The prospect of hosting a webinar can be a challenging one, even for people who are experienced webinar hosts. Of course, everyone knows that webinars help businesses grow and expand. They allow you to engage with your audience on a new level. In terms of building and strengthening your brand, there is nothing better.
However, to make sure that your webinars are as effective as possible, it is necessary to present them well. In order for you to become a top webinar presenter, here are the top 10 key dos and don’ts for webinar presenters
Table of Contents
1. Do Practice
Practice is one of the top key tips for webinar presenters. You, of course, have to spend enough time polishing your presentation to make sure that you know your material. However, there is more to this than just rehearsing your material.
You need to practice how you are going to deliver your material. Some may worry that the more they practice, then the more ridged their presentation will be. However, the opposite is true – the more you practice, the more natural your delivery will be.
You also need to spend time practicing the technical aspects of the webinar presentation. Most webinar software allows for you to record a demo presentation. Use this function and then watch and listen to your presentation after. That can help you identify areas to work on.
Once you have practiced your webinar, you need to practice some more!
2. Do Relax
If you practice well, then it will be easier to relax. This is the second ‘do’ for webinar presenters. You must take the time to relax before the presentation.
So, take 5 minutes out to stop, breathe deeply, and clear your mind of distracting thoughts. Definitely, avoid the temptation to keep practicing right up to the moment when your presentation is to start.
This can do much to boost your self-confidence for your presentation and your audience will also feel this confidence.
3. Do Know Your Message Inside-Out
You may think that the number 3 key tip to presenting a first-class webinar is the same as the first one, however, there is a big difference. Your message involves much more than just the material that you are going to deliver. Your message also involves a lot of material that you won’t necessarily deliver in your presentation.
For example, you need to know how to answer the various questions that come up in the Q&A session. Those may not even be questions that you have anticipated. So the more you know your message, then the more authority you can speak with.
Knowing your message inside out also helps not to get in a panic when things go wrong. So, if you have some technical difficulties, these won’t distract you from your message.
4. Don’t Use Too Many Slides
There is an art to using slides properly in a webinar presentation and it is still one mistake that many webinar presenters make. So don’t use too many slides and don’t have too much information on each slide. Your slides should complement what you are trying to say, not just repeat your message.
Make sure that each slide adds something to the presentation and that the slides move along with the presentation. Don’t fall into the trap of having a slide stay too long on the screen.
5. Do Use Frequent Q&A Sessions
Most webinar presenters do use Q&A sessions, but they just leave them to the end of the presentation. It is much more effective to use shorter Q&A sessions throughout your presentation. So, you could finish off each topic by inviting the audience to ask some questions.
6. Do Speak to Your Audience
The strength of webinars can sometimes become their weakness. This is because when presenting a webinar you can’t see your audience and if you are not careful, you can seem distant from them.
So the number 6 top tip on how to present a webinar is to really speak to your audience just as if they were physically sitting in front of you. It can sometimes be helpful to have a picture of an audience just behind your webcam.
7. Don’t Skimp on Value
Every one of your webinar attendees will expect to receive something of value when they attend your webinar. Therefore, you have to make sure to deliver value in your presentation.
First of all, make sure that your content itself delivers value. So don’t try and extend topics by filling them up with information which is purely designed to stretch out time – your audience will pick up on this.
Solutions to problems are always viewed as valuable. So, when preparing your material, try to develop your information from angles that are new to your audience. Make sure that they come away from the webinar more educated than they were before they attended it.
Be prepared to give away free items of value as a reward for attending. This could be exclusive access to areas of your website, extra video training courses, money-off coupons, or even just a PDF handout of the webinar is value for your audience.
8. Don’t Be Afraid to Learn
One of the big “don’ts” for webinar presenters is to never forget to learn. Of course, hosting your first webinar will be a big learning curve in itself. However, you should always be looking for ways to learn how to present webinars better, never get stuck in a rut.
In order to learn from others, you can attend webinars that other leaders in your industry host and see what new initiatives they are using to engage with their audience. If there is something that you see they are doing wrong, then make sure and avoid that in your webinar.
9. Do Record your Webinar
Most webinar software platforms allow for the possibility to record your webinar. It is always essential to do this because this gives you a huge amount of content that can be repackaged later.
For example, you can have a section of your website where people can find and watch previous webinars. Or you can split up your webinar recording into smaller sections and then upload these to YouTube or share them on social media.
10. Don’t Speak About Yourself
One of the biggest ‘no-no’s when hosting a webinar is to constantly be talking about yourself, your successes, and promoting your product. Remember that people attend your webinar to hear solutions to problems. So, always make sure that you spend enough time addressing the issues that your audience is facing.
Of course, you will always have some time at the end to promote your product. However, if you have spent enough time explaining how the product works and the benefits that your audience will receive, you will have done enough to promote it.
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