You probably already know that a webinar is the most effective way to promote your online course. But do you also know how to keep people’s interest during the presentation itself? It’s vital to do this, and it’s not just the content of your presentation that will achieve it.
Establishing and maintaining interaction during your webinar will help build your relationship with your attendees. This means that when you come to discuss the benefits of your product, they will already be invested in you and what you’re saying, which will help with sales.
Why being nice works for webinars
All webinar platforms have options that can be used by participants to interact with you, and you with them.
But before we look at those, here are some general points to keep in mind:
- Get to the webinar ‘room’ in time.
- Be ready at least 10 minutes before the start time so that you can welcome people. Think of it like a live event – you wouldn’t ignore someone who walked in the door, would you? Say “Hello” and use their name, then say “It’s great to see you!” and ask, “Where are you joining from?” You can do this live with your mic on, or you can use the chat box.
- As you go through your presentation, refer to any questions that come through, even if you can’t answer them at the time. Again, use the person’s name. For example, “Janet has an interesting point. Let me come back to that later.”
How webinar tools support you
Get used to using these three tools if you want to keep your webinar interaction going. Don’t forget to tell participants how to use the tools – remember, not everyone is going to be familiar with the technology.
1. Chat box
You can communicate with the whole group, post links to useful documents, and allow attendees to communicate with you.
If you have your chat set so that everyone can see everyone else’s comments (this is recommended), then allow time to compare and contrast their responses.
2. Raised hands
If you have a group in front of you in a physical classroom, it’s easy to judge if the group’s with you or not by the nods or shakes of the heads. When you’re delivering a webinar and you can’t see the participants, you have no way of knowing how your content is going down unless you ask.
Use the ‘raised hands’ function like this:
“Just raise your hand if you agree with me.”
“Are we OK to move on? Raise your hand if you think so.”
3. Polls
Ever wondered about the level of experience in your group?
Why not ask?
Polls are easy to set up, but you have to set them up in advance of the webinar. Choose straightforward questions like, “How many years have you been in business? Answer” Just starting/1-3/5-7/10 years +”
Allow enough time for everyone to reply before you display the results.
What Next?
There are other webinar tools that help interaction but stick with these for now.
- Don’t panic and learn
- Practice using these functions so they become second nature to you
- When you’re more experienced, you can go on to other tools