How to Do a Webinar – Tips For Your First Webinar

Webinars are excellent tools for marketing and for building your credibility as an expert in your field. They even make great tools if all you are doing is training! But they can be frightening to the new information marketer or learning creator.

But they don’t need to be. There is no reason for being afraid of creating webinars.

Webinars come in many flavors, but they are all easy to create and relatively quick to design and develop. And as you become more capable and comfortable they only become easier!

Here are seven tips on how to do your first webinar:

1. Always know your target audience. Everything — and I do mean everything — will flow from this knowledge. Your target audience will define the problem, and much of the solution. It will define how you market your webinar. It will define what type of webinar you are going to produce. It will define how long your webinar can be or needs to be. You cannot overestimate the value of knowing your target audience.

2. Always know why you are doing your webinar. I know it sounds silly, but you’d be surprised how many people can’t get this straight. There are three major types of webinars. There is the sales webinar. There is the learning content or training webinar. And there is the hybrid. Each of these types is different and imposes its own style and limitations. Mix them up and your webinar will fail to achieve its goals.

3. Spend enough time on planning, designing and preparing your webinar. This cannot be emphasized enough. Many people want to rush through and just sit down to write a seminar. Some gurus try to minimize this in a foolish bid to make webinars seem easy. But the truth is for every hour you spend in planning, designing and preparing your webinar you’ll increase both response and the chances of success.

4. Practice, practice, practice. Then practice some more. This applies on many levels. Practice in general will help you to become comfortable speaking to an audience that isn’t able to give you feedback. Practicing your webinar will help you to identify any weaknesses. It will also help you to ensure your timing is reasonable and that you have the material down pat.

5. One of the biggest mistakes — other than mixing up learning and sales webinars — is to overdo your slides. Slides (such as those produced by Microsoft’s PowerPoint) are meant to be speaking hints and to anchor your audience’s understanding. They are not meant to be notes. Turning them into notes is a quick way to make your audience go to sleep. Remember that you are the star of the webinar — not your slides.

6. Webinars aren’t usually done with webcams turned on. But your audience can see you none-the-less. They see you through your voice, and through your passion. So let your passion come through. In fact, step it up fifty percent. Always stand when you are talking. Smile and walk around. Use your body to communicate — your voice will follow along.

7. If you’re going to walk around though you need to have the right microphone for the job. In fact, you always need the right microphone. There are two types of microphones you can use. The first is the headphone or headset. The second is the unidirectional clip microphone. If you are going to walk around consider a wireless version. Either will work. But a desktop or omnidirectional microphone won’t.

Do you want to learn how to create information products (learning content)? Check out my new free eBook “7 Myths and Seven Tricks in Nine Steps”: http://www.learningcreators.com/myths.htm

Do you want to read more free information like this? Go to my blog: http://www.learningcreators.com/blog/

Glen Ford is an accomplished consultant, trainer and writer. He has far too many years experience as a trainer and facilitator to willingly admit.