Are You Talking at Your Audience or Creating Conversations?

The goal of every webinar is to connect and interact with the audience. This results in strengthening your brand, boosting customer engagement and increased sales. However, it is very difficult to achieve this if you don’t create conversations in your webinar.

The Differences Between Conversing and Talking

There is a big difference between creating conversations and talking at someone. The dictionary defines a conversation as “an exchange of individual ideas through talking with other people.” Talking is more of a monologue than a dialogue; it’s all about expressing your ideas without necessarily engaging with the other person.

If you give your audience the impression that you are talking at them, they may feel that you are patronizing them, that you don’t care about them and are uninterested in their opinion.

Although not all webinars allow you to have a conversation in the sense that everyone joins in, every webinar can be used to create conversations . Even just asking rhetorical questions and giving enough time for your audience to consider these can be viewed as creating meaningful conversations in a webinar.

Stay personal to create conversations

Even though your audience is made up of potential and existing customers, you should never view them just as that. Try to picture yourself talking to a group of friends or colleagues. This can help put you in the mindset that you want to inspire your audience rather than sell to them.

You can maintain a personal touch if you try and get into the thinking pattern of your audience. Imagine the questions and thoughts that are going through their mind as you present your information.

Use phrases such as, “Now, I know that many of you may be thinking that…” This way you can create a conversation without any verbal input from the audience.

Converse on your audience’s level

It can be very easy to get caught up in facts, figures, and data. By making your webinar content too technical, it will seem more like a lecture and may lose your audience.

To help create conversations you need to know your audience and present your material in a way that is neither too basic for their level of understanding nor too complex. Content presented in a way that suits the needs of your audience will create more conversations.

Use webinar tools to create conversations

If you speak on a personal level with your audience and in a way that they can understand, it will be much easier to use various tools to create more conversations.

• Chat – Moderated chatrooms used within the webinar allow for conversations with the audience without disrupting the actual presentation. Private chat rooms facilitate one-to-one conversations between the moderator and an attendee.
• Q&A sessions are all about conversations, an exchange that gives your audience the chance to feel part of the conversation and will allow you to engage with your attendees.
• Polls and surveys help to elicit responses from your audience and keep them involved in the conversation. Everyone likes to have their voice heard and express their opinion.

Creating conversations allows you to engage your audience to generate more interest, exchange ideas, and truly interact with your customers. There is no better way to reach out to and create meaningful interactions with your leads.

Time for some homework: consider three detailed ways you can promote conversations within your niche or industry in your next webinar.