Over half of marketers hold up to 50 webinars every year. However, running a successful webinar requires more than just a platform and presentation. You also need a goal, a great team, and a targeted message. ActualTech Media has been helping marketing professionals create engaging webinars with a large return for more than 10 years. Our team shares top webinar tips to help you crush your next IT webinar.
Key Takeaways:
- Start your webinar planning with a specific goal and a targeted message
- A collaborative team like ActualTech Media is crucial for a successful webinar
- Monitor your pace and timing to ensure your audience stays engaged, and your message is memorable
🤫 PS: Looking for pricing on Tech webinars? Get a price list here
1. Go into Your Webinar with a Goal
Establish a webinar goal, or several goals, before going into your tech webinar. These are specific metrics for measuring your success and knowing how effective your webinar is. They also act as guides as you put your message and presentation together.
Getting sales-qualified leads is one of the top webinar goals most marketers choose when working with ActualTech Media.
2. Have a Message You Want To Communicate
As you begin your technology webinar preparation, write a sentence or two summarizing the message you want to communicate through your webinar marketing. Your message is the central idea you want to convey to your customers.
Your topic sentences will keep your message on track and focused. When all your stories, statistics, and statements all lead back to one central point, your webinar will be more memorable, and your audience is more likely to react to the message.
ActualTech Media helps you present that message in a visually appealing and engaging way. Some of the formats we can work with include:
- Single or multi-speaker events
- Slides or videos
- Polls or surveys
- Screen share recordings
- Conversational webinars
3. Come Up with a Targeted Title and Abstract
If you’re presenting in a single vendor webinar, you need a title and an abstract for your webinar that encompasses your main message. Your title and abstract will tell your audience exactly what they’ll learn about in the webinar and whether it’s a relevant topic to them.
When your audience attends your webinar, they expect your presentation to focus on the topic from the title. You can use that to target a specific audience to guarantee that most of them are qualified leads with an intent to purchase.
Your title shouldn’t be too long, detailed, or obscure, as those titles and abstracts don’t attract an audience.
ActualTech Media helps you with presentation specifics, like marketing the webinar and bringing in an audience. When you present in a multi-vendor webinar, you don’t have to worry about a title and abstract—we take care of that part.
4. Be Ready for Your Lead Report
Your audience must fill out a form before attending the webinar, which generates a list of qualified leads. Then within 24 hours after your event is over, ActualTech Media sends you a spreadsheet listing all the registered people, the questions they asked, how long they were on the webinar, and whether they downloaded any resources.
A quick follow-up is essential for turning leads into customers. Half of buyers will purchase from the vendor that responds the fastest.
To avoid unnecessary delays, plan a follow-up strategy before the webinar and prepare your drip campaigns, ads, and other responses to start as soon as you receive your list of leads. Since most leads need around 10 nurturing steps before purchasing, consider an omnichannel approach where you can engage the new lead on multiple platforms and channels after the webinar.
5. Collaborate with Your Speaker
Everyone involved in the webinar should always be on the same page and have a steady stream of communication leading up to the event.
For example, if you provide seed questions, which is an excellent strategy to use in webinars, double-check that the speaker isn’t going to answer that question in the presentation.
6. Get Comfortable
Your presentation will directly reflect your comfort level. Before starting your presentation, make arrangements so your environment is as relaxing as possible. This might include using a standing desk, investing in a comfortable gaming chair, or grabbing a glass of water.
You also need a few moments to clear your mind and be fully prepared for the presentation. For example, you might do a little dance or some jumping jacks before presenting to improve your energy level and relax your body. Create your own ritual and ensure you enter the presentation in the best mood with high energy.
7. Have a Supportive Team
You don’t need to host and present a webinar by yourself. You need a team to ensure that you’ve covered all the background tasks so you can focus on your presentation.
Using a service like ActualTech Media allows webinar experts to take over the distracting tasks so that you can remain focused and have the support you need to provide a seamless experience for your audience.
8. Vary Your Presentation
Your pacing is as crucial as the message you present. Whether you go fast or slow highlights specific portions of the speech and keeps the presentation engaging and personable. You don’t want a monotonous presentation as that’s the quickest way to lose your audience.
One presentation tip to help vary your presentation is to use colors throughout your slides. For example, you might use red on slides that you should emphasize. This tells you to use higher energy when covering that topic.
9. Keep Track of Your Time
As you present, don’t lose track of your time. About 41% of webinar attendees prefer webinars that are 30 minutes long, while 44% like webinars that are 45 minutes long.
Before starting your tech presentation, decide how long you’ll speak and how much time you want to leave for questions and answers at the end. To help with time management, designate a slide as your warning slide to alert you when coming close to the end. You can also use egg timers or other timekeepers to keep you on schedule and prevent you from running out of time or skipping important parts of the presentation.
10. Know Your Platform
Using a new webinar platform is like walking into a new school. As a kid, you would stand in the hallway looking around. You might know what you’re supposed to do but don’t know how or where to go. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 5 or 55. The feeling is the same when you’re in a new place.
You have enough to worry about in your presentation. You shouldn’t have to sweat over where buttons are or how to control your slides.
A great support team like ActualTech Media ensures you don’t ever feel that way. Leading up to the webinar, you can familiarize yourself with the platform and your team through a launch call paired with a follow-up email explaining the process and continued support as you prepare for the event.
When you walk into your presentation, you only have to worry about being a fantastic presenter while we handle the rest for a complete white-glove experience.
Plan Your Next Webinar
Get the support you need to run an impactful webinar by working with an expert team of moderators, tech experts, and hosts at ActualTech Media. After the event, you’ll leave your audience educated and inspired, which will result in a list of quality leads ready for nurturing.
Contact us to find the right webinar for your needs.