Webinars are an amazing tool for any marketing tool box, since they make communicating with employees, partners, customers and potential leads easy and effective. They bring in high ROI by nurturing and growing qualified leads, potential leads and creating actual revenue. However, to reap all these benefits there's one pretty fundamental thing you need to know, and that's how to go about actually creating a webinar.
By the end of this article, you’ll be familiar with all the steps needed to create a webinar that hits the mark. But before we get going, we recommend taking a look at our guide to understand what a webinar is and how it works. This information is what will help prepare you as we breakdown the 9 steps needed to host a successful webinar. To save you a few clicks here's the breakdown of what a webinar is and how it works.
Step 0.5: Know the ‘whats’ and the ‘hows’ of a webinar
Let's have a quick intro before we really kick things off.
A webinar is an online seminar focused on creating two-way communication between the presenter and the webinar attendees. Webinars can be used for educational purposes, B2B meetings, industry talks, company memos - really anything that requires communication that either can’t be done in person or is just much more time efficient! Because of this flexibility, the goals and focus of your webinar guide how you create a webinar presentation.
Webinars are able to grow brand value and nurture potential leads by utilising engagement tools such as video, chat box, presentation slides and Q&A sessions. These functions encourage two-way engagement between webinar attendees and presenters.
So now that we’ve given you the fundamentals of what a webinar is and how a webinar works, let's get going on the very first step of hosting a webinar: choosing your topic.
Step 1 - Choose your topic
Here's our best advice: before you start asking yourself how to create a live webinar, ask yourself what is the goal of my webinar?
- Do I want attendees to have a new skill?
- Do I want a business to be more familiar with our brand?
- Who am I speaking to and what do I want them to know by the time they log out of my webinar?
These should be your very first questions.
While this may seem like an obvious step, it is the most important one. Setting a goal and focus for your webinar means that you can pack your webinar full of information and not waste your or your attendees’ time. It also makes your webinar easier to plan. The narrower your focus, the more easily you can set aside time for specific engagement opportunities, measure the length of your Q&A and choose the right features to include in your webinar.
This is also the most important because your topic is the reason attendees come to your webinar in the first place. At the end of the day, you want to inform and motivate your audience to take an action, whether that be becoming a customer, looking into your brand more or simply learning a new skill - the content is the powerhouse of your webinar.
Step 2: Choose a platform
After you know what you want your webinar to be about, you need to decide what platform is right for you. There are quite a few webinar platforms out there, but each one has a different selling point.
If you’re asking yourself, how do I create a webinar for free? Then you will most likely land on a free webinar platform that offers you the minimum in terms of engagement opportunities. While almost all webinar platforms, free and paid, offer live video, chat boxes and the ability to host multiple participants, free platforms will offer lower quality and quantity of each of these webinar features. Comparatively, a paid platform with premium options gives you a wider variety of ways to engage and personalise your webinar.
So, while both free and premium webinar platforms offer live video options, the free option may limit the amount of time, viewers and quality of live videos. In contrast, a paid webinar option offers you high quality, reliable live video streams with access to hundreds of attendees for an unlimited amount of time.
Plus, to draw from Step 1, you need a platform that will support your needs. For businesses, webinars offer a valuable opportunity to grow brand value. 61% of B2B businesses are already hosting webinars, so it’s important within the webinar landscape to stand out and create brand recognition.
Platforms that let you customise your branding streamline brand consistency. This can be an incredibly valuable tool for your business, since brand consistency has been proven to grow company revenue, by as much as 23%!
Good brandability on a webinar platform looks like access to a personalised landing page, logo space, brand colour and font options. Even better? The ability to make a branded webinar template. It probably won’t surprise you that one study found that 82% or organisations already use templates to ensure brand consistency, with 16% of them frequently using templates for presentations.
Choosing the right webinar platform is like choosing the right venue for any event, it should be catered to your needs and goals. Platform choice sets the stage for your webinar capabilities and branding impact, so choose wisely.
Step 3 - Set the date and time
Now that you know what your webinar is about and where you’ll host it, it's time to set the date! Funnily enough, some days are better than others for webinars. Industry research shows that the best days for webinars are Thursday, Wednesday and Tuesday - basically, midweek. The highest attendance of these top performers is on Thursday with Tuesdays offering the lowest.
Despite these days being the best, it is of course important to be mindful of national holidays - after all it’s unlikely you’ll get as high an attendance rate the day before/after a long weekend! (And none wants to go to a webinar on a Saturday OR Sunday)
We recommend pairing a midweek webinar with a midday time. To maximise your attendance, research shows you should host a webinar in the middle of the day. That being said, you keep in mind the different time zones of your attendees when planning your event.
Step 5: Send out Invitations
At this stage you should start promoting your event - depending on your market depends on your approach to this. But, if it’s open to all then you should be posting your RSVP page on your social media, getting promoters on LinkedIn or Facebook to publicise the event and sending out email notices. Industry experts recommend sending out invites 3-4 weeks before the webinar, and following up as the event draws closer. The last week before the event is when you’ll probably get the most signups, so keep reaching out!
Step 6: Build your Webinar content
Now that you’ve set up the webinar, it's time to actually build the webinar. This means creating and organising your webinar content. Everything from polls, engaging slides, and downloadable content should be scheduled into the webinar programme. Like we mentioned earlier, the content is really what the webinar is all about, so put a lot of time into making sure your content is as engaging and thorough as possible!
Step 7: Practice
With all the content ready, it's time to take it on a test run. When you’re practising and running through your webinar, it's important to get your presenters comfortable with the webinar platform and to troubleshoot potential issues during your webinar to make sure it runs smoothly.
You also want to make sure you and your team are familiar with the webinar software and tools beforehand. We’ve all known that feeling when we start presenting… only to find out we’ve been on mute the whole time! To avoid that, familiarise yourself and speakers with all the vital tools involved hosting a webinar - especially that pesky mute button.
Step 8: Host your webinar
It’s the big day! This is your time to shine, to put all your preparation to practise. With all the excitement it may be easy to forget to record the webinar - but that would be a huge mistake. This is so important because nearly half of all webinar attendees watched webinars on-demand, according to one industry report. So make sure to assign someone on your team to record the webinar - you want maximum returns after all this effort!
Step 9: Follow up and share
After you have hosted your webinar, you want to take advantage of all that attention! Check in on your attendees ASAP, preferably within 24 hours. Ask them if they have any more questions or requests and offer them downloadable material from the webinar. Even better, let them know how to get access to the recording of the webinar and give them a link to share on their socials. Post-event is the best time to build hype for your next webinar and expand your brand's reach.
Okay, so we know that was a lot of information, but you're now armed with everything you need to host your very first webinar. However, knowing and doing are obviously two very different things.
If you need some help getting started you’re already in the right place! Here at Tame, we offer free demos tailored to your webinar needs and personalised support so you won’t have to dive into this alone. Reach out to us and we’ll help you every step of the way.
References:
- CloudIncome: “37+ Webinar Statistics and Facts For 2022”
- Forbes: “10 Marketing, Web Design & Branding Statistics To Help You Prioritize Business Growth Initiatives”
- Lucidpress: “The State of Brand Consistency”
- LiveWebinar: “Best time of day and week to host webinars”
- GoTO: “12 Secrets of Successful Webinar Promotion - GoToWebinar”
- On24: “Global Report Shows Use of Webinars Triples, Driving Digital-First Engagement Across Industries”
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