5 creative ideas to propel your webinars
TRANSCRIPT
5 Creative Ideas to
PROPEL YOUR WEBINARS
25 CREATIVE IDEAS TO PROPEL YOUR WEBINARS
A great webinar drives leads, engages an audience
and positions your company as a thought leader. But
too often marketers fall into old habits, delivering dull
webinars where the presenter just talks and the attendees
just listen. When there’s nothing to a webinar but dry
slides and a tired voice, there’s not much chance for
audience engagement. It’s a restrictive format that lulls
presenters into going over the same themes again and
again — or, even worse, into pitching products at their
attendees. And no one likes that.
We asked over 1,000 webinar attendees how they feel
about their webinars. Shockingly, only 7 percent felt that
they gave great webinars:
MOST MARKETERS THINK THAT THEIR WEBINARS COULD USE A LITTLE WORK. BUT WHERE TO BEGIN?
Spicing up your webinar program is a lot like spicing up a
tired relationship. You need to break out of your routines,
try new things and be a little adventurous. Some of these
ideas may sound crazy, but sometimes crazy is just what
you need to shake up the status quo.
CREATURES OF HABIT
Source: Data from ON24 webinar polling, 2014 (total votes: 1,044)
THEY TOTALLY ROCK!
I THINK OUR AUDIENCE MIGHT NEED RESUSCITATION
WE DON’T CURRENTLY DELIVER WEBINARS
A BIT DRY BUT NOT BAD
7%
55%
17%
21%
35 CREATIVE IDEAS TO PROPEL YOUR WEBINARS
CHANGE THE FORMAT
THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE• SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS WHO CAN’T
CARRY LONG PRESENTATIONS
• WEBINARS THAT FEEL TOO STIFF
• OVERLY FORMAL WEBINAR TONE • PRESENTERS WHO AREN’T CONNECTING
WITH THE AUDIENCE
1We see it again and again: marketers relying on the same
you-talk-they-listen webinars every single time. There’s
nothing wrong with audio and slides, but why not mix
it up once in a while? Less formal formats are a fun way
to engage your audience in a conversation, and they’re
especially great for leveraging third-party speakers and
taking the pressure off subject matter experts who are less
comfortable behind a microphone.
Here are a few formats you should try:
1:1 INTERVIEWPair your big-brained subject-matter expert (internal or
external) with a dynamic, engaging host. That way the expert
can focus on the information, not on managing the flow of
the conversation.
PANEL DISCUSSIONBring subject-matter experts, third-party speakers or analysts
together for a round-table discussion on a pre-defined set
of subjects. Assign a host who can keep the conversation
moving and on-topic. These webinars can be audio-only,
but they really pop on video. If your guests aren’t all in the
same place, it’s easy to run a panel discussion over webcam.
COFFEE TALKA chat format puts an informal spin on any topic. Passionate
subject matter experts talking about their areas of expertise
and giving practical advice makes for a really fun discussion.
LIVE CASE STUDYInvite a customer or three into your webinar and let them
talk about your product from the client perspective. You
can even integrate videos that highlight your customer
relationships and then discuss them with your guests as a
part of the conversation.
While interviews and group discussions are pretty forgiving
when you have a stiff or uncomfortable speaker, a great
host really is the key to a successful conversation-based
webinar. Find the people in your organization who are the
most comfortable with public speaking — even if they’re
not the deepest subject experts — and let them guide
the conversation.
45 CREATIVE IDEAS TO PROPEL YOUR WEBINARS
THE SHORT-FORM WEBINAR
Equinox On Demand Webinar Hub
THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE• BRIEF CONTENT
• LACK OF SPEAKERS
• NEED FOR ON-DEMAND CONTENT
• NEED FOR MORE MIDDLE-AND BOTTOM-FUNNEL WEBINARS2Sometimes you just don’t have enough content to put
together a full 60-minute webinar. That doesn’t mean you
have to put your webinar program on hold. It just means
that it’s time to mix up your run times.
Try these simple short-form webinars:
BEST PRACTICESRun a short, pre-recorded video demonstrating a best
practice, then have a subject matter expert deliver a
10-minute follow-up or commentary.
QUICK TIPSRecord five-minute segments of subject matter experts
giving quick tips or best practices, then edit them together
and have a host introduce each section. This is great for
creating on-demand content.
SYNDICATED RERUNSBreak your most successful hour-long webinars into short,
single-topic chapters, and then publish them to your on-
demand portal, YouTube or SlideShare.
A 20- to 30-minute webinar can be a refreshing way to
deliver a quick message, but the shorter format really
shines as curated content. Add your quick-hit webinars to
an on-demand channel or virtual portal on your website,
then syndicate them to YouTube, Vimeo, partner sites or
other web sites. That way your audience can access them
as needed.
55 CREATIVE IDEAS TO PROPEL YOUR WEBINARS
THE CROWD-SOURCED WEBINAR
THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE• TROUBLE COMING UP WITH
CONTENT IDEAS
• WEBINARS THAT AREN’T CONNECTING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
• QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT MATTERS TO YOUR AUDIENCE
• ISSUES QUALIFYING LEADS
3“We need more content!” It’s one of the constant
refrains of marketers everywhere. Why not turn to your
customers? They know what they want and expect;
all you have to do is ask. And if you do ask, it’s easy to
crowdsource content themes, some webinar content or
even all the content for an entire webinar.
Here are some tricks for crowdsourcing webinar content:
PRE-REGISTRATION SURVEYSAsk your audience what they want to learn from your
webinar on the registration form or confirmation page.
Maybe you’ve created a general theme for your webinar,
but this will tell you what the audience expects before
you build all the content. Then you can customize to
make sure you address precisely the things your audience
cares about most.
SOCIAL MEDIAYou have social followers and contacts. Why not ask them
what their interests are? Lean on social networks to source
content ideas and requests. Facebook lets you run polls to
gauge interest in content or themes. And you can always
survey your customer and prospect databases.
POST-WEBINAR SURVEYSAt the end of every webinar, ask attendees what topics they
would like to see in the future. Make sure to use at least one
open text field to get as much insight as you can.
THE AUDIENCE-DRIVEN WEBINARLose the presentation, collect a panel of experts and use
Q&A and polling to drive conversation for an entire webinar.
You can have pre-set topic areas, but let the audience
guide the direction of the discussion. Create slides on each
topic area to provide visual cues for where you are in the
conversation.
It’s amazing how much your audience would like to tell
you, if only you would ask. And when they say, “This is
the content I want,” what they’re actually saying is, “Here
are my interests, here are my pain points, here’s what I’m
really interested in knowing…” All you have to do is listen
and respond.
65 CREATIVE IDEAS TO PROPEL YOUR WEBINARS
GAME ON4Gamification is the hot new buzz word. But can
you actually integrate gamification into the webinar
experience? You can, and it’s happening now.
Adventurous presenters are running highly successful
webinars that turn existing content into interactive games,
engaging their audience in ways that a typical webinar
never could. It’s cool, it’s fun and it’s easy to do.
Engage your audience with these gamification tactics:
QUIZ SHOWPolls can turn your dry data into an interactive quiz show.
Before you share a piece of information, use a poll to ask
your audience what they expect the result to be. When you
reveal the actual answer, they will either be surprised at new
information or delighted at their accuracy. Either way, they
will be more engaged with your data and probably learn
something in the process.
TRIVIAPose open-ended trivia questions and then use Q&A or chat
to collect answers. The first attendee to chime in with the
right answer gets the thrill of public recognition — or maybe
an additional prize shipped after the event.
LONG GAMEKeep the fun rolling by extending the game to social media.
Run your webinar polls on Facebook to see how your
followers stack up against your webinar attendees. Or prime
the webinar audience before the event with sample polls
and trivia questions on their favorite social networks.
With gamification, you can take a lot of very complicated
data and break it into digestible pieces. Your audience will
enjoy the chance to test their knowledge, plus they get to
learn how their peers are voting, as well. And everyone loves
to see what their peers are thinking.
THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE• STAGNANT WEBINARS
• SHORT VIEWING DURATIONS
• CONTENT THAT COULD BE CONSIDERED BORING
• LOW AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
75 CREATIVE IDEAS TO PROPEL YOUR WEBINARS
GET OUT OF THE HOUSE
THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE• SCARCITY OF WEBINAR CONTENT IDEAS
• WEBINARS THAT COULD USE A LITTLE SPICE
• NO BUDGET FOR EXPENSIVE VIDEO PRODUCTION
• PARTNERS/CUSTOMERS YOU WANT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR WEBINARS
• GREAT OFF-SITE PRESENTATIONS THAT YOU WANT TO CAPTURE5When you keep giving the same webinars in the same
way, you end up covering a lot of the same ground —
literally. If you want to shake up your old routines,
maybe what you need is a change of scenery. These
days, it’s not that hard to use video to capture all kinds
of external presentations and events that would make
great webinar content.
Here are some options for adding video to your webinars:
OFF-SITE SESSIONSAre you already presenting at trade shows and
conferences? Don’t let that content go to waste. Capture
your off-site presentations and training sessions with an
inexpensive handheld HD camera to create a series of
mini-webinars on demand.
REMOTE REPORTINGA simple video camera lets you interview customers,
sales people and product experts from any location,
anytime. Video clips from the field provide you with ready-
made content that can be dropped into any webinar
to expand the conversation and provide a multimedia
audience experience.
STREAMING VIDEOYou are constantly supporting live physical events
like seminars, trade shows, customer briefing center
presentations and more. Why not stream these events as
a live webinar or use the footage to create on-demand
webinars? Streaming physical events as live or on-demand
webinars expands both the reach of the content and the
value of the presentation.
Webinars don’t always have to happen in a single room.
Think about all the great content you’re already creating
outside of the office. Turn those into webinars, and you’ll
find yourself with a captivated audience.
ON24’s Mark Borenstein Remote Reporting
85 CREATIVE IDEAS TO PROPEL YOUR WEBINARS
SPICE UP YOUR WEBINARSThere’s no limit to how creative you can get with your
webinars. As marketers, we want to deliver on the
expectation that we’re going to give a great presentation.
We’re asking people to sit still and stare at a fixed spot for up
to an hour. Sure, that audience is going to get some valuable
information, but why not make it fun?
By mixing up your webinar formats, crowdsourcing material,
leveraging gamification and using video in creative ways,
you can create new content, spice up old content and get
more value from your experts. Best of all, you’ll have more
fun with your webinars and your audiences will, too.
© 2015 ON24, Inc. For more information on the benefits of the ON24 virtual environment, contact us at 877-202-9599 or visit www.on24.com.
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