I have delivered a lot of webinars in my day and have learned ways to get the most out of them. If you want to boost webinar engagement during the session or increase conversions on your call to action, there is a strategy worth trying this year. That strategy has to do with what happens BEFORE the webinar. Let’s talk about how to boost webinar engagement, and the important part of the webinar that you may not have considered in your plan.
Before the webinar, your to do list is full. I know that. This is the time for promoting your webinar to get more people to attend, prepping your materials, testing the technology, and practicing your content. You have things to do, and they are all things that feel like a top priority to reach your goals and to make sure you deliver a high-quality presentation.
All of these items are indeed important, but what makes or breaks how you feel about the webinar after it is done is the engagement you got from it. Engagement during the webinar changes everybody’s perception of the webinar. Yours and the attendees alike.
Engagement during the webinar changes everybody’s perception of the webinar. #webinar #speaking #speaker #marketing #business #biztips #smallbusiness Share on XFor example, if you have only three attendees, but they are all engaged and became clients, the webinar might be a success.
If your planned flow is interrupted by a great question – one that shows the audience is listening and creates good conversation in the chat (if you have one) and lets you tee up your offering in response – that might be a success, even though it isn’t what you practiced.
Not to mention that, as a speaker, having an engaged audience is just more satisfying.
There are people who come to your webinar to get facts and figures and details. There are people who come to connect to you or other attendees. You don’t have to choose. You can cater to BOTH.
So, if you consider that engagement during the webinar has value to the attendees and to you, strategies for creating more of it become a key part of your planning process. This is where pre-webinar engagement comes in.
As a speaker, you may not always be in a position to communicate to the audience before the webinar, such as when you deliver a webinar that someone else hosts. If you don’t have the list of registrants, and the host has not given you a way of connecting with them – or connecting through the host to get to them – then you will have a tough time implementing this approach.
However, if you are hosting the webinar yourself, or if you have been given a list of attendees or access to promote to them directly or indirectly, start stoking the conversation! You can boost webinar engagement by starting the conversation well before the webinar begins.
You can boost webinar engagement by starting the conversation well before the webinar begins. #webinar #speaking #speaker #marketing #business #smallbusiness #biztips Share on XDo you have the option of emailing the registrants a week out and inviting them to tell you up front what they expect to get from the session? Or to survey the group with a question that may help you tweak some slides or even just give a nod to respondents during the session? Or, pick a question that you would have asked in the registration form – such as organization, where they are from, etc. – and instead ask it in an email? The goal is to get interaction going with the keenest of the group.
There are many options for how to engage the list before the webinar, but the point is to try to start the discussion early. If you think of the webinar as driving on the engagement highway, the pre-webinar engagement is the on-ramp.
Not everyone will engage with you before the webinar. Most people probably won’t, especially as you are building your brand. However, you are inviting the most enthusiastic participants to feel more connected. They may lead the conversation in a chat, ask you good questions through direct message, or be the first to sign up for whatever call to action you drop.
Plus, having a few people deeply engaging with you right away will help you relax so you can be more natural and engaged yourself.
I often think about how to squeeze every last drop out of campaigns. You are putting plenty of time and effort into your webinar, so if adding this one step into your process could improve your results, why not try?
Give it a shot for your next webinar and let me know how it goes!