Webinars are an increasingly popular type of virtual event. However, many people struggle to host truly effective webinars.

Also referred to as workshops or masterclasses, webinar virtual events are the perfect way to reach potential customers and create a marketing funnel. Webinars are inexpensive and provide minimal barriers to entry for companies and event planners. If you’re new to the virtual event space, this is a great place to start.

They can be streamed live to encourage participant interaction and allow the host to answer questions. The host generally presents information on a topic, product, or service over an online conferencing platform and attendees can chime in to ask questions verbally or in the chat.  

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1. Set Goals 

Webinars can easily be adapted to different purposes, audiences, goals, and revenue streams. You can host webinars to provide education or training, conduct product demos, or help prospective applicants learn about your organization. 

A common use for webinars is lead generation. Webinars are a highly effective tool for creating a pipeline of potential customers. 40% of webinar attendees convert to leads across all businesses surveyed. They also found that webinars were particularly effective for B2B (business to business) marketing. 73% of attendees at webinars aimed at B2B marketing converted to leads. 

Regardless of the exact type of webinar that you plan to host, it’s important to be clear about its intended purpose. Decide what you hope to achieve with your webinar and craft the content and the experience around your goals.  

2. Keep It Short 

While some virtual events can span across several days, webinar virtual events should be short and sweet. The optimum length for a webinar is approximately one hour or less. If your webinar goes too far over, attendees are likely to lose interest or need to leave to attend other meetings. Attendees often block off their days for virtual conferences, but with webinars they are typically trying to fit your event into their already busy workday.  

Thus, it’s important to deliver your webinar content in a succinct manner. In most cases, it’s okay to leave your attendees wanting a little more. This encourages them to sign up for a one-on-one demo or sales call with your staff or to register for the next webinar in your event series. 

3. Record the Session 

Webinars can also be recorded and made available as on demand content. This allows you to create a collection of evergreen webinar resources that can be watched by current or potential customers at any time.  

While getting leads into a live webinar session can be extremely helpful in pushing them closer to making a purchasing decision, on demand webinar recordings also hold a lot of value. One great use of these recordings is to provide product or feature walkthroughs for new or existing customers. It can be helpful for customers, particularly SaaS customers, to see a walkthrough of how to use particular features. You may want to host these webinars when a feature or update is launched, and then use the recording as an ongoing resource for new customers or those that need a refresher at a later point. 

4. Engage Your Audience 

Keeping your audience engaged throughout the session is the key to hosting an effective webinar. Speakers or webinar hosts need to plan strategically to ensure that people don’t get bored or distracted halfway through and miss important information. 

Keeping your webinar concise, as we discussed above, will help prevent boredom from setting in. However, that’s still not enough to fully hold your audience’s attendance. Your first line of defense against virtual session fatigue is to provide truly compelling content. The content should be informative and intriguing, but it also must be delivered in an interesting format. Incorporate strong visuals including charts, images, and even short videos to break up the text in your webinar presentation. 

In addition to creating content that will keep your audience hooked, you’ll also want to leverage any available audience engagement tools on your chosen webinar platform. Features such as session chats, polling, and interactive Q&A features can be used to help attendees feel like they are part of the event. 

5. Close With a Q&A 

Be sure to leave time at the end for a live Q&A. This portion of the webinar is very important to attendees. In fact, 92% of webinar attendees want a live Q&A session as part of a webinar. 

In addition to boosting audience engagement, Q&As provide an opportunity to hear directly from your attendees. When hosting webinars for lead generation, a Q&A allows you to immediately address any questions or concerns that could impact whether an attendee progresses to the next stage of their buying journey. 

If you want to make your Q&As even more effective, try Social27 Stream. With Social27 Stream, attendees aren’t limited to typing their questions – they can join the stream and ask them in a virtual face-to-face discussion with the host. 

Host Webinar Virtual Events on Social27 Virtual Event Platform  

Social27 Virtual Event Platform provides all of the necessary tools to host an exciting and interactive virtual webinar or workshop series. From interactive session tools to networking features and on demand content libraries, our platform can help you deliver memorable and educational virtual workshops.  

Set up a demo today to learn more about what Social27 has to offer for your events.