Webinars are among the best marketing tools of today. Many companies are already using this powerful platform in lead generation and qualification. However, there’s a lot of competition since more and more companies use it on a regular basis. By capturing and retaining the attention of your targeted audience, you lower the risk of losing them to your competition.
In order to keep your audience glued to your webinar, they need to be constantly engaged. Adding interactivity tools help increase audience engagement which promotes conversations and longer webinar viewing as a result.
With an interactive virtual environment, audiences have the tendency to be more comfortable. You see more virtual hands raised up for questions and clarifications during or after a presentation. Compare this to an in-person presentation and you’ll see fewer people asking questions and interacting with the speaker.
Leveraging on this level of interactivity benefits your company in many ways:
- The longer your audience view your presentation, the longer they are exposed to your content
- You extend the reach of your content at no extra cost
- More engaged audiences mean more content retention
- You can derive more quality data with increased interactivity, allowing you to make more targeted and effective follow-ups
- It allows you to offer more information to a prospect in a single presentation as the number of marketing touché points increase per event
Compelling your audience to engage and interact with you and other viewers does not have a strict guideline. You can use a variety of tools which are available in most webinar platforms. The goal is to convert a one-way presentation into a dynamic, interactive, engaging conversation.
Interactive tools available in webinar platforms
Perhaps the most widely used interactive tools are the Q&A, surveys and polls. While there are other tools available such as social sharing buttons and collaborative features, not all audiences use these during webinar events.
Interaction Tools
Audience contribution enhances engagement. Since these are real people who chose to view your webinar, they are automatically included in the conversation and are encouraged to interact with the presenter and other members of the audience. You can include polls, surveys, and Q&A’s with reasonable amount of items to get insights from the audience and for you to use them as guides for improvement, research, and reference.
Adding appointment setting tools opens up opportunities to extend your marketing touch point and to get possible leads in case some of your audience members would like to order or further discuss the presentation with you.
Social Sharing Tools
These tools allow audience members to share your webinar with their own social networks; thus, enabling your webinar to reach more people. You can embed social sharing tools on various touch points such as the registration page and on the event page itself.
Integrate social media applications such as Twitter and Facebook directly onto the webinar page, so your audience can share their thoughts without leaving the console.
Collaboration Tools
Collaborating with your audience is a great way to get feedback in real time. Use group chat and idea generation tools to gather up information and feedback. However, you need to assign dedicated person/s to facilitate these tools, so you can maintain a positive environment and to provide assistance to your audience.
Content Distribution Tools
Content distribution tools are critical for marketing, but should be audience-friendly to enjoy the benefits of both. These tools enable you to increase your webinar’s marketing touch points in specific interactions.
You can include a resource list which is typically an uploaded piece of content that’s relevant to the presentation. Examples of resources are white papers, case studies, datasheets, and other supporting info.
Video is another content distribution tool which increases audience engagement and content retention. This is also a way to provide additional content to your presentation. Video samples include pre-recorded videos of product/service demo, company overviews, and leadership content which you can integrate into the webinar.
Why you need to understand and use your webinar report metrics
Today’s webinar platforms are equipped with data gathering capabilities which will allow you to understand your audiences better. This will also help you in creating and delivering more powerful presentations to improve your return on investment, gain quality leads, and improve your revenue.
Key metrics of a successful webinar may include:
- CTR (click through rate)
- Attendee ratio
- Polls
- Exit surveys
- Audience retention
- On-demand viewing
Even if you present the most epic of webinars, you will definitely need the direct and indirect impacts of your audience in the form of interaction and back-end data gathering. Let this information guide you to creating the best webinar presentation for better audience experience and reach each and every time.