How to create an amazing webinar in 2024

Contents

Webinars are widely used by companies and organizations for marketing, sales and customer success. Webinars are an excellent choice, whether you are looking for:

• more top-of-the-funnel growth

• creating brand awareness

• establishing thought leadership

• push more deals forward in your pipeline

• or run more scalable onboardings

Today, there are tons of modern platforms and tools out there, so you can run a webinar using just your webcam and laptop. No downloads or fancy equipment needed.

Post-pandemic, all potential customers out there are familiar with the webinar format - many leads actually expect, or even demand to have the option to attend your events remotely, and receive continuous updates through webinars.

In this article we go through and answer how to create an amazing webinar in 2024 - following 10 simple steps. Also, we highlight 7 benefits of hosting a webinar.

Follow these 10 steps to create and host a really good webinar:

• Step 1: Brainstorm - topic and webinar format 🧠

• Step 2: Invite speakers 🔊

• Step 3: Choose time and date 🕤

• Step 4: Choose a platform 💻

• Step 5: Create the content and plan out interaction 🕹️

• Step 6: Invite participants and start marketing ✉️

• Step 7: Do a test run 📐

• Step 8: Go live and host your webinar 🎥

• Step 9: Analyze the data 📊

• Step 10: Follow-up and send out on-demand recording 🔴

Do not focus on selling your product or service, but instead focus on solving customers' pain points and challenges when choosing a topic.

Be hyper specific to your target group and ideal customer (ICP). Make sure to contribute as much value as possible. Choose the topic based on what the participants want to learn and need to solve to achieve their goals - individually or as a company. Good questions to ask in terms of ICP and topic - what does the ICP need to solve to get promoted? Or what KPI:s are the ICP measured on?

Think of your ideal customer and build a concept for this dream attendee

Also, think about what type of webinar you want to host and the outcome you want to achieve. Does it include guest speakers and/or existing customers? What length should it be? In 2024 we are starting to see more frequent webinars with shorter lengths - lots of 30 minute ones, with shorter format being a trend on other platforms like TikTok, Reels etc.

Consider if the webinar should be part of series. Typically, planning out a webinar series from the start is a smart thing to do - as you:

1. Reduce the amount of prep work drastically

2. Reduce marketing efforts

3. Set the expectations that there are more webinars to attend

This way, prospects can signup for multiple sessions at once, or you can push the upcoming webinars as a call-to-action at the end or in follow-up communication.

Speakers and presenters are important for attracting audiences and interest. Choose carefully here - make sure to use people in your organization, but also be open to bringing in guest speakers and creating a panel of experts.

Famous guest speakers can often bring their audience with them as well, if they are well known, helping you gain wider exposure.

Speakers of a Univid webinar - featured on the registration page

Something we have seen being done very successfully, is introducing existing customers that can share their cases and stories transparently with you as a company, that typically is highly relevant for prospects in the same industry.

It is important that the speakers are comfortable in front of the camera, have expert knowledge and are good at moving the webinar forward.

Where does your audience or target audience live? Be sure to keep track of time zones and consider holding multiple webinars on the same topic if you are targeting several different geographic zones.

Check out this free webinar scheduler we built for this exact purpose - to help you schedule webinars on the perfect time.

A trend for 2024 is not just hosting shorter webinars, but also often hosting them during lunch hours at 12:30 pm, or in the mornings.

Live session with automatic countdown to start

The first step to hosting a webinar is to choose the platform for the broadcast or meeting. Important factors here are to explore opportunities to add a call-to-action button, customize with your own branding and appearance, interaction options, how easy it is to host the webinar and what analytics are available afterwards!

Webinar platform is crucial for you to have a good experience as a host, and for the participants to have a memorable experience. For very simple webinars, a meeting tool such as Google Meet or Teams can be sufficient, but it is recommended to use a dedicated platform such as Univid in order to get the most out of your webinar in terms of conversions, brand awareness and feedback loops - all important webinar-specific challenges:

• Analytics to follow conversions and engagement activity

• Interaction with polls, Q&A, live emojis and chat

• Call-to-action buttons to drive conversions

• High quality 1080p HD video for on-demand and repurposing

• Easy-to-use user interface

• Custom branding with the ability to customize colors, logos and appearance

• Registration management and flow with branded registration pages, reminders, etc.

This is where the majority of the work takes place before the webinar. Make sure to prepare what is to be said and presented, and also how the webinar is to be marketed. Don't forget tp plan how you will engage your audience when live.

Creating the content of a webinar includes a script or support notes of what to say. As long as the speakers feel comfortable and ready if someone should lose the floor!

Here is a secret! Using the power of being live and a two-way communication through interactivity can also be a massive time saver in terms of preparing content.

Cut off 15-20 minutes of content and replace it with a Q&A, where you can answer relevant questions that do not need any preparation. This is something experienced webinar hosts and speakers do in order to scale webinar series, make sure they are delivering relevant content, and are efficient with their time.

Plan for interactivity and how you will engage the participants - maybe through a few quick polls to get to know the audience in the beginning, activate them throughout to avoid the famous 15 minute dip, and collect feedback at the end. If you don't feel creative - we created a poll questions generator tool for this purpose, where you can generate some good questions and get inspiration.

The 15 minute dip and how to think about energy levels when creating your webinar

Briefly introducing the Q&A and polls in the start will boost your engagement during the webinar a ton! Also, plan for a short poll at the end to gather feedback when it's fresh in everyone's mind. This can be very helpful in planning your upcoming webinars.

Be sure to be out well in advance here and market the webinar several weeks before it's time, to get a lot of registrants. The majority of participants sign up 1 week before, and about 30% sign up the day before the webinar.

Also, typically attendance rates can be between 40-60%, so make sure to this does not come as a surprise and you have a lot of people signed up.

Marketing before the event includes creating some form of registration page before the webinar, and then pushing it through the company's channels on social media, blogs and email lists. Structure the flow with everything from the invitation, the registration - to the participants receiving a link by email to enter the webinar. Also, don't forget webinar reminders. And be sure to test everything before sending out the invitation!

We created a nice looking registration page with Univid that we could easily push in marketing to LinkedIn, and other channels

Make sure everything is ready for the webinar and that you have tested all the critical steps before going live. Test all tech before, so that the webinar flows on without interruption or annoying stress.

Make sure all presenters and speakers have tested the platform before, and that they use the same headphones, browser and technology as when you then go live. Try to get as similar an environment as possible as when you go live and invite some colleagues to get feedback from the participant perspective!

The big day is here and it's time to host your webinar! The slightest technical fuss can make the participants lose focus and influence the experience - so make sure to be on time, test all the technology one last time with the other speakers and wait for the time for you to go live!

When you are ready - go live and make sure you are recording (done automatically in Univid)

A live webinar session in Univid - interaction via chat, polls and live reactions

Make sure you keep energy levels high and work with interaction that you prepared to avoid focus dips. Show clearly you are seeing the attendees' questions and feedback - then they will contribute even more and feel included.

Don't forget CTA (call-to-actions) buttons to drive the next step - for example to let participants "book a meeting" or "download an e-book". In Univid, you can easily prepare the CTA:s and activate them during the webinar.

Some practical examples we have seen of successful call-to-actions during webinars on Univid

If you're curious to know more about CTA:s, check out our guide with copyable examples of good call-to-actions that convert.

Depending on the platform, your webinar has now generated some very interesting data. Get a clear overview of the most important KPI:s to make sure you know what to improve and what went well. Go through the data to see how you can make the next webinar even better:

• Before: Where did the participants find the webinar in relation to whether they showed up or not? How was the attendance rate compared to other webinars?

• During: How committed were the participants and how many converted? Who are your ambassadors? What parts of the content was appreciated and where did people zone off?

• After: What kind of relationships have been created and how have they been maintained? Which participants converted into real deals?

The Analytics Dashboard in Univid - analyze your webinar in terms of engagement, reactions, and attendee focus.

The live part of your webinar is now over! Great, you can now start to nurture your leads.

But before you jump into working the list of leads - don't forget to send out the recording of the webinar to the attendees as soon as possible - both the ones that showed up, but also to the no-shows. This makes sure you get the most value out of your webinar, when it is fresh in everyone's mind.

Look at the analytics and see if it is anything you should highlight from the webinar in the follow-up.

Also, if you did not gather feedback at the end of the webinar - think about how you can include some follow-up feedback in the email after, maybe a NPS, about how they experienced the webinar.

Example of what an follow up email, for those who did not show up, could look like - can be sent automatically via Univid

In Univid, the webinar is automatically recorded in full 1080p HD once you go live. You can easily send out the follow-up email directly from the platform, with the click of a button - both to the no-shows and the attendees that joined live.

Also, the video is hosted for you and all the analytics of who and how the on-demand content is watched. You can keep the same call-to-actions and the same nice branding that you had live. If you prefer to host the on-demand video yourself, you can of course download it as a .mp4 file as well.

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Here are 5 simple and practical tips to help you host a successful webinar.

1. Start planning early – a common rookie mistake is to plan only a few days in advance and start marketing too close to the webinar. Make sure you have a couple of weeks and get the registration page up in time - so your participants can find out about the webinar and schedule it in their calendar.

2. Choose the right date and time - hosting a webinar when your participants are busy with other things is obviously not optimal. There are a number of days of the week and times you can choose from - to ensure as many people as possible show up. Here is our webinar planner that you can use to choose right and optimize the attendance rate.

3. Use a professional platform - using a customizable webinar tool can enhance the experience for participants and ensure you get more out of the work you put in. This includes offering more interaction opportunities for feedback, automating your work as a host, and facilitating the follow-up of statistics and participant lists. All things that can increase your conversion.

4. Create content for the participant - make sure your content is centered around delivering value to the participant - not just selling something. By creating value around a relevant question, customer case or case study - your webinar becomes relevant and you position yourself as an expert. Let the sales be an ending or a segment - where it is already obvious that you are someone to trust and want to do business with - then the pitch sells itself.

5. Plan the next step - a lot of people are busy handling scripts, guest speakers and marketing - and forget to plan the next step you want participants to take. By instead planning based on call-to-actions, e.g. "book meeting" or "download e-book", you can present these in a natural way during the webinar – without feeling forced or too salesy. See our guide with 5 great examples of CTAs you can copy.

Beyond driving sales and building exposure - there are many benefits to hosting webinars. Some key reasons for holding a webinar are that you create content that can last, position yourself as an expert in a field and get to know your potential customers better.

Visibility is today absolutely crucial to success in the digital world. By hosting a webinar, you position yourself as an expert and take a leading role in the current niche.

With social selling and transparency being key in all slightly larger sales today, webinars are a great way to effectively position yourself as an actor to trust, knows the field and can answer complex questions in the domain.

A webinar enables you to establish a positive relationship with many leads at once. This is absolute key in B2B sales, where it is not just about a one-time interaction with the prospect, rather a long-term relationship.

By inviting your existing customers too, you can strengthen the relationship with them as well - reducing churn and increasing chances of upselling.

Through webinars, you can educate prospects or existing customers on your product or service. A perfect way to create a real and direct contact with customers where you emphasize the benefits, functions and how your value proposition solves the challenges the different customers face.

Let the webinar have a lot of interactivity - create dialogue and encourage participants to provide relevant input, questions and thoughts! This way you make sure people leave with relevant value and feel included.

Don't conduct a monologue or one-way communication! The risk is that you don't understand your ideal customer well enough and miss the current challenges and pains they are facing right now.

At the same time as you convey a live experience to all participants in the webinar, you create video material that can be used in many contexts in the future. For example, you can cut the material into a short summary to publish on social media or on the company blog.

A popular setup is to have the webinar available on-demand afterwards on your website or in the webinar platform, where interested individuals can sign up with an email address to access the webinar. A great way to continue sourcing leads and generating inbound!

Visibility is today absolutely crucial to success in the digital world. By hosting a webinar, you get your business out in many channels in a unique and engaging format.

A good webinar creates great value and a memorable experience for the participants who are thus happy to share this with colleagues and within their networks. Word of mouth is so powerful, because it helps you reach more people from your ICP, without you having to find them yourself - just deliver amazing value to a group of the right people and it will start to spread.

Also, by sharing the webinar in social media before, and repurposing the content afterwards - lots of people will see your brand and associate it with the topics you have spoken about.

A webinar can be used to the fullest to convert leads and generate revenue. By imparting knowledge and taking on the role of expert, potential customers will to a greater extent trust you and consider becoming your customer.

By having a clear call-to-action e.g. with a direct button to the homepage inside of your live webinar, you can drive direct conversions and next steps. Test our very own down below! 👇

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Also, host a webinar - and sales will love you. Webinars are great ammunition to warm leads up that have gone cold or stalled - it's a perfect reason to reach out to a prospect and let them know you got value coming their way!

A webinar that you host and produce yourself can be a resource efficient channel. A live event or larger product with studio is often more costly, as it places high demands on expected quality. However, it requires you find the processes and resources needed to host the webinar smoothly within your organization - preferably creating a blueprint that you can use over and over again, changing the topic, guest speakers, etc.

A webinar means that costly travel and physical events can be reduced - and you can instead budget on the parts of the sales process that make the biggest difference, such as marketing and making sure people will show up!

Webinars are also a perfect way to start exploring and reaching new geographies and markets in a cost effective way.

With digital meetings and webinars, geographical location is no longer a limitation. Webinars can be an excellent way to start targeting and exploring new relevant markets, as you grow.

By offering an interactive experience, you can also gather a lot of relevant feedback about this new target market using polls and engagement. For example, you can find out what tools are they currently using, what pains are they having in relation to your area, and how your can offer value in their market.

Get to know a new target market by using interaction via for example polls - in this webinar segment it seems like Univid is a strong player 👀

In addition, it gives customers the opportunity to participate digitally on their terms, where they may previously have had time to set aside for a physical event. Finally, the planet will be happy with less traveling - webinars equal sustainability!

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