10 Webinar Tips That Will Keep Your Audience Engaged
Wouldn’t it be great if you could grab and hold your audience’s attention through-out the webinar? Imagine – from the moment you open your mouth, your attendees can’t wait for your next move.
With these 10 webinar presentation tips, you’ll keep your attendees hanging at the edge of their seats, anxious to hear what you’ll say next. You’ll learn to leverage the interactive features of your webinar platform to create an exciting and engaging presentation.
1) Start Strong – Open with a Hook
Start with an intro that grabs your audience’s attention right from the start. It might feel unnatural for you to start a presentation for strangers with something provocative or outrageous. But that’s what you’ve got to do if you want them to remember what you have to say.
Even before introducing yourself or the webinar format, start with 2-3 sentences that will capture their attention. For example:
- “You’re about to see how Social Media marketers have tripled their ad revenue in just 7 days.”
- “What you’re about to see in this webinar is an open secret. Experts don’t talk about this, but it works like magic.”
- “58% of marketing budgets are wasted on horrible landing pages that don’t convert. This webinar will teach you everything you need to know to absolutely nail your landing page design.”
2) Manage Expectations – What Will They Learn?
Now that you’ve got their undivided attention, let them know what they’ll learn by the end of the webinar. Your webinar attendees are expecting to gain practical knowledge and learn. This is your opportunity to teach them.
Lay out the rough webinar meeting agenda and let them know how long the webinar will be.
Managing their expectations will commit them until the end. A smart trick is to promise a “surprise” at the end of the webinar. It could be a PDF handout or just something funny. It will make them stay for longer.
3) Connect with the Audience on the Problem Level
One of the most important tips is establishing the problem. Your audience is committed to staying in the webinar only if they feel that their burning problem is being addressed and is going to be solved.
Paint a picture about the problem. Make them recognize themselves with the problem. Tell a story that makes them remember the last time they experienced this problem. For example:
- “Don’t you just hate it when you spend more than 15 minutes writing an email that just gets ignored? Remember the last time when you poured your personality and compliments into your message only to never hear a reply. What an awful feeling. Luckily for you, this is going to change today.”
4) Switch Between the Slideshow and Webcam Full Screen
You most certainly have a slideshow or some visuals to help you illustrate your presentation points. That’s great!
However, it’s important not to become just a “voice in the background”.
When you’re planning your webinar presentation, map out the parts that you especially want to emphasize. And when you reach that point, pause your slideshow and only show your webcam. Make sure you use a professional webinar software that enables you to swiftly pause/resume your slideshow.
The effect on this is two-fold: firstly, it will immediately re-engage their attention. Secondly, it will make them remember it better, because you suddenly are speaking right at them. The slides are gone and your face is on full screen.
5) Have a Moderator to Chat with the Attendees
If you’ve done everything right, there’s more engagement going on than you can handle. Attendees are chatting with each other and simultaneously asking questions from you.
It’s quite impossible to deliver a fantastic presentation and constantly be reading the audience comments. To keep all your attendees engaged and “heard”, invite a moderator or a co-host to the webinar. The moderator doesn’t even have to share their webcam, they just answer questions in the chat and make your attendees feel like their comments and questions are being addressed.
6) Launch Polls to Engage the Audience
Launching a pre-configured poll in a webinar is a quick way to engage all your attendees at once and make them feel like their voice matters. Webinar platforms make polling very visual and encourage participation.
After voting, share the results with the attendees. Thank them for participating and try to draw some conclusions from the poll. It also makes your attendees feel important.
7) Ask Confirmation Feedback Questions
Little check-up questions like “Type 1 in the chat if that makes sense” or “If this sounds doable for you, type 1 in the chat”.
First of all, these little confirmation feedback questions make your attendees feel like they have to pay attention. It creates a short pause in the presentation and it feels like something important was just said. If they didn’t pay attention and everyone starts typing 1’s in the chat, it feels like they’re missing out on some important information. They’ll immediately start focusing more.
8) Show Video Clips for Examples and Testimonials
Use short video clips in your webinar to illustrate an example or to show a testimonial of a previous satisfied customer.
Launching a video also creates a slight change in the tempo and switches things up a bit. The audio and the video suddenly change and it grabs the audience’s attention.
Modern webinar platforms have the option to pre-configure a YouTube video, so you can launch it instantly during your webinar.
9) Launch a Captivating Call-to-Action
One of the main reasons you should want to interact with your audience is that an engaged audience is more willing to follow your call-to-action. The call-to-action can feature a special promotional text, an attractive button and sometimes even an urgency timer.
The call-to-action is the part where the sales happen. Don’t paste your call-to-action link in the chat, it will get lost. Use the call-to-action feature to make it clearly visible and enticing.
10) Answer Audience Questions on Live Video
Typically, at the end of your webinar, leave 10-15 minutes to take questions from the audience and answer them on live video. Very often attendees have similar questions, so answering them will alleviate doubts for many. This is perhaps the most personalized part of the webinar presentation.
It’s even better if the webinar platform allows for question upvoting. That way, you will know which are the most burning questions.
Key Takeaways
To summarize, start your presentation with a strong hook and spark curiosity. Then, give an overview of what the attendees will learn, throw in a couple of teasers.
Make sure your audience identifies with the problem you’re discussing. During your presentation, win back their focus by alternating between the slideshow and your webcam. Plan your polls, call-to-actions and Q&A when scheduling your webinar.
Typically, presentations don’t use enough visuals. Make sure you’re one step ahead by showing a video clip or two to illustrate your point. And finally, try to get a dialogue going. If you could just ask for their confirmation that they’ve understood – that’s great. Invite a moderator, if necessary.
Follow these 10 tips and you’ll keep your webinar attendees hanging at the edge of their seats, excited to hear what you’re going to do or say next.
Erkki Muuga
Latest posts by Erkki Muuga (see all)
- 10 Webinar Tips That Will Keep Your Audience Engaged - 14th September 2020
