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Webinars are very effective means of communication with your audience.

You can teach people almost anything during a webinar if you plan everything right. It’s really as good as a live in-person event, but without the added hassle of travel expenses. The audience actually doesn’t even need to get dressed. But, let’s not think about that. Instead, let’s talk about what is different about a webinar compared to an in-person event; the chat.
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During a live in-person event, everyone listens intently to the speaker. But during a webinar, often times when the chat is open there is multitasking going on. Participants are chatting with others during the event, or asking random questions, perhaps complaining about poor sound or other issues. It can be very distracting. Therefore, it’s imperative to learn to use chat effectively.

• Explain the Features to Your Audience – Start off with explaining to the audience in the introduction phase how the chat works. Encourage them to only use it to ask important questions or to answer questions. Explain how important it is to pay attention to the presentation and that there will be a specific Q & A time.
• Assign a Chat Monitor – It’s imperative that you have someone on your team to monitor the chat window. It’s best if that person is signed in as a regular guest. That way they see what the guests see and not what the presenters or hosts see. This helps them identify better with the participants and know whether or not everything looks like it should.
• Respond to Complaints – Give the monitor full freedom to respond to complaints as necessary. Set up a way for the monitor to text the host of the webinar if there is a serious problem such as slides not advancing, sound not working or the picture looking bad. Some of these issues will be due to poor set-up by the participant, and the monitor should understand how to go to private chat to help them.
• Provide Technical Assistance – One way to help participants is to use the chat as a way to provide technical assistance. You can let the monitor help each person that needs help by empowering them to connect directly with the people who send chat complaints. Plus, you can set up a special email for technical problems that goes directly to someone who is “on call” to help people during the presentation.
• Ask for Feedback in Chat – To get the party rolling, ask for feedback from your audience to post in the chat. Just point out the chat and ask them to say where they are from, or to post their most burning questions. Then you can look at that and mention a few of them. Let a helper collect the burning questions for later.
• Deal with Trolls Privately – If someone is showing themselves to be a troll on the chat, you can easily just delete and ban them. Don’t make a big deal about it at all. Just quickly and quietly ban them from the webinar.
• Use It to Prove You’re in a Live Session – If you close the chat completely, the participants will believe they’re in a recorded session. The best thing to do is use the chat occasionally as a way to show that you’re in a live session.
• Post Affiliate Links – Have a helper post links to the products, services and information that you’re speaking about with your affiliate right as you talk about it. Make it part of your presentation by pointing out that your assistant will post the links in the chat.

By using the chat strategically during a webinar, you’ll improve the experience for your audience, increase your expert status, and make the chat more interesting.[/nextpage]

Haphazardly running a webinar can cause a lot of problems, including confusion, missed opportunity, and even angry viewers.

You want the webinar to be full of value, but not overwhelming. Your webinar needs to be full of great tips and tricks and information that your audience can put to work immediately – whether or not they take advantage of your offer. It all starts with the agenda.

Create a Preliminary Agenda

Before you even decide to invite speakers to your event, you should already have a temporary agenda as you’d like it to be – while also asking for and taking input from speakers once they have accepted. The pre-agenda will help speakers and audience members understand the topic and subject matter better so that they know whether they want to speak or attend.

Seek Input from Co-Presenters

Once you have chosen the speakers, it’s time to start making some changes to the agenda. Take input from the speakers on how they would like the webinar to go. While the topic will not change and the general idea will remain the same, each presenter likely has their own title and description for their part of the webinar – as well as the order in which they will want to present, take questions, and make their offers.

Seek Input from Your Potential Audience

Once you have things worked out with the presenters, it’s time to take it to your audience. The reason is twofold. One, you’ll get great ideas and feedback from your audience about how to make your presentations better. Two, it’s an opportunity to tease your audience about the upcoming webinar.

Select Topics That Mean Something to Your Audience

Remember that the topics you select to cover during the webinar need to be of interest to your audience. They should answer questions, define issues, and educate your audience. The more you can understand what your audience needs, the better you’ll be able to deliver it and the more compelling your webinar will be.

Estimate a Realistic Time for Each Topic

Beside each topic, include approximately how long it will take to go through that topic. The reason is that it gives your speakers a limit on how long they can make their presentation, and it gives your audience an idea of how long they’ll be listening to each topic. This can help everyone involved stay on track and let the audience know what to expect.

List the Speaker for Each Topic

Once things have been settled, list the speaker who is responsible for each topic. Let them write a compelling description to go into the final agenda. Include an outline, maybe some quotes and back information to help the audience know what to expect.

Always Include Time for Your Offers

Don’t forget to add in speaking time, and time for the speaker to make an offer. So if you told them you want them to speak for 10 minutes, add in another couple of minutes for their offer. The offer is important and should be a fraction of the time for the actual talk, because you want to offer a great deal of value to the audience.

Add in Time for Q & A

Finally, don’t forget to add in time for a Q & A session. This is a chance for your audience to clarify questions that have arisen during the webinar, and it’s also an opportunity for you to promote your products as a solution to their problems.

Once the agenda is finalized, you can use it to help with all your sales pages, promotions, and information about the webinar. It will become a guide for speakers and guests to the webinar and help get everyone excited about attending.

When you create an agenda, you’ll be able to use it for yourself to keep yourself and your co-presenters on track, and as a way to get your audience excited.

It sounds like a wonderful idea – a multi-speaker webinar event.

And yes, it is a great idea, but it’s not as easy to arrange as you might think. Recruiting speakers is tricky because you want to find people who market to your niche but who aren’t necessarily direct competition with you. Plus, you want them to be good, honest people who offer amazing value to their audience. After all, you’ll be introducing them to yours.

Here are some tips for recruiting speakers so that you and they get the most possible out of the webinar.

• Choose the Topic in Advance – Don’t invite anyone into your circle until you’ve already chosen the topic. That way you remain in control, and it makes it easier for those who wish to participate to create a presentation. People don’t want to do more work even though it will provide benefits to them; they want to do what seems most easy.
• Define the Goals and Purpose of Your Webinar – In addition to the topic, it’s important to show them what your goals and purpose are for the webinar. This will help the speakers that you invite know whether or not they want to participate.
• Know Who Your Audience Is – Not only should you have a good understanding of who your audience is, but you should also share that with the speakers that you invite. They need to know who your audience is exactly, so that they can choose whether or not to speak at your event.
• Find Speakers’ Bureaus in Your Niche – There are speakers’ bureaus in every niche so that you can find the right people to speak at your event. Find the people and send a formal invitation with all the information.
• Create a Temporary Agenda – Just so that the potential speakers know you’re on top of things, show them a temporary agenda. This will ensure that they’ll know how the webinar will unfold and where they might fit in to the event, and it will help them see how professional your event will be.
• Explain the Benefits for the Speakers – Always lead with what the benefits are for the speaker to participate; larger reach, audience ready to become customers, or whatever other benefits you can identify for them.
• Create Preliminary Sales Pages – You want to show them examples of how you’ll market the event by showing them that you already have the online real estate to market the event. When they see this attention to detail, they’ll want to participate.
• Directly Invite the Speakers You Want – Finally, always give a personal invitation to the speakers you want. Give them all the information, an application to participate, an agreement, and a time limit to respond.

You can have an amazing webinar and reach far more people when it’s a team effort.

Don’t be afraid to give people direction as to what to do to make the webinar amazing and profitable for everyone. Having guidelines set up before you invite the speakers, marketing materials created, and preliminary marketing collateral developed, will make it a no brainer for those you invite to participate.

While you can certainly host a webinar all on your own using various types of technology today, it’s probably better if you get some help. First, assess whether or not you can do it yourself by testing out some of the technology and then deciding whether it’s less stressful to get help or not.

• Tech Support – This is really important if you’re not experienced with webinars. There are people who are and they can help you with all the technical aspects of setting up your webinar, plus help out your audience with issues.
• Speakers – You may not think of speakers as support, but they are. If you have other speakers outside of yourself, then some of the pressure is off your back for creating a successful webinar. Choose people who market to your audience but who aren’t direct competition.
• Webinar Organizer – There are people who do this for a business. They set up webinars, including the technology and sales pages, and even monitor your webinar live during the event to ensure everything goes off without a hitch.
• Customer Service – You may want to set up special customer service for webinar subscribers so that they can get their tech questions answered faster. That way you’ll divert those emails to someone who can truly help them without bothering you.
• Chat Monitor – The reason having a chat monitor is so important (and this is even if you don’t hire anyone else to help) is because they sign on as if they’re a guest, and see exactly what the guests see. They can alert you to anything that is going wrong (or right).
• Co-Host – The great thing about having a co-host is that you can feel as if you have some support, if only moral. They don’t even have to say anything, but they can take part by helping introduce you to the audience and monitor the chat.
• Webinar Support Pro – Hire someone who knows the technology you have chosen to use, but who also understands how a webinar should progress. They can help you with all aspects of setting up your webinar – from sign-ups to follow up.
• Miscellaneous Assistants – You may want assistants who help with ensuring that prize winners get their prizes, that unanswered live questions are answered via autoresponder within 24 hours of the event, and more.

You can certainly host webinars without any help, but you’ll find that you’ll be more successful if you get help where you need it. If nothing else, have someone available to help out if something goes wrong so that you do not have to deal with it on your own. Having that person will be very helpful, if only for moral support.

There is more to hosting a webinar than simply having one.

You need to ensure that it’s fun, informative and useful too. When people go to a webinar, they know that they’ll get a sales pitch eventually. But what makes them come back is the actual content outside of the sales pitch. Plus, if they choose to purchase due to your sales pitch, the product must be fabulous. If you offer your audience amazing promises, you need to live up to them.

• Make It Educational – Every webinar should offer a message that educates the audience on something they need to know and can put into action right away. If the message is informative and gives them something they can do without even buying your offer, they’ll want to see more from you and may eventually buy your products or use your services.
• Keep the Message Clear – If your message isn’t crystal clear to your audience, they may leave your webinar confused. You don’t want that to happen. You want your audience to be able to digest the information in an understandable way.
• Be Entertaining – While you’re getting them the information, it’s important to also not make it boring. Be lively and entertaining. Share a story that they can relate to. Show your humanity to them and they’ll want to know more.
• Pick an Awesome Topic – This is really the most important part of the webinar. Your topic should be something that makes your audience excited to learn more. In order to choose the right topic, you need to match your expertise with what your audience needs.
• Give Attendees a Special Gift – Approximately 75 percent of the people who sign up for your webinar will not attend. But, you can boost attendance if you give those who attend something no one else will get. Make it something people will talk about.
• Host It at the Right Day and Time – Knowing your audience will also help you know the perfect day and time to host your webinar. You may ultimately choose to host more than one in order to cover all the bases.
• Create an Awesome Information Page – This is not a sales page, but instead a page that lets those who have signed up for your event know what exactly will happen at the event. You can mention the freebies you’ll be giving away during the webinar and the information you’ll cover more in depth.
• Follow Up – When someone signs up for the webinar you should have an autoresponder set up to immediately thank them for signing up, sharing the information page and other information that will encourage them to attend the webinar live.
• Send Reminders – Sometimes people do not attend the webinar live simply due to forgetting. Some webinar systems have the ability to set up reminders, but even if it doesn’t you can set them up with the autoresponder system.

You can work diligently to make the webinar a success, but if you don’t include these factors you may not have that many attendees.

Understanding who your audience is and what they need is your first step to ensuring that all your webinars resonate with your audience. The more your events solve problems for your audience, entertain them and wow them, the more likely they are to come back.