Everything You Need To Know About Webinar Management

Use This Guide To Ensure Your Upcoming Webinar Runs Smoothly

Webinars are a great way to share knowledge, insight and engage your target audience. But successful marketers know that webinars are no longer exclusive to one industry. 

Educators, students, speakers, and business professionals are using online events, like webinars, as a platform to generate leads, gain brand exposure, inspire others, and even earn some extra income. 

With the right webinar platform and proper management, anyone, from a single team member to an entire department, can produce webinars that are helpful to an organization, profession, or company. 

Take a look at this comprehensive guide on successfully managing your upcoming webinar to guarantee ROI and meet your virtual event goals. 

Why Host A Webinar?

 Webinars are essentially web-based seminars. They require an internet connection, a webinar platform, and software to connect registrants and the facilitator. 

Webinars offer a variety of benefits to any industry professional looking to gain exposure and educate their peers. 

• Convenience: Webinars allow everyone to participate from the comfort of their own home office or other alternative location. 

• Boost Exposure: Webinar content will help others get to know you and your brand. 

• Cost-Effective: Compared to an in-person event, webinars are inexpensive to produce. 

• Recordable: If you record your webinar, you can offer it on-demand and widen your audience. You can also repurpose the recording for other purposes like a podcast, on-demand webinars, or social media content. 

• Generate Leads: By building relationships with your event attendees, you will be creating leads for your business. 

Webinars are great because they get a lot of attention. But should you choose to offer a free webinar or a paid webinar? 

Free Webinar vs. Paid Webinar

Webinars can help your brand gain exposure, but they can also provide a source of income. 

However, there are times when you should offer free webinars and others when paid webinars would be more appropriate. 

Here are the pros and cons of each webinar model. 

When deciding on which webinar format to run with, be sure to analyze which would best fit your purpose. 

Free webinars are great for startups with minimal webinar experience looking to promote their product or service. They also work well as part of the onboarding process. 

Paid virtual events are significant for training webinars, continuing education, and workshops. They are a great source of revenue that builds credibility and establishes your brand as an industry leader. 

Pricing will often depend on the length and complexity of your webinar. 

Essential Features Your Webinar Needs 

The planning stages are crucial leading up to your webinar. You’ll want to consider logistics, webinar platform functionality, and change management choices accordingly. 

Here are some essential features that will make your webinar engaging, accessible, and ultimately successful. 

Screen Sharing

This is a valuable tool, especially if you are sharing information or promoting a product. 

You can share your desktop with event attendees so they can see what you’re demonstrating in real-time, rather than just looking at a PowerPoint.  

Certificates

When you award certificates to your registrants, they can use them as proof they attended your event. 

Most commonly used for CE credits and training webinars offer attendees an extra incentive to attend and pay attention. 

Complete Presentation Functionality

Your presentation should run smoothly and allow you to easily transition between slides, visual aids, and other media needed to engage and inform your audience. 

Branded Registration Page

The more professional your event appears, the more registrants you will attract. 

A branded registration page will display your logo and webinar banner, as well as additional webinar details. 

Live Chat/Polling

These features guarantee attendee engagement. They allow you to communicate with your target audience and let them ask questions. 

You can also give and receive instant feedback and elaborate on your webinar topic. 

Record And Replay On Demand 

A record feature will come in handy if you want to archive and reuse your webinar. 

You can also offer the content as an on-demand webinar, meaning attendees who could not make the live event can access your event. 

4 Tips To Plan And Prep Your Webinar 

A successful webinar takes a lot of work. Planning and prepping will ensure things run smoothly. 

Here are four tips that will help you in the planning and preparation stages of your upcoming webinar. 

1. Choose A High-Quality Webinar Platform

Your webinar platform will offer access, tools, and assistance to your virtual events. You’ll want to make sure it has all of the essential webinar technology and features. 

You’ll also want to make sure it offers 24/7 tech support, live customer service, and fully managed webinar services from virtual event experts. 

2. Check Your Tech Before The Live Event

Nothing is more distracting than technical malfunctions during your live webinar. Check your internet connection and computer to ensure everything is running smoothly. 

Also, evaluate your camera, microphone, and sound quality. Small appliances located near your tech may cause more significant distractions than you realize.  

3. Promote, Promote, Promote

 Exposure is key to driving up attendance numbers. If your potential attendees don’t know about your webinar, they definitely won’t attend. 

There are many different ways you can promote your upcoming webinar. 

• Create A Webinar Landing Page 

• Post Promotional Blog Post 

• Market On Social Media 

• Email Invites 

• Design A Custom Infographic 

The more effort you put into marketing your webinar, the better the outcomes will be. 

4. Always Follow Up With Attendees And Stakeholders 

Post-webinar management is an often overlooked component of a successful webinar. It helps you determine if your webinar met your goals and what you can do to improve upon future webinars. 

Send out a follow-up email with a survey link right away to gather valuable feedback from event attendees. Don’t wait more than 24 hours, or you will lose important input. 

Analyze the metrics associated with your events, such as attendance numbers, engagement rates, and website clicks. This will offer critical insights as to what you did well and what needs improvement. 

Choose A High-Quality Virtual Event Platform For Your Next Webinar 

Webinars are complex online events, but they offer many great benefits for your attendees and your brand with the proper management. 

You need great content, management skills, and the ability to adapt the webinar to fit your business strategy. With practice, you will master webinar management and conduct successful online events, one right after the other. 

If you are looking for a webinar service that will help with production and customer service, BeaconLive is it. 

BeaconLive has over 20 years of experience providing professionally executed events. Their webinar services require no plug-ins, which means they can be accessed from any mobile device successfully. 

Contact BeaconLive today to deliver your best webinars to your target audience.