Are you thinking about conducting a webinar training? You’ve come to the right place! Webinars are a fantastic way to educate and engage with audience members of all kinds. But they only work if you host them the right way.
What is a webinar training? Why are these kinds of webinars beneficial? How to host an effective webinar event for your organization? Keep on reading to find out!
Table of Contents
What is a Webinar Training?
A webinar training is any lecture, lesson, or another form of instruction delivered via webinar software. The webinar can be on-demand or streamed live as long as it teaches viewers about a certain subject of interest or how to gain a specific goal.
Webinars are an excellent way to share important information, build brand authority, showcase product features and benefits, generate warm leads, and even increase sales and revenue for your organization.
In the next few sections, we’ll uncover the benefits of webinar training and explain how to get started hosting this kind of digital event.
3 Webinar Benefits
Should your company host trainings via webinar software? It should if it wants to experience benefits like affordability, engagement, and productivity.
1. Affordability
Webinar training is much easier and more cost-effective than in-person training. Venue rental, catering, participant giveaways, and travel expenses add up quickly — for both event hosts and the folks who attend.
Digital gatherings like webinars eliminate these expenses. The lectures can be hosted from a standard office space or spare bedroom. Audience members, however, can attend from the comfort of their own homes.
2. Engagement
People are usually surprised to learn that webinars often increase attendee engagement rather than diminish it. This happens because distractions can be minimized. Attendees can focus on the material being shared and not their fellow students.
Most webinar softwares also come with cutting-edge engagement features. We distinguish screen sharing and the ability to send polls and surveys to students during live events.
3. Productivity
Lastly, webinar training events are easily recorded and can be repurposed as on-demand webinars, which can greatly increase team productivity.
Imagine hosting a webinar once and then using the content without spending more money. You could educate employees, generate new leads, and sell more products on autopilot. It’s more than possible with the webinar software. In fact, it’s a standard!
Get Started with Webinar Training
Affordability, engagement, and productivity are the potentials of digital events. That’s why you might want to learn how to host a successful educational webinar for your audience. Follow the five-step process outlined below. We guarantee you’ll become a webinar training master!
1. Learn from the Experts
Before you start, we encourage you to study, learn from, and get inspired by those who host effective webinars regularly.
You can do this in one of two ways:
Study Your Favorite Educators. Does your favorite content creator host webinars on a regular basis? Attend their digital gatherings and study their ways. By doing so, you’ll learn a lot about what works, what doesn’t, and how to host effective online gatherings for your audience.
View ClickMeeting’s Webinar Wall. If you don’t currently have a list of favorite digital educators to study, you can visit ClickMeeting’s Press Center, a website full of expertly produced webinars. It’s a great resource that will help you host top-notch webinars.
Hosting a successful webinar is like anything else. To do it well, you have to first learn from the folks who are already at the top of the field.
2. Choose Your Training Format
Once you’ve studied a few experts, you can start planning your first webinar training. The first step in this process is to choose your format. Will you teach your audience via a live training event, an on-demand webinar, an automated webinar, or a follow-up recording?
All four formats can be beneficial:
Live Streamed Webinars. Live-streamed webinars have a sense of excitement. After all, if a student misses the class, they might not be able to get access to the information again. These kinds of events also enable hosts to interact with attendees in real-time via polls, surveys, and live Q&A sessions.
On-Demand Webinars. On-demand webinars can be incredibly beneficial as well. Students can consume lessons in their own time and rewatch complex sections if needed. Plus, hosts can shoot a webinar onceand then use the footage to educate people for weeks, months, or years afterward, as we mentioned earlier.
Automated Webinars. An automated webinar is like an on-demand webinar as it allows you to reuse the same recorded training material many times. But don’t just give your audience the chance to view your lesson whenever they like. Automated webinars are scheduled to run at specific times, which gives them a live-streamed feel.
Follow-Up Recordings. What if someone registers for your live webinar, but is unable to attend the event? If you recorded the lecture, you can email it to them to watch at a time of their own choosing. That way, you’re still able to deliver value to your audience and gain their loyalty and/or business.
It should be noted that live-streamed webinars can become on-demand or automated webinars after they’ve been hosted in real-time. If you’re looking for the best of both worlds when it comes to webinar training, this is likely the best option for you.
3. Craft Engaging Content
Now that you know your webinar’s format, you can begin to craft engaging content. Be sure to iron out these details before hitting the record button:
Your webinar needs a topic. Your audience isn’t going to tune in to watch you shoot the breeze and ramble about nothing for an hour. Be sure to choose a webinar training topic that’s of interest to your audience and relevant to your business.
Next, you’ll want to create an agenda for your webinar. This serves two purposes. First, it will help keep you on track and ensure your lessons are tactical and to the point. Second, it will help engage your audience by giving them something to follow along with during your webinar.
Speaking of engagement, visuals are a fantastic way to both capture audience attention and make sure the information you share is properly digested. Don’t be afraid to include charts, graphs, infographics, and the like in your training webinars.
Interaction Elements. Sharing information with your audience is great; interacting with them while you do so is better. A webinar platform like ClickMeeting will allow you to run polls and surveys and host live Q&A sessions. Planning an on-demand webinar? You can still host a Q&A segment by answering common questions your company receives regularly.
Call-to-Action. Lastly, make sure to end your webinar with a Call-To-Action (CTA). What do you want attendees to do once they’ve consumed your content? Download an eBook? Sign up for your next training? Maybe you’re hoping they’ll buy one of your products or services? Whatever your goal, state your CTA at the end of your webinar in clear, compelling language.
4. Market Your Webinar Event
At this point, your webinar is planned to perfection. There’s only one thing to do before you host your online event or release your pre-recorded training online: tell the world about it! If your target audience doesn’t know about your webinar, it won’t benefit your business.
There are many ways to market your webinar training. Here are a few options:
Does your company have an email list? Write a message to your subscribers telling them about your upcoming webinar. Make sure to include details about the webinar topic and why attending is worth your subscribers’ time. Also, don’t be afraid to email your list a few times and remind them about your upcoming event.
Social Media. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are great channels for webinar promotion. Just like with email, tell your social followers what your webinar will be about and why they should attend. Then craft and schedule multiple posts so that your audience doesn’t forget about your training.
Influencer Marketing. One of the best ways to get new audience members to check out your webinar is to partner with influential people in your niche. If a popular thought leader agrees to promote your webinar to their followers, you’ll likely see a large uptick in webinar attendance. Just be prepared to compensate the influencer.
Paid Advertising. Have some extra money to spend? Consider marketing your webinar training event via paid advertising channels like Facebook Ads and Google AdWords. These platforms allow you to target specific demographics of people. If you know your ideal audience member, these channels can produce amazing ROI.
In-Person Promotion. Don’t forget about in-person promotion. If you attend a monthly business meetup or networking event in your hometown, be sure to tell people about your upcoming webinar. Note: right now, COVID-19 makes in-person gatherings difficult. It may be best to keep this marketing strategy in your back pocket until the virus is behind us, and group events are safe.
5. Analyze Your Previous Trainings
The final step is to analyze the webinars you’ve already held and look for ways to improve your future trainings. Are you choosing the right topics for your audience and crafting engaging material for them to consume? Do they prefer live or on-demand webinars? Are your CTAs clear enough, or do you need to reword them?
By answering these questions (and others like them), you’ll ensure your webinars improve over time. They also become more effective marketing and sales tools for your company.
Host Your Next Webinar with ClickMeeting
You now know exactly how to host a successful webinar training event. The only thing we haven’t covered yet is the technology you’ll use to make your digital gathering a reality. There are many options to choose from, but we’re partial to ClickMeeting.
ClickMeeting is the world’s leading webinar platform. The tool has been used by nearly 150k customers to host more than 17m attendees — and that’s just in the last 12 months.
Why is ClickMeeting so popular?
Because it combines affordability, intuitive interface, and top-notch features like:
Automated Webinars. Want to host digital events but don’t have the time? An automated webinar from ClickMeeting is the answer! Upload your webinar recordings, videos, surveys, and CTAs to the webinar timeline. Then select a date and time for your webinar to run and let our platform host webinars for you while you sleep.
Custom Branding. You work hard to preserve your company’s unique brand. That’s why ClickMeeting allows you to customize your webinar rooms with your organization’s logo, color scheme, and more. Give your audience the exact webinar training experience they expect to receive from your brand.
Engagement Capabilities. Engagement is one of the keys to a successful webinar. If you don’t capture your audience’s’ attention, your webinar efforts won’t be effective. ClickMeeting makes engagement easy via digital whiteboard, screen sharing, real-time polls and surveys, and private chat.
Social Media Streaming. Not all of your target audience members will attend your webinar event. To extend your reach, ClickMeeting allows you to stream your digital gathering on either Facebook Live or YouTube Live.
Detailed Analytics. ClickMeeting features a detailed analytics dashboard.This will help you learn about your target audience and how to improve your webinars. Want to know where your attendees live and what devices they use to watch your webinars? Maybe you’d like to know in-depth details about how long each of your attendees watched your training? ClickMeeting will give you all of this information and more.
ClickMeeting can also be used to host company meetings and demo products for customers in addition to webinar training events. Sound like a tool you’d like to use? Give it a try for free for 30 days and experience the power of ClickMeeting for yourself.
Boost Your Business with Effective Webinars
Webinar training events are affordable to host, allow for easy engagement opportunities, and can greatly boost your productivity. Fortunately, hosting them successfully isn’t rocket science. Simply follow the five-step process we outlined in this article:
- Learn from the Experts;
- Choose Your Training Format;
- Craft Engaging Content;
- Market Your Webinar Event;
- Analyze Your Previous Trainings.
If you need a webinar platform to host your next webinar, give ClickMeeting a try. Our solution is affordable, easy to use, and packed with top-notch features.
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