, key takeaways, and a summary of the webinar topic, as well as time, date, and timezone support for global viewers.
Make the registration form short and clean. The webinar landing page should also load fast. Add your visual branding and a punchy, urgent CTA. Share this page in your social media posts, blog content, and emails to reach potential attendees.
8. Promote Your Webinar Effectively
Promoting the upcoming webinar at least two weeks before the event can contribute to the webinar’s success. Follow these strategies:
- Post promotional content on social media platforms with the appropriate webinar hashtag.
- Email newsletters to your recipient list.
- Use paid ads if you have enough budget.
- Work with your guest speakers for cross-promotion.
9. Run a Technical Check
A technical check can prevent technical difficulties during the webinar session. Make sure you have a stable internet connection, a working webcam and microphone, and a powerful webinar management platform. Create a backup plan in case any or all of your equipment fails.
10. Rehearse the Webinar
Even a live or automated webinar with well-done content can fall flat without your confidence as the host. Your delivery adds spice to the whole webinar. Write your spiels well and make sure they lead from one part of the webinar to another.
Take deep breaths and practice delivering the webinar from start to finish. Here’s how:
- Practice the opening and closing remarks.
- Prepare yourself to encourage audience engagement anywhere in the webinar.
- Practice launching interactive elements.
- Familiarize yourself with the webinar format.
- If you’re new to hosting webinars, follow suggestions from your team, especially on your delivery and diction.
- Stay flexible in case issues arise during the webinar, especially technical issues for live events.
Keep calm and put all your energy into hosting the webinar. Smile and ace it like a pro.
11. Get Feedback to Improve Future Webinars
Release your short post-webinar survey or ask what content was most lacking or helpful in their opinion. Track the number of attendees using analytics tools. All of the data you’ll get is useful for creating future webinars.
Final Thoughts
Extreme preparation in both the content and technical aspects makes hosting a flawless webinar possible. You must ensure that everything works and has been prepared and rehearsed before the event takes place.
All the effort you poured into the preparation stage will pay off when the audience likes your work, and they turn into loyal customers.
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