What makes one webinar fail (allowing me to chop carrots while I pretend to watch) while another one, makes me wish it would go on for longer. After watching hundreds of these as a way to learn more on a topic, here are a few ideas that might be helpful.
1. Only use visuals such as powerpoints if they are CITE – concise, informative, tangible and executed on brand. Remember, if the audience is reading your jam-packed slides, they can’t pay attention to what you are saying.
2. Have a marketing plan prior to the program as to how you are going to reach your intended audience, and have a post-production plan as to how you will use the material (e.g., rebroadcast, turned into articles) once it takes place.
3. Have a detailed agenda for the presenters with time allocations per speaker. Be sure that the speakers understand that to keep the program on schedule, they may be cut off if they go long.
4. Make sure your speakers are prepared with bullet point text on their screens or in paper in front of them. Discourage them from reading from text unless it is to quote a particular source.
5. Check all of the visuals in advance. Presenters should be well-lit (backlighting makes it look like the speaker is in the witness protection program), and relatively same “size”, about an inch from the top of their screen. It’s very distracting when you see one person who looks like they are ready to broadcast and another who looks like they have a tiny little head and are sitting far, far away.
6. Provide take-home value. When preparing the session, be sure to continuously ask yourself what I am teaching that can be taken home or back to the office and applied.
7. Don’t read from notes. Audience members can tell. Utilize bullet points on a document open up on a desktop, and use natural and comfortable language.
8. Practice. Use Zoom’s record function or record a video on your phone. Get a good idea of how you appear when you speak so you can self-diagnose if you are speaking too fast, too slow, or using lots of filler words.
