Webinar Strategy

10/17/18

Beware! Don't Kill Your Webinar with Bad Content

By:

Kirstin Fulton

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Whether it's 2018 or 2022, webinars continue to be an extremely powerful marketing tool. According to a GoToWebinar report, 73% of B2B marketing and sales professionals consider webinars the best way to generate high-quality leads. And the average viewing time is 61 minutes. Holy moly! That platform for promotion blasts all other mediums fully out of water.

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With engagement at that level, it’s up to you (the B2B marketer) to create a webinar that converts. Hundreds of experts offer the essentials for creating a great webinar—and buried right in the middle of speaker choice, increasing registration, workflow, and follow-up is content. The essential piece that bundles presentation material, audio, and visuals. That exists to entertain and inform. That delivers on your promise. With everything else to consider, content can be easily shortchanged.

We’ve created a list of the top things to consider so bad content doesn’t happen to your amazing webinar.

Start Producing Great Webinar Content

Create a gripping structure

Audiences expect content to be delivered to them in a specific way. Think of your webinar like a story. If it’s structured well, you should see the same order of intro, build up, main event, and wind down to a conclusion. The gold should be in the middle, with the intro and conclusion lasting a few minutes at most—hence the 80-20 rule. Dedicate 80% of the time to strong content and only 20% to promotion (your intro to the organization, mission and purpose, and CTAs). Folks attend your webinar for the promise of great information, and the order and balance in which it appears will keep them connected.

Aim for impact

The truth is—in general—most people say too much. If this weren’t true, the world wouldn’t need editors to trim the fat and bring great content to the surface. The more of the non-essential you clear away, the greater impact your information will bring. So first, write a well-structured script. Write out every word (even if you’re not going to present fully from script), focusing on the following tips:

  • Stay consistent to your brand and topic
  • Say only what needs to be said
  • Don’t sacrifice clarity for creativity
  • Trust your audience to connect the dots
  • Support your facts with stories instead of charts

After your script is done, cut it. Walk away for a few hours (at least), then come back and read the whole thing aloud. Even better, get some beta listeners to give you feedback. Remove parts that don’t fit into your topic. Listen for lulls and gaps, or parts that drag on or come out of nowhere.

Weave in CTAs with grace and intention

The whole goal is to create a webinar that converts—so don’t kill your chances with awkward, pushy, misplaced calls-to-action. People will just click right out of it. Remember, you have a lot of time to subtly drop in soft CTAs like checking out a client story on your website, but the main clincher should come at the end.

It’s valid to worry that some attendees might not make it to the end, but hopefully you’ve built a presentation that’s hard to leave! And don’t assume that just by leaving, an attendee isn’t interested in your service. Create a solid post-webinar outreach strategy to that your CTAs reach the full audience.

With the right focus on content that focuses on webinar solutions, you’ll create a lasting and impactful marketing tool.

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