your first webinar - success · audience wants to get out of the event determine your content....
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Copyright ©2008 Webinar Success
Your First Webinar:Understanding What's Involved
Ken MolayPresident, Webinar Success
This document will give you the key concepts and guidelines presented by Ken Molay in his web seminar on understanding what is involved in putting together a webinar.
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Are You An Expert?GET OUT!
The information presented today is introductory in nature for people approaching webinars for the first time. As with any subject, the more you learn, the more you can appreciate details and options that seem confusing or unimportant at first.
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What's On Your Mind?
How much time will I have to
spend?
How do I get people to show up?
What kind of results should I expect?
How much will it cost?
What are the main tasks?
Do I have to hire outside
help?
What skills are needed?
What can go wrong?
We will cover these common concerns for people considering adding webinars to their business offerings. Please note that we are concentrating on presentation-oriented events rather than collaborative team conferencing.
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What Are The Main Tasks?
What are the main tasks?
Let's examine the big picture. What does it take to create and deliver a web seminar?
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High-Level Webinar Task List
1) Plan your event2) Select and set up your technology3) Schedule your event4) Create/distribute promotional materials5) Create content6) Rehearse7) Deliver the presentation8) Follow up9) Analyze and refine
This is a very high level summary of the major milestones for creating a webinar. Each of these nine areas may include many details and subtasks. The goal is to give you an overview of the things you will need to account for, rather than a complete step by step tutorial and training on webinar production.
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1) Plan Your EventBalance Presenter And Audience Goals
AudienceSelf-Interest
Your Goals
Content
Initial planning is critical. We will break this into a few component considerations to give you an idea of the issues to address.
First you must clearly define your goals and reasons for putting on your event. Identify your target audience and "step into their shoes." What are their interests and goals? The interplay between what you want to accomplish and what your audience wants to get out of the event determine your content.
Write down your goals and the audience interests, along with a brief description of what you will offer. Keep this handy for reference during production of marketing materials and presentation content.
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1) Plan Your EventDetermine Event Staff
Presenters
Marketer
Coordinator /Administrator
Moderator
Figure out who will be involved in the production and presentation of your webinar. These are the four main functional areas, but they don't have to be four different people... It is common for an individual to fulfill multiple roles.
We will more closely examine the skills and functions for these roles later in the presentation. For now, you need to have named individuals so you can proceed with scheduling.
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1) Plan Your EventPick Your Dates/Times
I include this step very early in the planning process, because it forces you to think about a lot of different things... Where is our audience and what is convenient for them? Will I need multiple sessions to cover different time zones? Does that change how I set up (or purchase) the web conferencing software? Will my speaker(s) be available for the sessions? Do I need to promote things differently based on language, time, or call-in information?
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1) Plan Your EventOther Decisions
Recording
Charging
Collateral
Other considerations in the planning phase include:
1) Will you record the event? How do you want people to access the recording? Hosted on your web site, hosted on the vendor's web site, or distributed on CD? Will you need tracking and registration for viewing the recording? These questions will help you during vendor selection.
2) Will you give your attendees collateral associated with your subject? Attendees always ask for a copy of your slides. Do you need to erase confidential speaker notes, or create a PDF version for distribution? Do you want them to have access to a white paper, datasheets, or marketing brochures? All materials should be complete and ready to go BEFORE your event starts. You can make them available during or immediately after your program.
3) Will you charge people to attend? This will bring in the need for additional vendor requirements, security considerations, procedures for handling refund requests, and setup of payment processing during registration.
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2) Select And Set Up Your TechnologyWeb Conferencing Software
File Distribution
Audience PrintDesktop Sharing
Web SharingFlash VideosAudience FeedbackAnnotations
Firefox SupportMac SupportIntegrated BillingRegistrationAudience ChatQ&A
Application SharePolling
24-Hour Tech SupportTelephone Audio
Internet AudioAnimation Support
Vendor 3Vendor 2Vendor 1
Don't let vendors overwhelm you with a laundry list of all the features they offer. Make a list of your requirements and then check your prospective suppliers against your priorities. Make sure you examine the functionality of important features by using them or getting a live demo... A "Yes" on an RFP grid does not tell you how one vendor differs from another.
Webinar Wire has a set of articles on important webinar features. Search on the keyword "Features."
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2) Select And Set Up Your TechnologyAudio
• Streaming
• Telephone
• Both
• Toll free
• Toll call
• International numbers
• Digital recording
• Subconferences
• Operator assistance
• Q&A queuing
You have a bewildering set of choices in how you will offer audio to your attendees. You can stream the audio over the internet and/or allow attendees to listen via telephone. If using telephone audio conferencing, you need to determine whether you will make attendees pay for a toll call in order to listen, or whether you will pay for a toll free line.
If you are working with an international audience, you have the option of offering local toll free phone numbers, at an additional cost to you.
Your audio conferencing provider may offer audio recording of the event, which is usually higher quality than the compressed audio used by the web conferencing vendors.
Subconferences for presenters are useful for preparing before the event begins without the audience hearing you.
If you want to take questions from the audience over the telephone, you should look for operator assistance and the ability to queue questions for individual handling.
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2) Select And Set Up Your TechnologyOptional: Payments and Security
If you will charge attendees to register for your event, it requires additional setup work on establishing or linking to a merchant account to process payments. You also need to determine whether you are concerned with the possibility of attendees forwarding login instructions to others. And you need to put a procedure in place for handling refund requests.
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3) Schedule Your Event
This task refers to the physical creation of your webinar in the web conferencing software. You will put in the expected information about title, date, time, description, etc.
You also need to create registration pages with the information you wish to capture. If you are charging, you need to add payment processing information. In most webinar software you can specify custom messages for registration confirmation and pre-event reminders. Some packages also let you set up "thank you for coming" and "sorry we missed you" messages.
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4) Create/Distribute Promotional Materials
Marketing your webinar will use the most time and money in the entire process. There are many avenues for promoting a webinar... Some are free and others cost money... Potentially a lot of money. But the good news is that your budget and preferred methods are completely discretionary. We will examine this step in more detail later.
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5) Create ContentPlan Your Timing
Technical IntroOverview and intro
First Speaker
Second Speaker
Poll and intro
Wrap
Q&A
Know how long you have for each part of your event. Work out a table of milestone timings for the introduction, speaker content, Q&A, wrap-up, etc. This makes sure that you know whether you are on track during the event. If you have multiple speakers, put your most experienced and comfortable presenter last. That person can adjust the presentation if necessary to account for the prior speakers going short or long.
As a starting point during slide development, assume one slide per minute. This is an optimum amount of time for the audience to combat latency in receiving new slides without getting bored by looking at the same image for many minutes on end.
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5) Create ContentAdd Polls And Interactions
Make sure to plan for interactions with your audience. Create polls or surveys if your software allows it. Have some questions ready that invite your attendees to type responses in the Q&A box. Plan some seed questions to stimulate discussion during the Q&A period in case things go slowly.
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6) Rehearse
TechnicalSolo
Group Runthrough
Rehearsing is one of the most important things you can do to ensure a quality webinar and is definitely the most overlooked and abused. Each speaker needs to give his or her entire presentation, word for word, as if an audience was listening. This is the only way to check timings, segues, and concept clarity.
A technical familiarization session makes sure that all parties are comfortable using the web conferencing software and know how the overall organization will work.
A group runthrough lets the moderator and speakers practice introductions and handoffs, as well as check for conflicts or redundancies between speakers.
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7) Deliver The Presentation
• 30-minute preshow
• Enthusiasm & energy
• Stay on time
There are many specific guidelines for presenting on a webinar, and you can find other recorded presentations that speak to this topic in detail. But very briefly, you should plan on blocking out the preceding half hour for final preparation and problem solving.
Remember to keep enthusiasm and energy in your voice as you present, and keep track of your time so that the session can end at the scheduled time without feeling rushed or truncated.
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8) Follow Up
• Contact everyone
• Publish recording
• Send materials
• Respond to inquiries
Your webinar tasks continue even after your attendees have logged off. You need to communicate with attendees and no-shows, thanking them and continuing a dialog. Send them collateral or any other promised materials. Make your archived recording available for reference.
You also want to respond as quickly as possible to attendee questions and requests. You have a very short window of opportunity to continue your communications while you are welcome. Try to have sales people, engineers, or other appropriate staff members available immediately after your event to follow up with high priority communications from the webinar.
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9) Analyze And Refine
The final task in your webinar plan is to analyze your results and use the information to help you plan future events and refine your tactics.
Run registration and attendance reports and check the performance of your different promotional channels. Look over audience feedback and responses to see what connected with them and what didn't work in their minds.
Finally, find a way to measure whether you achieved your primary goals for the event, whether that was to increase sales leads, improve customer education, build satisfaction with your company and products, or something else. If you don't know whether you succeeded, you won't know whether you should do it again.
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What Skills Are Needed?
What skills are needed?
Let's take a more detailed look at the roles and functions that need to be accommodated when planning a webinar. As mentioned earlier, a single person may fill several functional roles.
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Specialized Skills:Coordinator/Administrator
Presenters
Marketer
Coordinator /Administrator
Moderator
• Multitasking
• Attention to detail
• Organized
• Diplomatic
• Commander
The coordinator needs to keep track of all the detailed steps involved in the webinar plan, production, and followup. This person is a detail-oriented project manager who needs to be comfortable in keeping track of lots of information and deadlines over a period of time. They also need to have the authority to nag presenters into getting materials completed on time, schedule time for rehearsals, etc. If you are selecting new technology vendors, the administrator also makes sure that contracts are in place ahead of time, the account is provisioned, and issues such as branding are ready so the account can be used.
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Specialized Skills:Moderator
Presenters
Marketer
Coordinator /Administrator
Moderator
• Conference software
• Public speaking
• Multitasking
• Flow management
There are actually two types of moderator roles to consider, although they are often handled by the same person. A technical moderator must know the details of the web conferencing software and be ready to help presenters and attendees with problems in accessing the event and using the software. This person usually keeps track of audience questions coming in throughout the webinar and answers technical questions. The technical moderator also introduces the audience to the software and gives them basic instructions on how to interact during the session.
The content moderator is more of a traditional host and conversation facilitator. He or she introduces presenters, asks questions to keep the content flow interesting, represents the audience's questions, and makes sure that the event stays on time.
Both parties should be comfortable in public speaking and guiding conversations.
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Specialized Skills:Presenters
Presenters
Marketer
Coordinator /Administrator
Moderator
• Subject knowledge
• PowerPoint design
• Public speaking
• Calm and nimble!
Presenters need to know their topic and be comfortable presenting the information to an unseen audience. There are many skills that can be learned and practiced to ensure that slide content and speaking style are suited to the web environment. It helps if they are able to answer subject matter questions on the fly.
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Specialized Skills:Marketer
Presenters
Marketer
Coordinator /Administrator
Moderator
• Copywriting
• Graphic design
• HTML
• Lists and sources
• Budgeting
Someone needs to be in charge of promoting and marketing your event to drive registration and attendance. This involves the usual marketing skills of crafting compelling messages, designing web pages and email layouts, creating banner ads, writing and distributing press releases, or taking care of other marketing channels. Because budgets are so wide ranging and flexible for marketing alternatives, this person needs to understand the options and weigh cost/benefit considerations.
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Do I Have To Hire Outside Help?
Do I have to hire outside
help?
There are service providers who will take care of many of these tasks. Is it necessary to use them, or can you safely set up and deliver a webinar yourself?
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Fill Your Gaps As Needed
The answer goes back to the roles and skills we mentioned earlier. There is nothing there that can't be done within your own organization. But if you are missing any of the expertise or can't dedicate the time to working through the tasks, you may wish to use outside help to fill in and relieve you of the burden.
I often recommend using an outside service as your technical moderator to take care of the behind-the-scenes preparation and oversight of the event. One of the advantages is in having someone on a completely separate network and phone connection to act as a backup in case of a catastrophic network interruption at your site.
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How Much Time Will I Have To Spend?
How much time will I have to
spend?
There are two aspects to consider when talking about preparation time. The first is the amount of effort required on an individual basis, and the second is the overall calendar planning so you know how early you need to start planning your event.
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Estimating Time(Highly Variable!)
1) Plan your event2) Select and set up your technology3) Schedule your event4) Create/distribute promotional materials5) Create content6) Rehearse7) Deliver the presentation8) Follow up9) Analyze and refine
2 hrs2-16 hrs
1 hrs2-30 hrs8-16 hrs
2 hrs1-2 hrs1-2 hrs
2 hrs
21-73 person hoursOver 6-7 weeks
Each of these estimates is highly variable and subject to your experience, the complexity and size of your event, and considerations of what is already in place and what needs to be constructed from scratch. But this graphic shows a "typical" average for these tasks.
If you break down the time requirements by functional role, it averages out to about 18 person-hours spread over 1-2 months. On a calendar basis, your big time requirements are for selecting and setting up your web conferencing technology and preparing/rehearsing the presentation content.
With other things in place, I have scheduled and held events in as little as one to two days, but your audience needs to already be aware of the event and waiting for their instructions!
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How Do I Get People To Show Up?
How do I get people to show up?
Marketing and promoting a web seminar is the most challenging part of the production process and requires the most attention to time, materials, and budget. There is a huge range of methods and costs you can encounter when promoting your webinar.
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Promotion and Marketing Channels
• House list
• Rented list
• Web site
• Blogs & newsletters
• Press release
• Industry news sites
• Search ad sponsorship
• Email signature link
• Partners
Email is the most common communication method these days and usually the first thing that comes to mind. If you are targeting a select group of named individuals, you can simply send them the information directly, as personal communications. If you are a small business person with a network of contacts, you might start with personal communications and a request for them to forward the information to colleagues who might be interested.
Renting mailing lists requires much more attention to email design, spam considerations, and legal requirements. Get professional help if you haven't done this before, or you could end up with serious fines and damage to your professional reputation. List mailings can potentially cost tens of thousands of dollars for specific groupings.
Make sure to take advantage of your free venues. Put easy to see-and-click announcements on your web site, blog, or newsletter. Also make sure to let news sites or blogs know about it if they follow your industry. They might mention it for free as a public service.
A press release gets your information into search engines and news portals. A large wire service like MarketWire costs about $400, while smaller distribution services are less than $100.
If you use paid search ad sponsorships, switch out your standard ads for a couple of weeks to direct people to your webinar registration page instead.
Some companies find it beneficial to work with partners in order to get the benefit of their larger distribution lists.
And if you have a large sales force, get them to add a link in their email signatures to drive registration with their contacts.
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What Kind Of Results Should I Expect?
What kind of results should I expect?
Different types of webinars, targeted at different groups, have varying responses. But here are some rules of thumb for what you can expect.
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Typical Registration/Attendance Results
Public lists and mass marketing:0.5% - 1.0% Registration30% - 40% Attendance
Private lists and targeted marketing:1.5% - 4.0% Registration40% - 50% Attendance
Fee-based events:Less Registration
85% - 95% Attendance
Public marketing and lead generation webinars advertised to a general mass list typically result in less than 1% registration. Of those who register, you will see 1/3 attend your event.
More targeted lists and promotion methods to specific groups can raise both your registration and attendance rates.
If you charge for your event, the number of registrations will decrease, but almost all registrants attend. Still, there is always someone who can't make it or has technical problems, so you need a refund policy and process in place.
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How Much Will It Cost?
How much will it cost?
Ah, the big question... What do you have to budget to do a webinar? You are about to see a ridiculously wide range in the final number, but I will attempt to break it down so you can see where the money goes and where you have options on spending.
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Cost Breakdowns And Ranges
Web Conferencing Software:$0.20 - $0.30 / person-minute
$500 - $10,000 / year unlimited use
Audio Conferencing:$0 - $0.15 / person-minute
Marketing:$300 - $30,000
Services:$400 - $5,000
Total Costs for First Webinar: $500 - $8,300 - $30,000
Web conferencing software itself ranges from free to very expensive. You need to balance cost against features and reliability. There are two main pricing models you will encounter. Some vendors offer the technology on a per-use basis, where you pay a fixed cost for each person, each minute they are logged in. The second method gives you a fixed cost per month or year, with any number of webinars allowed. If you are planning a series of events, this can amortize out to an excellent choice. Your costs typically increase as you add more "room capacity" – the number of people who can attend an event.
Audio conferencing always works on a price per person-minute. There are free services, but these make their money by charging all callers toll charges to a long distance number. They often have fewer call management features as well. Webcasting or streaming the audio can reduce audio costs to zero.
Webcast vendors may charge $2000-$5000 for a complete branded event with streaming audio. Variability is based on event duration and audience size.
Your marketing budget can range from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. This is entirely your call, based on your market, your budget, and your needs.
Finally, you may wish to take advantage of production and moderating services. Typical service fees range from $400 up to thousands of dollars for more comprehensive help.
As you can see, your overall budget can be just a few hundred dollars or tens of thousands.
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What Can Go Wrong?
What can go wrong?
You should know what to look out for and how to prepare for glitches in the process. Here are a few things that can cause headaches.
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Minimize Problems With A Backup Plan
Poor audio quality is annoying on a live event, but really destroys your recording, where the quality is usually compressed and degraded anyway. Use wired connections and quality microphones in a quiet environment.
Always have a backup plan in place in case a presenter loses internet connection during the event. They should have a hardcopy printout of their slides and a moderator should be ready to take over and advance the slides for the audience.
If possible, presenters should dial in on a backup phone line in case the first one loses connection.
Use a computer on a hardwire, rather than wireless internet connection.
If your web conferencing software uploads and converts slides for display, make sure to test all slides and animations before your event. Some PowerPoint features may not convert correctly.
Presenters and moderators should log in 30 minutes early to have last minute conversations, iron out problems, and ensure that nobody is running late or unavailable.
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Additional Resources
www.TheWebinarBlog.com
www.WebinarWire.com
[email protected]……….…………………………………….
…….…….…….……
….……….
www.wcc-forum.com………........……
There are more tips, tricks, and usage guidelines available on the Web. Here are some sites that may prove useful.
I particularly want to point out a series of articles I wrote on selection criteria for web conferencing features. It is available on WebinarWire by searching on "Features".
Please feel free to email me as well!
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Copyright ©2008 Webinar Success
Thank you
Ken MolayPresident, Webinar Success
Thank you for your time and attention.