Are Your Webinar Attendees Paying Attention?
Recently, ActualTech’s lead moderator Jess Steinbach shared her top strategies and tactics for generating audience engagement during webinar presentations.
She’s moderated over 100+ webinars this year alone, so we’re excited to share her recommendations here:
1. Create a lively atmosphere: The webinar should feel like a live event with buzz, sound and energy. Do everything you can to replicate the feel of a live event.
2. Interactive activities: Incorporate activities that encourage the audience to participate. For example, we’ve brought in props like a ‘magic eight ball’ to liven up a myth-busting section of the webinar. Use fun quizzes, surveys and even online games that the audience can join in on.
3. Make it memorable: The goal is to make the webinar stand out in the attendees’ minds. When they scan back over their day, the webinar should be the thing that bumps out from their memory. Think of a schtick- something that they wont’t forget. We’ve even had some presenters show off the collectibles on their Zoom background wall! This increases the chances of them remembering your brand or product when they need a technology solution.
4. Authenticity: Be authentic to your message, story, and mission. Bring in your genuine human interaction from the speaker to the audience and ask them to be a part of it. Ask the audience to pop in the chat their answers to ‘warm up’ questions.
5. Use demos: Demos can be used effectively to showcase key features of a product or service. However, it’s important to think about what key features you are really trying to showcase with the demo. One of the best demos we’ve seen was “how to recover your data in 4 minutes” – showing off the vendor’s recovery features live.
6. Collaborative discussion: The best ideas for engagement come out of a collaborative discussion. It’s rare that someone comes up with a brilliant idea on the first try. More often than not, it’s a conversation where ideas are kicked around and iterated upon. ActualTech’s moderators and webinar coordinators love brainstorming engagement ideas with our clients. Even 15 minutes of back-and-forth chat with experts can unblock any creative juices and generate ideas.
7. Make it relevant: It’s important to look at where the connection points are from the theory that you’re talking about to the audience in their lives and how they’re going to use it. Think use cases, case studies, bring on a customer and interview them. Help the audience see the practical value of what you’re presenting. Focus on them, not you.
Remember, the goal is not just to entertain but to engage the audience in a way that they remember the webinar, learn something from it and engage with your sales team when they reach out.
Want to see some real-life examples of engagement strategies that rock?
Check out the video of the episode below for some inspiration! 💥👇