Ninety-five percent of marketers say webinars are a critical part of their efforts. We’ve compiled a list of useful webinar presentation tips to help marketers make the most of their next offering.
With these six tips and webinar giveaways, you can rest easy knowing your online presentation will be filled with useful information that will keep your audience engaged from start to finish.
- Choose a specific topic
- Offer an expert
- Think mobile
- Have a moderator handle the chat
- Re-engage viewers
- Avoid technical distractions
Choose a specific topic
Research shows that most viewers want a webinar to be between 30 minutes (41%) and 45 minutes (44%). By the time you make introductions and hold a question-and-answer session, you’re left with a limited amount of time to get your point across.
By building a webinar around an important subtopic instead of a larger, broader topic, you can:
- Reduce tangent discussion.
- Keep the presentation to the time allotted.
- Make better use of your viewers’ time.
Offer an expert
A well-researched webinar is great, but there’s nothing like a true expert to provide best-in-class education and engagement. When your speaker can readily answer questions and provide impromptu comments, the audience will be sure to pay attention.
Think mobile
As you start to build your slides, keep in mind that viewing webinars on mobile devices is becoming increasingly popular.
Roughly 25 percent of people have watched a webinar on a mobile device.
If your slides contain too much information (and too small of print), viewers will be far more likely to stop watching their screens and start looking elsewhere. To prevent this:
- Use a font size between 30 and 50 points.
- Limit each slide to 40 words or less.
- Keep each slide to a single point, if possible.
Have a moderator handle the chat
Webinar chat functions are a great way to capture comments and questions, but this function can also be a distraction to the person presenting. To ensure a steady flow of information, have a moderator monitor the chat function, collect questions and send them to the presenter at appropriate pause points.
Re-engage viewers
With only a limited amount of time to share information, it’s easy to pack a webinar with data and stories while leaving the Q&A or any other breaks until the end. This can cause your audience to lose focus.
Instead, find natural break points in the presentation to make sure the audience stays engaged. Maintain focus by putting up a poll or asking if anyone has questions.
Encourage communication by offering a webinar giveaway to anyone who poses a question. A fun, unique prize like a bento lunch kit with phone stand, lantern with tool kit or wireless ear buds can entice people to virtually raise their hands.
Avoid technical distractions
Take time to ensure that the potential for technical problems is kept to a minimum. You can do this by:
- Using a wired connection (instead of a wireless connection) for your presentation computer.
- Wearing headphones with a microphone to avoid background echoes.
- Avoiding live video. It can cause lag and put people “behind” the presentation. It can also cause people to focus on the speaker instead of on the slides. Include a slide with the speaker’s picture and bio instead of using video.
- Performing a test run before the webinar to make sure the speaker and slides come through loud and clear.
Keep audiences coming back
Great information and great engagement go hand in hand. These webinar presentation tips can help ensure that every piece of data gets seen and heard.
Key Takeaways
- Keep re-engaging viewers
- Limit the webinar to 30-45 minutes
- Offer a niche topic versus an overview
- Perform a test run to avoid technology challenges