Webinars:
“Thank You For Attending”
Webinars have grown increasingly popular in the era of Web 2.0. They’re interactive, easy to set up and deliver a lot of advantages to the webinar host. And a lot of revenue if you’re good at it.
Webinars versus Webcasts
Webcasts are one-way communication. You, the site owner, post a digital video (DV) on your web site or upload it to YouTube and other social sites. You talk. The viewer listens. And unless you have a compelling way about you, watching a webcast is like watching grass grow.
Today, people don’t want online passivity. They don’t want to sit there. They want to interact. Interact with each other via facebook.com, myspace.com and other sites that rely on the user-generated content of those laying claim to a few pixels, and interact with experts who actually have something worthwhile to say.
Webinars are totally interactive. They’re scheduled to start at a specific time, they’re hosted by an expert and “attendees” from around the world interact with the webinar host and with each other.
Webinars are interesting because of this interactivity. As a participant, you’re free to ask the expert questions, ask for clarifications or expansion on a specific topic. You can learn a lot from these on-line classes.
Selling CEUs
They’re called continuing education units or CEUs, and lots of professions require their members to obtain a certain number of CEUs each year – every profession from private investigators in Texas to hearing aid dispensers in Maine. Hundreds of thousands of pros need CEUs. They can get them by attending classes at the local community college or professional association, by writing papers and they can earn CEUs by attending online webinars.
Starting to see the potential here? If you’re an expert in a field that requires members to continue their educations, you have a captive audience. And attending an online seminar is a lot easier than attending classes every Monday night for 16 weeks.
Certain standards have to be met to qualify for CEU recognition. The teacher has to be a professional, the course subject has to be (in some way) relevant to the professionals’ work and the seminars must actually teach, i.e. have an established syllabus or course of study. The standards are high, as they should be, so to qualify for a CEU accredited webinar, you better know what you’re talking about or zippo CEU-seekers are going to sign up.
How To Stage a Webinar Technically
There are two ways to do this thing.
First, if you’re planning on doing a webinar a week and adding to the list of classes and topics available, you’re best off buying webinar software. Here’s a link to some Q & A on what to look for in this system-based software.
However, before you fly off to the Software Shack to pick up a webinar program, try one of the hundreds of online services that specialize in the staging of webinars. These companies provide the software and some hand holding. They aren’t too pricey, either, given the competitive nature of the market. Heck, even Big Blue (IBM) offers on-line conferencing services and that’s all a webinar is – an online conference with nice pictures.
Marketing Your Webinars
If you’re CEU accredited, use Google AdWords to promote your upcoming event. Allow a six-week time window from the date you start promotion until the actual date of the webinar itself. Then, do a little viral marketing.
Respond to blog posts relevant to your upcoming event and mention date, time, URL and cost, if any. Let’s talk about that for a minute.
When you first start staging webinars, no one knows you from Adam. You’re an unknown quantity, yet to prove you’re worth $29.95 to sign up to hear your words of wisdom. So, to start building an audience and establishing credentials as a quality educational or instructional site, offer your first few webinars free. Hey, you can become a star pretty quick if you aren’t a cold fish. And people will pay for righteous information presented in a professional manner.
The exception, here, is CEU-accredited webinars. These demand a certain production standard, knowledge standard and broadcast standard. These webinars may require a cash outlay to the conferencing company, a graphic designer and techie if you think a USB port is where U.S Boats dock. So, you can charge by the CEU. Some webinars are worth 1 CEU. Another can be worth 3 CEUs depending on the credibility of the webinar producer, length and scope of the content.
If the budget can stand it, pay for links from related sites. If there’s an industry association, send its PR department a press release announcing time and place for the webinar, and be sure to include your professional biography and credentials for hosting this gab fest.
Also, if you’re doing webinars regularly, get listed in webinar directories (Google it. There are lots of them.) If you know your stuff and you’re not a stiff – you can have fun interacting with others – then you’ll quickly see the popularity of and attendance at your webinars increase.
Putting Together a Webinar
The software comes from the conference provider. On screen, you’ll have the webinar administrator’s console showing activity of participants, handling emails from participants and tracking levels of participation.
Now, the easiest way to put together one of these online lessons is to buy a decent web cam, write out your key points and interact with participants via the email option. Or, to make connections even easier and quicker, provide a telephone contact that attendees can use to ask questions, make a point or contest a point.
As the webinar administrator, you move things along. Whatever you do, don’t write a paper and read it for an hour. I’m bored just typing about it. You need some sizzle, some visuals, some eye candy to create a professional and engaging webinar.
The easiest tool to develop webinar visuals is Microsoft PowerPoint. If you don’t have it on your system, you can download it from the Microsoft site. This is a totally screen-driven program that’s almost idiot-proof. (Prove me wrong, kids. Prove me wrong.) You type text where prompted to do so.
Add a dash of color or a photograph to give a boring bullet list a little pizzazz. Especially if we’re going to be parked on it for a while. Or, instead, reveal text in the bullet list on cue simply by going to the next Power Point slide in the deck. Without too much of a learning curve, you can put together a Power Point presentation.
Using your webinar administrator’s console, you can cut back and forth between the graphics in your Power Point deck and your talking head via a hi-res webcam. By switching between the two you accomplish a couple of important tasks: (1) you put a face to the voice and the knowledge and the humor and professionalism (at least wear a nice sweater); and (2) it maintains visual interest. An hour-long Power Point presentation is almost as bad as an hour-long talking head. Switch to create interest, especially when answering questions from the crowd.
During the Webinar
You should have a list of talking points and sub-points, not a speech. You should have an agenda. “Today I’m going to talk to you about liability insurance and the private investigator. Let’s begin with blah, blah, blah…”
Encourage discussion and stop often to ask for questions. In some cases, it may take a few minutes for a question to reach the moderator’s console if the email is routed via Zambia so go with the flow. “Oops, okay, we have an email from a dental associate in California regarding that last point.” Stay flexible and nimble. As the moderator you’ll be juggling a lot of balls.
You’ll be teaching, reading emailed questions, moderating group discussions, tracking viewer activities and trying to work in a little humor all at the same time.
You should know, throughout the webinar, where you are on your agenda list and expand or contract your discussion as necessary.
Encourage debate by posing provocative questions. Part of the appeal of these events is the ability to interact with one’s peers so provide that opportunity. Then, sit back and moderate, keeping the discourse on topic.
Testing
CEU webinars require that attendees take and pass a test so if your’s is a CEU-accredited webinar, you need to develop an online post-test administered after the webinar. To earn the CEU credits, each attendee must achieve a certain grade. Hey, for all you know they were watching TV as you were explaining the latest in forensic science so those meeting professional requirements should be tested, and they should pass.
If your webinar isn’t CEU-based, testing is up to you. Frankly, the people who have signed up already know their stuff so testing seems a bit inappropriate. However, to maintain interest, ask the “Question of the Second” or “Insurance Trivia” throughout the lesson. Using Power Point makes creating “test pages” easy and the conferencing software captures attendees scores and even delivers them individually to avoid embarrassment.
Amortize Production Costs
It could cost a few bucks to put together a professional webinar that has high production values, accurate, current information and a dash of entertainment value on the web (sorely missing, btw). And if you only host the webinar once (a spot webinar), those costs are all associated with the one-shot spot. Instead, schedule webinars daily or weekly. Each time you’re able to conduct a revenue-producing webinar, the initial production costs are further amortized. So, that one time production expense pays for itself over and over.
It’s not hard to do, and if you don’t have the time, talent or inclination there are plenty of freelancers who do this stuff every day so outsource all the heavy lifting and save yourself for Saturday mornings when you become the congenial host of “Process Server Weekly, the ONLY weekly webinar for professional process servers.”
Ahh, show biz.
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