Webinar Checklist: How to prepare yourself

Today I want to share my webinar checklist of what you should consider while and before doing a webinar.

I have attended a lot of webinars and have hosted my fair share of webinars. By doing that I noticed what helped me a lot to be able to host a webinar and how to avoid unnecessary disturbance.

First of all, you will need a software tool to host. One very popular software is GoToWebinar. Can definitely recommend it. Another tool I am looking into right now is the one from GetResponse.

Structure of presentation

The presentation (PowerPoint or whatever form) will be very important for your webinar. Even if you are showing a live feed or a live demo of a software product, start off with a presentation.

Opening

When you start the presentation you should have a good opening. You have to grab the viewer’s attention immediately. You can do that for example with a joke about the topic you are going to present. Just be likable and do something the audience wouldn’t expect.

Expectations

Tell your audience what value they can expect to get from this webinar. Why should they stay here and listen to you? Ever watched a YouTube video? Yes, do the same, tease the audience 😉

Challenges

Usually when you are hosting a webinar it’s because you want to generate some kind of leads. Tell your viewers about challenges you know about that they are probably facing right now (and that will be solved through your service or product). This is basically another tease, but also shows off that you know what you are talking about and the listener feels understood.

Solution

After talking about the challenges of course you also must talk about the solution. Maybe talk about some tips what your audience can implement right away to solve some challenges AND THEN comes the perfect solution that does it all for them: your product or service.

Also add a summary here 😉

Call to action

Having a call to action in a webinar is the most important part. If you don’t have a call to action in your webinar your viewers will leave the webinar and maybe think “yeah, this was a cool webinar”, but they won’t do anything. A call to action can be visiting a website, following you on social media for more webinars or contacting you via email for a proposal. Don’t leave your audience hanging 😉

Q&A

At the end of a webinar, you should always have a Q&A session to be able to interact with your audience and answer questions they asked during the webinar in the chat. If you are able to do it you can also follow the chat during the presentation and answer the questions ongoing. But by having a dedicated time for Q&A the viewers will wait for this opportunity and it also feels more personal.

Preparation of the webinar

High-quality presentation

Put in the work to create a qualitative presentation! In a webinar you voice and the visuals are key… why? Because that’s the only thing your viewers will be able to see. One important factor is that the presentation should be aiding your speech, not replace it.

To create a great presentation watch the following video from David 🙂

Train, train, train

No, you don’t need 3 trains 😀 But you should exercise a lot! Try out the presentation on your own, even better with an honest friend or a small group of people. Gather confidence in doing the presentation and get feedback on how it was to be able to improve on the content. Also, when doing a webinar time is really important. People don’t want to attend webinars longer than 30-45 min. So, also get a feeling of how much time you should spend on each slide.

Test, test, test

Test out your presentation technically with the webinar tool of your choice. Get familiar with the functionalities of the tool and if you are using other media like a video or maybe even a live demo of a software: TEST! Test the videos etc. and how to switch from the presentation to the video or integrate it. Really, you want to look as professional as possible when doing a webinar!

Room & Tech

Good headset

If you sound like an employee from a support center, you are doing it wrong 😛 Buy a better mic, they are not that expensive.

Use 2 computer screens

If you want to interact with your audience also during the presentation or you just want to work more efficiently, use 2 screens. One screen you will use for the presentation, and the other one for preparing something, following the chat etc.

2 screens = you can do 2 things at the same time, without destroying the flow of the presentation.

Have a stable internet connection

This should be a no brainer but have a stable internet connection. You don’t want the webinar to break down or having lag during your presentation. Remember one of the points before? TEST, TEST, TEST!

Be in a quiet room

You don’t want to have background noises during the webinar or someone coming into the room and asking “What are you doing?”. If you need to, lock yourself into a quiet meeting room or office. Just make sure that no noise can disturb you.

Use your voice

Speak slowly

Speak slower than usual, so everybody can follow what you are saying. To you it might be crystal clear, but not to your viewers. Make sure to explain things in a way so that your target audience can understand.

Repeat stuff

Have to give a homage to Bo Burnham here 😀

Make sure to repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff… in different ways. So, if someone doesn’t get what you are explaining the first time they get another chance.

Change up your voice

Speak as the speaker you would like to listen to! Change up your voice, don’t be boring 😉

Well, this was my webinar checklist. I hope there are a few good inputs for your next webinar.