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A webinar is a great way to share valuable information on any sort of topic with a large audience. There are so many great webinar ideas that you can choose from, but in this blog we’ll cover the best practices for hosting a webinar for your business and how to make it as engaging as possible for your viewers.
If you're prepared to launch your first webinar, follow these steps to make sure everything is set up to go well.
<span class="mid-size-title">1. Choose Your Webinar Topic</span>
You can host a webinar on a variety of topics! Narrow down what you think your audience will value learning about; webinars are great for sharing information on a certain product or service you have.
<span class="mid-size-title">2. Choose a Webinar Platform</span>
There are many webinar platforms to choose from! It’s important to pick one that has ample engagement features to make sure your audience interacts with the content. Engagement features can include live chats, polls, contests and more.
<span class="mid-size-title">3. Choose a Date and Time</span>
Use insights from your business to decide when the best time to host your webinar is. For B2B businesses, hosting it during the work day may be best, while for B2C customers having something after 5 pm or on weekends may be a better option. Make sure to give people advanced notice so they can plan accordingly.
<span class="mid-size-title">4. Customize Your Branding</span>
Your webinar is the perfect opportunity to enforce your company branding! Incorporate your brand’s colors along with logos and copy that aligns with your brand voice. Hosting platforms like Hubilo allow you to add all sorts of branding, like a custom landing page and multiple banner placements.
<span class="mid-size-title">5. Create a Hashtag for Your Webinar</span>
An event hashtag is a great marketing tactic to promote your event and get your audience engaged. Your viewers can share what they’re excited for before the event and what they learned after the event through the webinar hashtag.
<span class="mid-size-title">6. Send Out Your Webinar Invitations</span>
Use your different online channels to promote your webinar once you have the details figured out. Send out invites to contacts through email, social media, and promote it on your website.
<span class="mid-size-title">7. Build Webinar Content</span>
Figure out what kind of content you want to have for your webinar. You can choose presentations, polls, or a whiteboard to present during your event.
<span class="mid-size-title">8. Do a Practice Run</span>
Have your team and guest speakers check out the video platform you’ve selected ahead of time in case they have trouble with any platform parts. Have them also run through their presentation beforehand to ensure everything goes smoothly and the right information is presented.
<span class="mid-size-title">9. Host your Webinar</span>
The day has finally arrived! As you start your webinar make sure to record it as well so you can share it with your audience once the event is over.
<span class="mid-size-title">10. Follow Up</span>
Just because your event is over doesn’t mean you should not follow up with webinar viewers afterwards. 24 hours after the event, ask your webinar viewers if they had any questions or comments about the event.
<span class="mid-size-title">11. Make your Webinar Recording Available </span>
Once you’ve recorded and edited the footage from your webinar, it’s time to share it with the rest of the world! Post your webinar footage on social media or send it to your email list to showcase the valuable information that was shared.
Compared to online events like a webcast where the audience interaction is limited, a webinar gets your audience engaged with different features like live chats and breakout sessions.
When you host a webinar, you can set up the event so you can create new leads out of the new viewers that attend the event. Once the event is over, you can reach out to them using the information they registered with like phone numbers and email addresses.
By inviting guest speakers to speak at your webinar, you’re establishing yourself as a reputable and credible source in your industry and with your products. Co-hosts are a great addition to reach a bigger audience.
Not having to pay for an in-person venue along with the additional costs of in-person events leaves you with the chance to make a bigger return on your virtual event investment.
Video content is everything these days! Your audience will remain focused and engaged if your video quality is up to date. Ensure that the cameras you use and the video hosting platform you use is up to date with great HD video quality.
With a great hosting platform like Hubilo, it’s easy to streamline all areas of hosting a virtual event. Your marketing process is no exception - you can promote your event with a custom landing page, send personalized messages to attendees, and run targeted campaigns. You can truly do just about everything with Hubilo!
On most hosting platforms, you have the ability to record your entire webinar. You can use your recording to then share as content on marketing channels, like social media and email.
Webinars don’t have to be for big industry updates and product launches. They can be for internal meetings if you work remotely or if you lead a very large team.
Webinars can be used to showcase new products that your company launches and spread the word about your company. It’s a great way to establish yourself and your company in any industry.
Webinars help you to share your message to a bigger audience in less time than an in-person event would.
<span class="mid-size-title">1. Thank the Audience</span>
If your audience is spending their free time joining in on your webinar, you want to make sure you thank them for that time! After the event, follow up with an email thanking every guest for tuning in and ask if they have any questions.Include a link with the recorded webinar session as well for them to watch it back!
<span class="mid-size-title">2. Take Note of the People Who Did Not Attend</span>
Just because some people were not able to attend your event doesn’t mean they should be acknowledged! Send those guests who were not able to attend the event recording with a message detailing that they were missed.
<span class="mid-size-title">3. Find the Perfect Title for your Webinar</span>
Finding the perfect title for your webinar event will help to get the general public interested about it and will get them intrigued. If you have a good title, they’ll want to learn more and attend your event.
<span class="mid-size-title">4. Schedule your Webinars for the Right Time</span>
The date and timing for your webinar event is another important factor! If you’re targeting B2C businesses, consider hosting your event during a time when most people are free, such as weekends or after 5 o’clock pm during weekdays. For B2B companies, host your event during the day when you know they’ll be available. No matter what date or time you decide on, make sure to send out the planned date and time early in advance to guests so they have adequate time to plan for it.
<span class="mid-size-title">5. Co- brand your Webinars</span>
One of the best parts about working with an experienced video hosting platform like Hubilo is that you have the ability to brand your webinar to cater to your company. You can customize different themes, colors, logos and more.
<span class="mid-size-title">6. Promote your Webinar</span>
The best way to get the word out about your webinar is by promoting it! Work with your marketing team to figure out a plan to promote the webinar on platforms like social media. Use content that will make people want to register and watch your webinar, like promotional videos.
<span class="mid-size-title">7. Broadcast your Webinar with Invites</span>
Announce your webinar is happening by sending an announcement email. In your email, you can include a link that brings people directly to the registration page on your website.
<span class="mid-size-title">8. Perfect Your Story</span>
To keep your audience engaged and talking about your webinar long after it ends, prioritize having great content! Provide content that delivers a story that best represents the messages you want to get across to viewers.
<span class="mid-size-title">9. Add Presenter Bios to the Registration Page</span>
Draw people into your event by adding speaker highlights on your webinar registration page. It will reflect well on you and your event if you showcase the accomplishments of the speakers you have in your webinar.
<span class="mid-size-title">10. Create Polls to Get Attendees Involved</span>
Engagement is key for a successful webinar! You can hold polls for your audience to complete about the webinar content or to get feedback on the event.
<span class="mid-size-title">11. Do a Trial Run Before the Main Event</span>
Don’t let any unexpected issues get in the way of hosting a great webinar! Run a trial with your team and with your hosting platform to ensure any potential hiccups before the big virtual event day comes.
<span class="mid-size-title">12. Broadcast Your Webinar</span>
The day has finally arrived for you to showcase all the hard work you’ve been planning for your webinar! Remember to stay confident, share your screen for your viewers, and press the record button once you start.
<span class="mid-size-title">13. Get Constructive Feedback</span>
Following up with your webinar viewers after the event is an effective way to get feedback. Send out a poll or survey via email to see if there was anything that could be improved for future events.
<span class="mid-size-title">14. Let Your Webinar Recordings Work for You</span>
Webinar recordings can be used to your advantage! If there was a particular part with valuable information you think your online audiences would benefit from, post a snippet onto your social media platforms. Send out the entire webinar recording to those who couldn’t attend so no one misses out!
The cost of a webinar varies. The main cost of your webinar will be the hosting platform you choose, but there are other factors to consider such as the guest speakers you pay to speak, your promotional efforts and more.
The time and date you choose to hold your webinar is entirely up to you. It’s important to note the types of schedules your intended audience has; for example, for B2B viewers it may be better to host something during the workday, whereas B2C attendees may have more availability on weekends or after 5 o'clock.
In short, you cannot directly participate with the speaker during a webinar. However, some may allow you to join them with your camera to ask a question or interact with them through live chats and polls.
Yes! You should be able to view your recording in your account on the hosting platform you use.
Yes, live webinars are able to be recorded! Most video hosting platforms make it easy to record your event and will later save it once the event is over.
Yes, both audio and video are able to be recorded from your webinar event!
The three pillars are:
<span class="mid-size-title">Conclusion</span>
Hosting a webinar that provides great value to your audience is great, but hosting a webinar that isn’t complicated to plan makes it even better! It’s important that you choose a platform that makes this process a breeze, which is why Hubilo is a great option when it comes to planning and hosting a webinar! Whether you need help with webinar registration, branding, or eben analytics, Hubilo is your one stop shop to make your next webinar a hit!
Hubilo is the event professional’s event platform for live, hybrid, and virtual events. Founded over 5 years ago to revolutionize engagement at in-person events, the company makes it easy to bring people together anywhere, anytime. Hubilo’s powerful engagement features, personal client experience team, and custom branding tools have helped create over 12K events and counting. Headquartered in Bangalore and San Francisco, Hubilo’s nearly 400 employees are dedicated to co-creating the world’s most important events: yours.
