From sales to marketing and training to customer success - what are the key fundamentals to a successful webinar? Learn more in this masterclass from Create the Spark Marketing
When you are running a webinar, this is the level of attention you want from the people listening
And so often this is what we have instead
We have 60 seconds to get people engaged and interested when they join a webinar which is why it is so important to start with impact and to trigger curiosity. This is just one of the tips I share with people in my webinar training sessions.
I created Create the Spark Marketing at the end of 2015 with the goal of supporting clients to both understand why webinars are so powerful and to give them the tools and skills to share their message with the world. I have a passion for communication, story telling and how people learn.
I grew up in a musical household – hearing jazz from a young age meant I started playing music myself at the age of 5. First piano, then clarinet and then I moved onto the saxophone. So many of my memories include performing plus at times being out of my own comfort zone. Jazz improvisation has taught me that anything can happen and how to react to it.
I always enjoyed performing and taking part in school plays and performances. So many adults lose the confidence to talk in public and I want to help my clients have that belief in their presentation performance.
Through out my career, I have delivered training sessions and workshops on different marketing topics and I am also a member of the Learning and Performance institute. I am fascinated about how people learn and how training courses are designed and working with webinars now gives me a focus on online training.
Before starting my own company, I spent almost 20 years working in the IT industry working for large companies including Cisco and Alcatel Lucent.
He also has a live audience to look at and engage with. He can use his body language, walk around the stage, see people’s reactions.
Many people feel overwhelmed when it comes to webinars. Which platform to use? Who should be the speaker? How do I invite people to join? I work through all of these different points to ensure that my clients don’t feel like this.
Imagine a presidential debate without a moderator. It wouldn’t work. It is the same for a webinar without a host. I work with many clients hosting webinars and can either be more behind the scenes or an integral part of the presentation
Through my work in IT, I have also used IT and collaboration technologies. This is me in a team meeting, working from home. I feel very comfortable using technology because I have used it for years.
This is how many of us feel when we try new technology
Above all else, I work with clients to deliver engaging webinars. We should not bore people through being unprepared, not knowing the content or creating dull slides with too much text.
Sometimes it is a matter of taking a client’s great content and putting it in the right order so it works for a webinar. I take chaos and make a story.
Webinars are a fantastic sales tool – if done well. By building trust with your audience and demonstrating your expertise, you then have a captive audience to position an offer or suggest follow up actions. I spend time with my clients in my masterclasses sharing a format so you can both sell and build trust.
Nerves can also kick in before a presentation. You may feel worried about your performance or feel anxious about speaking to an audience. I work with clients to overcome these feelings with different tricks and suggestions. It can be from talking through which format of webinar style works for you to breathing exercises.
I see a lot of clients making these mistakes when it comes to webinars
- too few slides and slides with too much text
- not having a rehearsal and practising their presentation
- if they do use their webcam, not thinking about the light and background. You are on stage and performing!
- Not engaging with the audience.
The role of webinars has changed from being a lead generation activity to covering all elements of the sales funnel – you can hold the hand of your clients all the way through the sales cycle. Creating quality content is key – at whatever stage of the sales cycle. Webinars enable you to have both live events, on demand video replays, pre-webinar communication, post webinar follow up – just one webinar can create multiple pieces of content that can be re-used over and over.
I run a free 30 minute monthly masterclass plus a more in-depth training package. Both the masterclasses and the training package cover how to plan a webinar, inviting people, ensuring your registrants turn up, the template the flow of an impactful webinar and why following up is key. I share my top tips and experience from delivering hundreds of webinars
The scratch night sessions are a free practise event. This is for clients who would like a 25 min free rehearsal and to get feedback on their deliver whilst getting comfortable with webinar technology. I run these once a month.
