How To Successfully Produce A Professional Grade Webinar, Webcast, or TeleconferenceFollow the "Ten P's" checklist for your online event success, by Jeremiah Owyang

Category Item Description1) Philosophy

Mindset

Carrot over stick

2) PurposeDefine your objective

Audience

3) Planning

For success, webinars require a special approach.

An interactive and social experience

Even if you don't allow members to chat with each other or pose live questions during the webinar, they can still talk to each other, before, during and after.Hosts of webinars must treat the attendees as the customers and the panelists and speakers as part of the product.

Something always goes wrong.

Without a doubt, something always goes wrong as these events are more complicated than they appear to the attendee. The trick? Be prepared for things to change, and "fail fast" by quickly learning and being responsive.

Webinars can have multiple objectives, prioritize which ones are most key to you. Some objectives can include: Thought leadership, association, customer references, lead generation, sales material, accelerating the customer life cycle, or education.

Define in detail who you are trying to reach. Focus on demographics, title, company type, industry, and availability. The more detailed you are here, the better your promotion and content will be later.

Decision: recorded or live

There are benefits and upsides to both recording and doing it live. While recording in advance may reduce risk, you may not be able to engage with the audience, or react in real time.

Scheduling

Hardware

Software

Marketing systems

Documentation

4) ProfessionalsTalent considerations

Picking the right webinar time is essential to its success. Factor in time of day, day of week, and time of year.

Select the right webinar platforms

Choose the right technology platform for you. Vendors includes Microsoft, GoToMeeting, WebEx, and Adobe Connect.

Don't get stuck without having the right hardware to complete the task. Have a checklist of phones, wifi, laptops, browsers headsets, software installs.

Choose which software applications you'll run your presentation from, for example, PowerPoint or Keynote.

Registration form, direct email, marketing systems, CRM.

Have the right forms, speaker release forms, content publication rights, and contracts with platform providers, agencies, and other teams.

It's key to know the benefits and drawbacks of having professional speakers, customers, or internal marketing folks as emcees.

Premise Document

Develop your team

Role: Coordinator

Role: Marketer

Role: Speakers Your primary speaker and keynote

Role: Panelists

Role: Emcee

Role: Backup Speaker

Content

Develop a premise document which can be sent to speakers summarizing the purpose of the event, topics, fees, and benefits.

Don't underestimate the time required to produce such an event. In the following roles, I've listed out all the duties that are needed by role. Important: A single individual often fulfills multiple roles.Role: Internal

StakeholderThis is your internal customer, and the person you're doing this for.

Role: Webinar Producer

This individual is responsible for the overall success of the event.Responsible for the scheduling, ensuring fees are paid, and content is coordinated among the team.Responsible for ensuring the event is properly positioned, and registrations rates are healthy. Finally, it doesn't stop after the event, they need to help with reporting and sending leads to marketing and sales teams.

Role: Community Manager

In today's online events, the crowd talks back --even if you don't have social features turned on in your webinar. The community manager is responsible for seeding the discussion before the event, as well as participating in during the event.Role: Technical

SupportHardware may fail, and software may crash. Don't panic, instead have someone on staff that can assist with these needs.

Some webinars choose to have a panel of speakers that can be experts in their field, thought leaders, or customer speakers.This optional role can introduce speakers, advance the discussion if things get stale and pose questions to the speaker or panel.

This optional role is a pro tip. Having a backup speaker is key as unforeseen events are well, unforeseen.

5) Programming of Content

What type of content will you offer? Industry trends, customer case studies, debate, research findings, or a product demonstration? Will you include a combination? If so, in what order? How many slides are appropriate per speaker per minute?

One off or series

Presentation style

Work with speakers

6) PromotionMarketing Content

Registration Form

Foster word of mouth

Source questions

Dry run

Is this is a single event, or are you planning to have a series. If you plan to have a series, this will impact your up front planning.

Will you have a single speaker, panelists, and/or emcee? What will be the overall format of the webinar?

The producer should work closely with the speakers during the kickoff call to get their feedback on what they want to speak about, as well as provide what's expected. Be sure to budget time to review the content at least twice.

Develop a template of content that can be used across multiple channels that describes the event, the date, speakers, and a compelling reason why they should attend.Although mentioned above, you'll need a registration system to collect registrants and also send them reminders. While most webinar platforms offer a version of these systems, ensure they are compatible with your existing systems. Use an integrated

marketing approachJust because the world of social marketing has appeared doesn't mean that traditional marketing efforts go away. Consider using your existing direct email systems, purchase opt-in email lists to reach consumers, or advertise on media content networks.Word of mouth marketing is the most effective and often the most trusted amongst prospects. Use existing social networking features to drive up attendance as well as encourage others to notify their peers they are attending.

This optional tip for the pros will involve sourcing questions from the crowd around the topic to increase engagement and word of mouth.

7) Preparation and Practice

Remind attendees about the event

Using existing registration systems, or email notification systems, remind registered attendees the event will be happening.Conduct a rehearsal before the actual event. While you don't need to speak to all the slides walk the speakers through the process and demonstrate how the tools will work.

Green Room

Housekeeping

Gotchas

Guide the speakers

Q&A and discussion

Like any performance, the performers should convene 30-60 minutes in advance to do sound tests, finalize the order, and take a moment to reflect about the upcoming event.

Tools and Venue Needed

Like any performance, the right venue, lighting and systems must be in place. Have a checklist of items for speakers and the producing team to have.

The little things can make the difference between amateur hour and a professional performance.

Establish speaker backchannel

Develop a way for the speaker to receive signals from the producers while they are speaking.

I've found there's always last minute things that plague webinars.

8) Performance "Showtime"

Mindset: Engage with crowd

Remember, memorable webinars aren't just canned speeches, but an event where the audience is participating with each other, as well as feeding the speakers' energy.

Source audience questions

This optional tip engages the real time audience by taking their questions. Use questions that were previously fielded in the "Promotion" phase to stimulate conversation.

Speakers may have a bad speaking day, maybe have a sneezing or coughing fit, or just get nervous and fumble. Have a moderator on hand who can redirect panel hogs, or avoid from panelists to become overly pitchy.The webinar should be a mixture of both prepared content and the ability for the crowd to ask questions and speakers to answer.

Feedback Survey

9) Pursuit

Propagate action

10) Post MortemPost Meeting

Develop a report

Applaud yourself!

Altimeter Group, June 28, 2010, All Rights Reserved | www.altimetergroup.com | info@altimetergroup.com

Although optional, some producers pose a feedback survey to attendees right as the event ends to gauge quality of speakers, content, and interaction.

Send thank you to the attendees

Send a follow-up to all attendees, thanking them for attending, and provide links where they can find the materials.

Mindset: The most overlooked opportunity

Most webinar producers pat themselves on the back after finishing the actual event, but this is actually the biggest opportunity.

Now that you've educated and engaged the attendees of the webinar, it's time to make them act. The hard work really starts here.

Follow up with engaged

Those that were the most engaged should be followed up directly, provided they've opted in. These candidates are moving down the marketing funnel and are ideal prospects to move forward to sales.

Publish and share materials

Often, producers will choose to share the recorded webinar in public, or behind a registration page, or even in a community.

Funnel to sales and marketing

You've now collected a valuable list of opt-in highly engaged prospects and customers. Be sure to do something with the interested group while the event is fresh in their mind.

Immediately after the event, choose to have a quick follow-up with speakers and panelists to go over what worked and thank them for their time.Measure ROI. First start with the costs, both fixed, time, and speaker costs. Secondly, measure success based on your business objectives (Thought leadership, generated leads, etc) and apply the right KPIs for each.

Send thank you to the attendees

Send a follow-up to all attendees, thanking them for attending, and provide links where they can find the materials.

Send thank you to the speakers

The producer and or coordinator should send a genuine thank you to the speakers, and panelists and thank them for their time.Give yourself applause and a pat on the back, you've just successfully completed a professional grade webinar!

How To Successfully Produce A Professional Grade Webinar, Webcast, or TeleconferenceFollow the "Ten P's" checklist for your online event success, by Jeremiah Owyang

Altimeter Group, June 28, 2010, All Rights Reserved | www.altimetergroup.com | info@altimetergroup.comWhat No One Tells You Your Notes Tasked To

Don't relegate webinars as the kid brother of events. They are a unique asset in your marketing efforts and require your full attention.Think of webinars as an interactive jazz performance where the performers are interacting with each other and the audience, based on a common agreed chord structure. Remember, the content must be attractive to help attendees, not be a blatant sales pitch. Instead, use content that you would find in a white paper, research, or opinion that supports the overall assertion of your company's value statement. Secondly, highlight the successes of your customers, rather than beat your customers with a sales pitch.

Budget for 5-10% deviation in time, resources, and dollar value to accommodate last minute changes in the event.

Pick one primary objective and a secondary objective. It's important you define the objective in your webinar program as that's how you'll measure your success.

Everyone likes to focus on the C-suite, and as a result, it's often oversaturated. Instead, find out who influences their decisions or is a trusted confidant to them.

Some sophisticated webinars pre-record the main session first, and do the Q&A live. However don't do this on your first session, as you increase the complexities of the event.

First, define where your audience is located, as that will impact time of day. For a North American and European audience, early AM Pacific time (8-9 am) may yield success. Mondays are often hectic and Fridays are a tossup between those already mentally checked out, or a great time to focus. Often, a Tuesday-Thursday may be the best bet, yet if everyone else knows that, you may want to place bets elsewhere. Take into account holiday schedules, and end of month or quarter, that may cause folks to be busy. Finally, look at macro schedules and take into account heavy travel and holidays. For example, in the tech industry, end of year and the first quarter are bad due to holidays and heavy travel during conference season.First, find out which system works well with your existing marketing database systems. You want to easily funnel leads into marketing systems as well as client teams and sales.Make sure you properly test these systems weeks before the event. Often software installs are required on each speaker's computer, and in some cases not all browsers are sufficient. Not all systems work on each OS, for examples, Go To Webinar does not have a recording feature on a Mac. Use a LAN line for best results, and wired phone systems --not speaker phones or cell phones. Have a backup for internet and a mobile cell phone on hand in the off position just in case.Speakers may have their own preferences as to which software applications to create their presentations in. Budget time in to aggregate all speaker content, and reformat. Or, if each speaker takes turn being the presenter - make sure that their application works with the platform.

Often the webinar system you're using will have a registration feature, but ensure it ties in with existing systems you have. For example, you'll want to direct email your prospect and customer database alerting them to upcoming webinars if they've opted in. Furthermore, all leads should easily publish to the CRM system, abiding by opt in laws to preserve the legal and customer contract.Be clear with speakers on how you'll like to use the content in advance, and get their written agreement. Avoid using FAX systems as most popular speakers are often traveling without ability to access FAX systems.While professional speakers may both attract a large registration and provide an informed and engaging presentation, they have associated costs. The better the speaker, the higher the cost. With that comes limited schedule, so the more popular the speaker, the more difficult it is to get their time. Customers are often the most credible when relating to prospects, as they'll likely be more trusted. However, they may lack professional speaking polish. As a result, buffer them with professional speakers or internally trained moderators. I've often found executives or marketing leads from the host company to be excellent emcees, as long as they keep the attendees needs first.

This premise document should be embedded in the email inviting the attendees. Do note that there are some speaker agencies that represent a variety of talent where you could submit to obtain multiple speaker bids.In most cases, it's most efficient if multiple duties are handled by a single individual, or even shared among a group. If you have access to a PR firm, rely on them for key coordination and marketing services.Make sure to understand their goals for the webinar, and have regular check-ins at key milestones.

Often, they are your budget holder, and you'll want to impress them for continued budget as you properly measure success.

Use this checklist and add names of responsibilities in the columns of who's responsible for what.This person is incredibly organized and reliable. You'll be able to identify them as highly organized and efficient individuals.Seek marketers that know both traditional marketing as well as social marketing.

This person could field topics, questions and monitor the back and front channel before and during the event. In most cases, speakers cannot fulfill this role while speaking at the same time, so dedicate an individual to help with this.Have backup laptops with software installed, and backups if the power and internet connectivity goes down. While it makes sense to find someone that will attract a crowd, also take into consideration their ability to engage with the crowd, provide credible content, be responsive, and have the ability to help with promotion.The more panelists you add, the more attractive the event is --but the more complicated scheduling, software, and planning becomes. 2-3 panelists are ideal, with a backup.If your webinar is being hosted by a company, it's appropriate for the sponsor to make introductions and set the overall tone of the event. It's key to maintain credibility by not doing heavy pitches.Find someone from your internal team that could double as a speaker in a pinch. Ensure they are credible and have a deck on hand related to the topic just in case.

While the first reaction for marketers is to pitch products, consider this as a way to engage and interact with attendees. They can be contacted later, so instead, "put the carrot up front" with the most useful information. If you decide to pitch your wares, do so at the end.

A series is great for complicated issues that require in depth topics, especially if your goal is to create a library of content others can refer to reducing in person education time. Typically, I've noticed in my experience that attendance is strongest in the first part of the series then may taper off. The more stakeholders and participants you involve, the more attractive the event may become. However as you add each individual, scheduling and content complexity rapidly increases. Ideally, focus on a single knowledgably speaker, or 2-3 panelists max.Set clear dates with speakers on when content is to arrive, yet always expect last minute changes with speaker's content. During the first kickoff call with a speaker, highlight why you asked them to speak, and suggest content they've done in a previous speech, blog post, or discussion you'd like them to explore.

Develop a pain point and value proposition and clearly indicate what the attendees will walk away with. Use pictures of speakers, and make it easy to for attendees to add to their calendaring system.Make sure to ask attendees if you can contact them later to learn more about your company, but make it opt-in, not opt-out. Savvy producers will poll the audience with 1-2 high level questions, or buying status both for webinar content, and to qualify leads.Some webinar producers co-produce the event with a media partner in order to reach a larger community. Be sure to integrate with your corporate website, blog, and encourage account teams to notify clients and prospects.

Develop a hashtag that's both representative of the event, scalable for future events, and is not used by others. For example, an event on social business can be truncated to "#SocBiz10". For best results, keep tag short and memorable, or you'll lose usage opportunities. Use LinkedIn, Meetup, Facebook Events, and Plancast to trigger viral sharing of attendees. In some systems, they can show a list of the attendees, so use with caution.Centralize the discussion on your own corporate social sites such as communities, blogs, or Twitter tags. Tip: This same discussion medium should be used post-event to further the discussion after it ends.

In addition to reminding registrants about the event details, also let them know their peers are coming from a variety of industries.Expect many of the speakers or panelists to forget the nuances of the program so be sure to provide an agenda. Also, expect speakers to provide yet another set of content right after the dry run as they'll see things they'll want to improve.

Expect lots of last minute scrambling here as folks get coordinated, ask speaking order, Q&A format and submit final slides. Expect that the software will have some glitches and some people will not be using the phone system correctly.Speakers should be in a quiet room, with a computer plugged into a LAN line, with software pre-installed. They should also be using a wired phone (not a cell, or speaker phone) and should do audio tests of hand phones vs. headsets. I've switched between physical handsets and VOIP headsets from Logitech if I have a strong connection.

Ask all speakers to turn off their cell phones, as rings and cell phone interference can cause odd noises during the presentation. Speakers should have a glass of water near them. The best speaking voices come when speakers are standing, or sitting in a proper position --not slouched over.

Most tools offer an ability for the producers and speakers to communicate to each other. Caution: Some features may not be very clear in their usage and as a result could be accidently viewed by all attendees. Some software, requires you to hit 'record' before the event starts, be sure you do this during the performance. Also, ensure house and office phones won't ring during the performance. Turn off all IM systems that could expose embarrassing pop-ups, and notifications from tools like Tweetdeck or calendaring systems. If you're going to showcase something live on a browser, be sure to clear out history, search terms, and close all irrelevant windows. Avoid those embarrassing swimsuit photos on the desktop, and keep it professional.

Like a jazz performance there's a mixture of pre selected melodies and improvisation. Ensure your speakers understand how to engage the audience in their vocal style, pausing for breaks, and fielding audience questions and content.Use polls during the start of the event to engage the audience about their role, industry, pain point, or intent to buy and use a product. Also, make it clear how questions will be received and used: the existing Q&A tools, the chat room, the online community, or real time tools like Twitter? Provide the audience with the event hashtag, if necessary.The emcee or producer must be ready at a moments notice to step in and guide things should things go awry. Have that backup speaker and content at the ready, just in case.

Encourage speakers to take a variety of questions, but have 4 pre-decided questions on hand, if there are few questions. If you have panelists, only allow panelists to chime in if they have additional value to add not the old "I agree with Tom" and re-iterate the same point. The emcee should focus questions to each of the panelists, spreading the Q&A time equally as possible.

Altimeter Group, June 28, 2010, All Rights Reserved | www.altimetergroup.com | info@altimetergroup.com

Savvy producers will ask attendees if they want to be contacted by the host in order to learn more about the event. Take feedback in for future events, don't just provide lip service.

This should only be done if the members have opt-in to be contacted previously.

The event doesn't end, it continues to cascade online through discussion, recorded replays. Instead of a fixed time event, think of the webinar as a 'call to action' and the post webinar as the follow-up to 'action'. You've generated awareness and engagement, now you must drive action.Pro-tip: Offer to answer unanswered questions in an online community or blog, in order to further engage the attendees to participate. Those with specific questions can contact sales (pose this question in feedback survey).Look for those the most active in Twitter, the online forum, as well as those who attended for the maximum amount of time. Those who watch the recorded event may also be highly engaged, find out a way to easily connect with them.Use these tools to drive more conversations even post event in an online community. Savvy producers will publish the slides on document sharing sites like Slideshare, as well as put recordings on Blip or segments on YouTube. Following your existing marketing process, funnel the leads to your sales teams who can follow-up with prospects. Use existing CRM systems and marketing databases to make this efficient.

After the speaker meeting, have an internal post mortem meeting a week or so after the event to discuss what went well and what can be improved next time.Measure not just on total attendees, but total duration they participated and the amount of participation and engagement in the discussion. Measuring thought leadership and association is easiest done through online surveys. Something to consider is a final survey as attendees leave the event, or in a follow-up email.This should only be done if the members have opt-in to be contacted previously.

Give them feedback from the audience polls to find out what worked best, and pull out specific things you really liked about their performance.Thank your team, and appreciate all the hard work you and they did to engage the market, congrats!

Altimeter Group, June 28, 2010, All Rights Reserved | www.altimetergroup.com | info@altimetergroup.comStatus Due Date

Item Date ResponsibleNotesInternal planning meetingInvites sent to speakersScoping call with speakersPromotion DateDry RehersalPerformancePost Mortem

Costs Webinar systems benefitsspeaker