what is a presentation webinar

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Blog Beginner Guides What Is a Webinar & How Does It Work? [Beginner’s Guide With 10+ Presentation Templates]

What Is a Webinar & How Does It Work? [Beginner’s Guide With 10+ Presentation Templates]

Written by: Aditya Sheth Apr 08, 2021

With a global pandemic taking the world by storm and forcing people to work from home, webinars have seen a resurgence in popularity and usage across the globe.

In the last decade (especially in the last few months) webinars have become a staple for educating students and potential customers, lead generation for your business, and captivating large online audiences.

If you’re new to webinars, you’re probably asking yourself…

• What is a webinar?

How does a webinar work?

• Why are webinars so effective?

What are the different types of webinars?

• How do I create and host a webinar?

In this guide, I’ll give you a crash course on what is a webinar, how you can create a webinar and showcase plenty of presentation examples to answer all your webinar-related questions!

Let’s dive right in.

What is a webinar? Webinar definition:

According to  Merriam-Webster , a webinar (or web seminar) is “a live online educational presentation during which participating viewers can submit questions and comments.”

You might be wondering, “well, what is a seminar?” Seminar definition: “a meeting for giving and discussing information.”

Webinars are events, video presentations, workshops, seminars, training sessions, or classroom lectures hosted and delivered online using webinar software .

What makes webinars effective is that they’re a two-way form of communication where the attendees and presenters give, receive and share information with each other, in real time.

Webinar vs. Webcast

A webinar is not a webcast. Webcasts are pre-recorded sessions that broadcast online (on TV or YouTube). Webinars are live sessions allowing real-time interactivity between the presenter and attendees.

For example, our growth by content live webinar teaches business owners how to use content marketing to drive business growth without a massive budget:

If you’re new to webinars, a great way to familiarize yourself is to attend other webinars (like the one above) and take notes.

Hosting webinars has plenty of uses and benefits, but before we dive into creating a webinar it’s important to understand how and why webinars work in the first place.

Webinars allow presenters to share documents of all kinds including but not limited to voice notes, videos, presentations and other documents, etc with their attendees.

Webinars have plenty of uses (often business-related) but the most important and biggest use for webinars is to educate and engage an audience).

Your audience could be anyone from new or existing customers, industry peers or even the students in your classroom.

This means webinars are useful in any industry where communicating with your audience is a key factor in your personal or professional success.

Webinars can also help you with all of the following: 

• Educate your audience about your business.
• Build authority in your industry or niche.
• Demonstrate your product to customers. 
• Onboard new customers to your product. 
• Training both new and existing employees. 
• Generating leads for your business. 

In the marketing world, the main use for webinars is lead generation.

For example, our “ Infographic Design 101 ” webinar is aimed at helping our current customers visualize their ideas and attracting potential customers to sign up for Venngage:

If you’re new to webinars or want to learn how to visualize your ideas, I highly recommend checking out this webinar.

Another way marketers use online webinars is to build authority, credibility and thought leadership in their industry.

Drift ’s approach to thought-leadership webinars is a prime example:

Drift leverages webinars for multiple purposes ranging from educating new and current customers, establishing thought leadership, and collaborating with other SaaS companies.

This helps Drift position themselves as a subject matter expert in the SaaS industry.

Another example is  R&D tax credit software  Boast.AI.

Boast Events  produces two webinars per week in their community, branded Traction, bringing founders and leaders from some of the fastest-growing companies to share actionable, tactical advice on business growth.

If you’re creating a marketing plan and your goal is consistently generating high-quality leads for your business, webinars should be a crucial piece of your strategy.

Webinars are also used extensively in eLearning. As an educator, your ability to reach more students expands dramatically. Right from the comfort of your home.

Students don’t need to travel and with the current crisis that’s forced everyone to stay home, online webinars can be the most important learning tool in a teacher’s arsenal.

Here’s an example of how HBR approaches educational webinars:

After reading this guide in its entirety, you’ll have a better understanding of how to replicate their approach to webinars for your own institution or classroom.

Why are webinars effective?

What makes webinars effective (compared to physical events or workshops) is that with webinars, you don’t need to rent out a physical location or deal with complex logistics that arise from hosting in-person events. 

In fact, in 2020, the number of organizations planning a virtual event has doubled .

With a plethora of webinar pros (vs physical events), rich-feature sets, support for multiple content types, the possibilities are essentially endless.

Advantages of webinars

Since webinars are online events , they’re convenient for both presenter and attendee as you can host and attend webinars right from the comfort of your office (or home.) 

Whether it’s presenting to a small group or a group of 100+ attendees, webinars work in both these scenarios.

Webinars can be pre-recorded and played at any time for participants. This makes them easier to set up, repurpose, and budget-friendly compared to in-person events.

Offline events have their own merits, but with live webinars you don’t need to spend time agonizing over venue rentals, food, beverages or making sure your presentation equipment works. 

People have used webinars creatively for education, marketing, sales, branding, human resources, user onboarding, etc. So when it comes to what you can do with webinars: the sky’s the limit.

A lot of webinar tools come with interactive whiteboards, surveys and polls, live-chat features which make them far more personalized, engaging and interactive for your audience.

These are just some of the reasons why webinars have been exploding in popularity in recent times. 

Webinar formats

Webinars come with tons of customizable features as well as support various content formats such as:

• Live video: the most common type of webinar. Live webinars tend to garner the most engagement.
• Pre-recorded: most webinars are live, but you can always record a live webinar and future participants can register for them as they please. Most Ideal for evergreen topics.
• Text: Most webinars tools come equipped with text chat features. Ask and answer your audiences’ questions, in real time.
• Whiteboard: used to draw out and explain important concepts.
• Surveys and polls: want to keep your audience engaged? Use surveys and polls to get attendees to answer questions and organize it all in one place.

But the most common way to conduct webinars is by creating and presenting a slide deck presentation .

Here’s an example of a webinar presentation you can edit and customize right now:

Once you learn how to make a great webinar presentation, you can always kick things up a notch by experimenting with different webinar tools as well as whiteboards, polls, surveys, etc.

Venngage has a fair amount of experience when it comes to participating and hosting webinars for marketing, lead generation, and joint collaborations.

But that’s not their only use. Here are just some ways you can harness the power of webinars:

Webinars for marketing, lead generation and partnerships

When it comes to lead generation, there’s a lot you can do: 

• Creating in-depth industry white papers , 
• Publishing case studies to promote your product, and 
• Designing ebooks and offering them up as lead magnets.

But, the greatest bang for your marketing buck can come from hosting webinars due to the high-quality leads they help generate.

Companies like Drift , ConvertKit , G2 , etc have successfully leveraged webinars to scale their lead generation and in turn, increase revenue.  You just need to learn some essential webinar statistics if you’re planning to create one. If webinars worked for them, they can work for you too. 

For example, G2 hosts webinars regularly with the goal of generating leads for their software:

G2 covers a wide variety of topics in their webinars. Not only that, joint webinars are the perfect way to team up with other companies and subject matter experts in your industry. 

Conducting joint webinars allows you to:

• Partnering with other companies gives you access to their audience. They could even be potential customers who would otherwise be oblivious about you. 
• Collaborating with other companies adds credibility and authority to your content establishing you as a thought leader in your industry. 

At Venngage, we use webinars to educate our audience and lead generation becomes a natural by-product of this goal:

With this webinar our goal was simple: helping businesses navigate the pandemic by outlining how they can grow using content marketing (like we have).

With physical event cancellations and the world being forced to work from home, companies are slowly transitioning from hosting physical events to events hosted virtually (with webinars).

For example, Wishpond opted for a virtual event to make it easier for participants and attendees to partake (even from home):

Pro Tip: If you provide massive value to your audience in your webinars, chances are you won’t even need to promote your product. Help your audience with their struggles, and they’ll not only become a customer but also a raving fan.

Webinars for education

Webinars have exploded in popularity in the last few years as a powerful learning tool, not only for marketers but also for schools and universities.

For educators, webinars are the best way to reach and engage students. No classroom required. For students, they get to learn from the comfort of their own homes.

Due to the pandemic, colleges and universities have transitioned to distanced learning. So webinars as a learning tool have surged in popularity.

My alma mater, Seneca uses educational webinars for all occasions—from educating potential students to onboarding new students and also hosting virtual open houses:

If you’re a college or university trying to onboard incoming students for the new semester, webinars are an absolute no-brainer. Here’s an onboarding webinar template you can use:

I f you’re a professor looking to experiment with webinars as a learning device, you can use this webinar presentation template for your next online class:

Pro Tip: Want to make your webinar even more engaging? Invite external educators and subject matter experts to collaborate with you on your next webinar.

Webinars for product demos

Companies have started adopting webinars for product demos to strategically sell their products and build a deeper relationship with prospective customers.

But when is the ideal time to start using webinars for product demos? The answer: Now!

Today’s buyers are digitally savvy and comparing competing products to make the best buying decision. Sending over a business proposal and hoping for the best isn’t going to cut it anymore.

A product demo webinar is an opportunity for you to showcase real case studies of your current customers, how they’ve used your product successfully, and how your prospect can achieve the same results.

OroCommerce, the B2B eCommerce platform  does a great job with product demo webinars . Every time they release a major product update they hold product demos going over the benefits of every new feature.

When presenting a live webinar that targets your audience’s pain points , strategically tie in your product into your presentation and how it helps your attendees solve their burning problems. 

Here’s an example of a product demo webinar presentation you can use to demo your products or services:

Pro Tip: Product demo webinars also helps you gather critical customer feedback . If you’re a startup, start conducting regular webinars to gather crucial feedback to make your product better.

Webinars for employee training

Webinar tools can double as meeting software and training tools for training both new and existing employees.

This is especially useful if you’re communicating with a remote team . Or even a team that’s too big to sit in one room together.

You can start by including webinars in your onboarding materials or conduct a webinar-esque orientation where you outline your company’s expectations, vision, mission and address questions your new hires might have.

They can also be used to showcase your company’s culture and how it will matter to your new recruits. 

Related : How to Create a Successful Employee Training and Development Program

Webinars are the perfect tool for educating your employees on niche but important topics like productivity, workplace diversity, safety, employee engagement, etc.

Want your next company-wide webinar to cover the topic of workplace accessibility? Here’s a presentation you can use for your next webinar:

Webinars for user onboarding and retention

Webinars have been among the most popular marketing  trends among SaaS businesses .

If you’re a digital storefront or Software as a Service (SaaS) company like us, you know how important customer onboarding and retention is for the bottom line of your business.

You may already have onboarding flows in your product, but it’s never a bad idea to explain to your new customers how your product works by inviting them to a user onboarding webinar. Also, utilizing a user onboarding software can help create a seamless user journey.

With your user onboarding webinar, make sure you cover the most important aspects of your products, keep the learning curve as low as possible and invite users to ask questions while you’re presenting.

Saas company Drift takes the cake with their ingenious use of webinars (especially the third one) to onboard new customers:

Once you sign up for Drift, they send you an email with a webinar-style video tutorial on how to get started with Drift. Genius.

Pro Tip: It’s 5x more expensive to acquire new customers than to retain an existing one. Use tools like onboarding emails, push notifications, webinars, etc. to retain your new customers so they stick around, upgrade to your paid plans and spread the word about you.

How to create and host a successful webinar

There are plenty of free, paid as well as ad-supported webinar tools available in the market. And most of these webinar hosting tools come with similar features.

Picking a webinar tool that’s right for you comes down to your business goals, budget as well as what you value in a webinar tool.

Here are some webinar tools to help you get started:

• Zoom (freemium): The most well-known online meeting tool also doubles as a webinar tool. Starts with a free plan and offers paid business plans with robust features.
• WebinarJam (paid): Starts at 499$/year and includes features such as live chat and automated recordings.
• WebinarNinja (paid): Starts at 39$/month for upto 100 attendees. It also comes with a free 14-day trial so you can take them for a test drive.
• SendPulse Webinar Tool : Host webinars, create, market, and sell online courses. Free plan for 10 webinar participants. The paid plan starts at $21 per month.
• ON24 (free trial): Comes with powerful attendee, reporting and marketing features. Integrates with plenty of other tools, but every integration is priced.
• Zoho Meetings (paid): Starts at 15$ for 25 attendees. You can also host up to 250 attendees for just 63$/month.

Want to dig deeper? Our friends at G2 have reviewed every popular webinar tool to help you make the right buying decision for your specific needs.

Create your own webinar in five steps:

Once you’ve spent the time on picking the right webinar hosting tool, now onto better things: creating your first webinar!

Creating your first webinar can be overwhelming but I’ll outline the exact steps you need to follow to make your first webinar a roaring success. Here they are:

1. Identifying the goal of your webinar

Webinars have many uses and by extension, webinars also help you accomplish different goals.

Start by asking yourself, “What’s my goal with this webinar?” Is it:

• Generating more leads for your sales team?
• Educating your students studying from home?
• Selling an idea or concept to potential customers?

Once you’ve identified the goal of your webinar, think about what your key performance indicators ( KPIs ) will be to determine the success of your webinar. 

After determining your goals and KPIs, make sure everything you do: creating your webinar content, promoting it, etc ties back to this goal.

If the goal of your webinar is to teach potential clients motivation 101, your best bet would be a purely educational and non-salesy presentation:

Pro Tip: Above all else, put your audience first. What are their pain points? What kind of content do they care about? If you tailor your webinar to your audience’s needs and pain points, success is imminent.

2. Attend other webinars

The best way to plan, create, and host a webinar successfully is to scope out the competition.

Look at your industry and start researching companies that are successfully using webinars to educate or sell to their audience.

What can you do differently or do better? Can you better interact with your audience? Can you ask better questions? Can you improve the content of your webinar?

Be curious and take notes whenever you can.

Once you attend a few webinars, you’ll have a general understanding of which webinars are hits and which are misses. All that’s left is to emulate webinars that were a roaring success.

To start, check out our webinar on driving business growth with the help of content marketing:

3. Plan and outline your content

In this step, you’ll start putting together your webinar outline and lay down the groundwork i,e. Invite your attendees, plan your event logistics, and decide on a webinar promotion strategy.

Creating an outline for your webinar content is easy if you already have a goal in mind.

For example, if the goal is to educate new users on how to create an infographic using Venngage, here’s what an outline might look like:

• Introduction
• What is an infographic?
• Use cases for an infographic
• How to make an infographic?
• How companies use infographics

A webinar outline can help you stay focused on the topics your audience cares about (based on research) and prevent you from getting side-tracked. 

The best part? You will eventually end up with a webinar presentation like this:

Pro Tip: Like any presentation, you need to rehearse for your webinar. This is even more important if you’re presenting to a large crowd online many of which could be potential customers. First impressions are everything, as they say.

4. Design your webinar presentation slides

Once you’ve identified the contents of your webinar, time to start designing the actual webinar presentation!

To start off, hop onto Venngage and pick a presentation template you like. We’ve got 100s of templates for all occasions and types ranging from professional to quirky:

Starting from a blank presentation is hard. Trust me, I’ve tried. 

So pick a presentation template you like, you can customize it to your heart’s content anyway.

Start playing around with the template, editing various elements like fonts, headers as well as the presentation layout .

If you’re on our business plan, you can use MyBrand Kit to automagically import your brand guidelines (logos, colors, and fonts) into your designs:

Need a helping hand? Bring on your team to edit your presentations and bring your webinar to life! Turn on real-time team collaboration (a business plan feature):

Once you’ve put all the final touches, export or download your presentation:

The real kicker? Venngage’s presentation maker can export your presentation in a .pptx format for importing within Powerpoint. Pretty cool right?

If you’re a fan of keeping it simple, you can present your webinar from right within Venngage using our presenter view feature.

And that’s it — once you’ve made an engaging presentation , prepared your speaking notes, and tested your webinar you’re officially ready to present your webinar to a live audience! 

Pro Tip: Don’t forget to collect feedback from your audience after the webinar! A tool like Paperform can help you survey attendees and improve your future webinars.

5. Marketing (or Promoting) your webinar

You’ve front-loaded the most important work: planning your webinar, setting up webinar tools, goal setting, competitor research, etc.

But unless you promote your virtual event , nobody will know how valuable it will be for them. So the final piece of the puzzle is webinar marketing.

Webinar marketing isn’t complicated, all you have to do is create event posters , social media visuals as well as event timelines informing attendees about the agenda of the event.

Here’s an example of a virtual event poster template you can edit (paid plan only) right now:

If you’re a business that engages in email marketing and has an existing email list, leverage it.

 If not, use email marketing software like Brevo or Hubspot to build your email list and automate your email marketing campaigns.

We promote all our webinars to our customers through our email newsletter and I recommend you do the same. 

Here’s a webinar invitation newsletter template you can send out to your email list:

Promoting your webinars on different social media networks is the lowest hanging fruit you should go after.

Head over to our templates page and you’ll find a huge collection of eye-catching designs for every social network (all sized to the right dimensions).

Need to promote your next non-profit webinar on Instagram? But don’t want to use boring stock images? We’ve got you covered:

Creating, customizing, and sharing promo materials for your next webinar is easy and intuitive with Venngage.

With access to 1000+ professional templates, an ever-growing collection of icons and illustrations (all of which are free), features like Brand Kit and real-time team collaboration :

Looking for a one-stop shop to design event posters , banners , social media graphics , email newsletters , and much more? Sign up for Venngage today!

Now you know the basics of everything from what’s a webinar, how to make a webinar, and the webinar conferencing software you will need to host a webinar. 

If you’re ready to start creating webinars that educate and captivate your audience regardless of industry or profession, make sure you keep the following webinar hosting best practices in mind:

• Pick the right webinar tool. This comes down to your budget, goals as well as features you want in your webinar hosting software.
• Identify your goal. What are you trying to achieve with your webinar? What content does your audience care about? What are their pain points? Clarity on your goals is crucial above anything else.
• Snoop on your competitors. How are your companies leveraging webinars? Take notes and think about what you can do differently or better with your webinars.
• Promote your webinar. You’ve worked days, weeks (or even months) to create an awesome webinar. Let the world know about it! 

This article is also available in Portuguese: O que é um webinar e como ele funciona? [guia para iniciantes]

Did you enjoy this in-depth guide on webinars? What was your favorite tip? What are you struggling with? Drop them in the comments below, and let’s talk about it! 

Check out some of our other popular design and how-to guides:

How to Make an Infographic in 5 Steps (Guide)

How to Write a Business Pro posal [Examples & Templates]

20+ Amazing eBook Templates + Design Tips [Beginner Guide]

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What is a webinar?

Definition: A webinar is a live event held online with a purpose to teach or inform virtual audience members about a topic.

More specifically, a webinar is a real-time presentation with audio, video, and/or multimedia components. It’s a popular format for information sharing across various industries and fields from B2B marketing sessions to classroom lectures.

In the context of businesses that support employees, customers, and partners across multiple locations and time zones, webinars can connect everyone at one time, in one place. Since they’re virtual, they can efficiently scale to thousands of concurrent attendees, helping organizations reduce travel and venue costs while broadening their opportunities in areas such as sales.

Webinar vs. virtual meeting

Often people wonder what is a webinar, and how is it different from a video conference? While similar to video conferencing , a webinar's purpose is usually instructional or educational in a one-to-many format.

While webinars and video conferences can be highly interactive, video conferencing usually describes regular meetings, discussions, or brainstorms.

Video conferencing is what you might attend with your colleagues multiple times each day, whereas a webinar is a unique event you may have signed up for months before it happens.

How does a webinar work?

There are three main steps any webinar participant will need to complete before they can view the session. The organization hosting the webinar can manage these details within their webinar software:

1. Receiving the webinar invitation

Holding a webinar begins with creating and sending an invitation to the intended audience, typically through email. A webinar solution can enable automated email management, with customizable HTML and text templates for invitations as well as for confirmations, reminders, and follow-ups. Email isn't the only channel to promote a webinar, however. Social media updates and blog posts are also common methods for raising awareness of either an upcoming webinar or the existence of a recorded webinar.

2. Registering for the webinar

Once someone accepts the invitation in their inbox or clicks on a link elsewhere, they're taken to a webinar-specific landing page where they can enter key details like email address and phone number, as well as credit card or PayPal information if the webinar is monetized. This collected participant information is often used to score and track leads. Overall, the webinar landing page is pivotal. It should have a compelling headline and concise copy that communicates the webinar's value, duration, and some background on the webinar presenter(s).

3. Joining the webinar

When it's time for a webinar to begin, attendees click or tap on a link to view the proceedings within a webinar software client. Modern solutions make it easy for attendees to join and participate in webinars from any desktop or mobile device, as long as they have an adequate internet connection.

Ideally, the webinar experience will be seamless on any device. Attendees should be able to hear the presenter's audio clearly, view any live streaming video, see any shared content such as annotated documents or slide decks, and take advantage of features such as polling, live chat, and threaded question-and-answer functionality.

How these three steps are handled is crucial because webinar attendance rates hover in the range of 40% to 50% of those invited. In other words, the design of an email invite or the interface of the webinar software itself can be the difference between someone joining and getting something out of the webinar or not showing up and not benefiting from it.

Guide: Best Practices for Your Webinar

Discover useful tips for hosting great webinars, from preparation to execution to follow-up.

What is a webinar platform?

A webinar platform is the kind of technology that is used to host virtual events. Webex Webinars is built to reach and engage global audiences of any size, and our production services team offers step-by-step guidance from start to finish if that’s something you want or need.

Types of webinar presentations

Webinar formats come in all shapes and sizes. A presenter can choose from many possible types of webinars that are suitable to a wide variety of use cases. Here are a few possibilities:

1. Panel discussions

Moderated conversations between panelists, especially ones with different perspectives on the same issues, are good for sustaining audience interest while also giving them useful information. Plus, they work well with interactive webinar features such as real-time polling to gauge viewers’ reactions.

2. SME interviews

An interview can be useful for a nurture campaign, as the subject matter expert being interviewed can provide deep insights about a particular product, service, or market. Audience polling can help reveal where participants are in their journeys, so that interview questions can be further refined.

3. Multi-presenter presentations

A webinar doesn’t have to be a lecture from one person. Multiple presenters can take turns, sharing unique perspectives along with different types of content. This highly engaging arrangement could take the form of someone explaining the high-level benefits of a product, and then their co-presenter diving into its technical details.

Webinar best practices

An effective webinar presentation goes beyond a static slide deck. To drive a truly interactive experience that increases audience engagement, there are many techniques that can be used.

Keep your webinar audience engaged by having:

• Multiple live streaming video feeds of the presenters and panelists.
• Rich content and screen sharing, including multimedia.
• Live Q&A to track and answer incoming questions from the audience.
• Interactive polling to monitor interest and attention.
• Private or public chatting and messaging with panelists or attendees during the event.

In addition, webinar best practices include the ability to support:

• Thousands of participants in video or audio-only sessions.
• Integrated audio connection options for attendees, including via VoIP, global teleconference, or broadcast.
• One click recording.
• Automated registrant approval and filtering.
• CRM integration.
• Follow-up analysis.
• Secure data encryption.
• Audience participation across any platform or device.

What happens after a webinar ends?

Much of the value of a webinar is in its real-time, interactive nature or – if it’s recorded – in the informative and easy-to-follow structure of its contents. At the same time, it’s useful as part of a long-term nurture and content marketing campaign.

An end-to-end solution such as Webex Webinars makes it easy to analyze attendance statistics, send participants to a post-webinar landing page, and integrate data into CRMs and marketing automation systems. A recording of the webinar session itself can also be promoted across multiple channels to support customers at different points in the sales funnel.

Webinars provide distinctive advantages over in-person events and meetings, thanks to their high versatility, affordable costs, and extensive scalability.

Live and on-demand webinars from Webex.

Watch recent Webex webinars on topics ranging from Customer Experience to the future of Hybrid Work.

More commonly asked questions

Does a webinar have to be live.

While many webinars begin as a live event and are held only once, they can also be recorded for later viewing and distribution.

For example, a company could link to a webinar recording’s registration page in its blog posts, email campaigns, and social media updates as part of a concerted content marketing initiative. In this way, webinars are more than just a valuable source of information for attendees – they’re also a forum in which organizations can reliably reach and convert customers and generate revenue. Many companies monetize webinars at registration.

Numerous possibilities exist within the webinar format. They range from an organization using a recorded session to build its email list after a product launch to simply holding a one-time event such as an internal all-hands meeting. Whether live or recorded, webinars are helpful for multiple parts of the sales funnel as they can effectively sustain audience attention.

Does your face show if you are watching a webinar?

If you are an audience member, in most cases your face will automatically be set to not show—and you will most likely be muted as well. But it doesn’t hurt to double-check at the start of the presentation. Many webinar formats will utilize live question submission to allow audience members to participate in place of live video. On the other hand, presenter videos will be turned on and, in some cases, like with Webex Webinars, may overlay deck slides or presentations if desired.

What are hybrid webinars?

Hybrid work is becoming the new norm for many businesses across the world, so it makes sense that events will also straddle both in-person and virtual settings. Webex’s integration with Socio allows for hybrid events to cater to both kinds of audiences in a seamless and sophisticated way.

What do you need to watch and conduct a webinar?

You can easily watch a webinar on your computer or smartphone. If you are looking to host a webinar, you don’t need much else, but you could equip yourself with a noise-canceling headset or an advanced webcam so that you present at your best.

• Webex Suite
• Video Messaging
• Whiteboarding
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Grow Your Business

Webinars 101: how to create a webinar, share this article.

Welcome to the dynamic world of webinars, where 73% of B2B marketers and sales leaders have found their goldmine for generating high-quality leads. If you’re aiming to connect, educate, or inspire from any corner of the globe, you’ve hit the jackpot. In this guide, we cut through the complexities of webinar creation, offering you top-notch insights to craft your successful online event.

From pinpointing the ideal topic that sparks curiosity to leveraging the powerhouse of tools like Thinkific for your webinar courses, we’ve got your back. Dive into the nitty-gritty of engaging content , nail your technical setup, and discover the art of keeping your audience hooked. And when the curtain falls, we’ll show you how to keep the applause going with savvy post-webinar strategies.

Are you ready to boost your digital presence and create the best webinar for your audience? Let’s turn that virtual stage into your playground!

Skip ahead:

What is a webinar?

Planning your webinar, preparing your webinar content, selecting the right tools and software, promoting your webinar, hosting and delivering your webinar, post-webinar activities.

A webinar is an online event that connects individuals with viewers across the globe. Imagine an online stage where the world is your audience. That’s a webinar for you — a digital bridge connecting you with viewers globally — a virtual event that promotes connectivity and collaboration without borders. 

Picture real-time chats, presentations zipping through the internet, and interactive discussions. Webinars are your go-to for everything from snappy workshops and enlightening lectures to dazzling product demos, catering to an array of fields like education, marketing, and business training.

Benefits of hosting webinars

Let’s explore why hosting your first webinar can be your best bet for lead generation, expanding your reach, and much more:

• Expert positioning: A webinar positions you as an expert in your field, enhancing credibility and trust with your audience. It’s a platform to showcase your in-depth knowledge and address pain points directly, making your brand synonymous with solutions and expertise.
• Lead generation powerhouse: Webinars are fantastic for lead generation. By offering high-quality content that resonates with your target audience, you attract potential clients who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer.
• Global reach: The digital nature of webinars breaks down geographical barriers, allowing you to reach a global audience. By considering different time zones, you can schedule your live event to maximize attendance from around the world.
• Building personal connections: Live webinars provide an opportunity for real-time interaction, helping you build personal connections with your audience. This interaction fosters a sense of community and loyalty towards your brand.
• Flexibility and convenience: Webinars offer the host and the attendees flexibility. They can be accessed from anywhere, making it convenient for a broader audience to join in without the need for travel.
• Content repurposing: The content from your webinar can be repurposed in various formats like blogs, social media posts, and email campaigns, extending its value beyond the live event.
• Immediate feedback and insights: Hosting a live event gives you the advantage of immediate feedback. You can gauge audience reactions, gather insights, and understand the effectiveness of your content on the spot.
• Cost-effective marketing: Compared to in-person events, webinars are a more cost-effective way to reach out and engage with your target audience, reducing expenses on venues, logistics, and more.

Incorporating webinars into your marketing strategy can significantly boost your brand’s visibility, authority, and lead-generation efforts. They are an effective tool for addressing your audience’s pain points while positioning your first webinar as the best solution they’ve encountered.

Types of webinars

There are several types of webinars, each serving different purposes:

• Zoom webinars: The crowd-pleasers, known for user-friendliness and peppy interaction. They’re perfect for live chit-chats, engaging polls, and breakout brainstorming sessions.
• Webinar presentations: The structured, often pre-recorded type, delivering your content with crystal clarity. Ideal for educational nuggets, sleek product demos, and in-depth lectures.
• Webinar courses: Like a series of educational episodes, these webinars unfold over multiple sessions, diving deep into topics, complete with bonus materials like readings and assignments.

Ready to jump onto the webinar bandwagon? Let’s unwrap the planning essentials. Picture your webinar as a masterpiece, blending your know-how with your audience’s curiosity.

Choosing a topic

When picking a topic for your webinar, it’s essential to balance what you’re passionate about and what sparks interest in your audience. Here’s how to nail it:

• Trendy and relevant: Pick a specific topic that’s buzzing right now. A webinar on emerging technologies like AI could draw a crowd if you’re in tech.
• Passion meets demand: Choose a subject you love that also has a strong audience interest. If you’re into fitness, a webinar like “5 Home Workouts to Transform Your Fitness Routine” could be a hit.
• Unique perspective: Offer something different. If you’re a cooking expert, instead of a generic cooking class, how about “Cooking Gourmet Meals in 30 Minutes”?

Target audience

Knowing your audience is key to a successful webinar. Here’s what to consider:

• Who are they?: Figure out their age, job, and interests. If your webinar is about advanced photography techniques, you’ll likely target professional photographers or serious hobbyists.
• Customize your content: Tailor your webinar topic to fit your audience’s expertise level. Beginners in digital marketing? A “Basics of SEO: Getting Started” webinar would be ideal.

Setting goals and objectives

Clear goals are crucial for a successful webinar. Keep them specific, measurable, and aligned with what you’re all about:

• What’s your aim?: Clearly define whether you want to educate, generate leads , or sell something. If lead generation is your goal, aim to capture a certain number of email addresses.
• Reflect your brand: Make sure your webinar embodies what your brand stands for. If your brand is about simplicity, your webinar should, too.
• Measurable outcomes: Set goals you can track. Want to educate? A quick quiz at the end can measure how much your audience learned.
• Efficient planning: Save time with a solid plan. Cover everything from prep to how you’ll promote the webinar , conducting the webinar, and the follow-up process. For on-demand webinars, consider the timing of their release for the best impact.

With a well-chosen topic, a clear understanding of your audience, and defined goals, you’re all set to create a webinar that engages and drives your brand’s message home.

Crafting the content for your webinar is where you get to blend creativity with strategy, ensuring every element aligns perfectly to deliver an effective webinar. Let’s dive into how to make your content engaging, structured, and visually appealing.

Creating engaging content

Your content is what will inspire, educate, and empower your webinar attendees to come back for more. Here’s what to keep in mind when creating your content :

• Dynamic interaction: Transform your webinar from a standard presentation to an interactive experience. Incorporate live polls to engage your audience, spark discussions with Q&A sessions, and include interactive exercises encouraging active participation.
• Clarity and relevance: Ensure every piece of content is clear, concise, and relevant to your subject matter. Your audience’s time is precious, so make every minute informative and engaging.
• Storytelling and examples: Use storytelling techniques to make your content relatable and memorable. Bring in real-world examples to illustrate your points, making complex ideas easier to grasp and more tangible.
• Guest speakers: Inviting guest speakers can add a fresh perspective to your webinar. Choose experts who can contribute valuable insights and experiences related to your topic, enriching the overall content.
• Step-by-step guidance: If your webinar is instructional, provide step-by-step explanations. This approach is particularly effective in digital marketing webinars where practical, actionable advice is crucial.

Structuring your presentation

Your presentation structure is the skeleton that holds your webinar together. Be sure it includes the following:

• Personal introduction: Start with a warm, personal introduction that establishes a connection with your audience. This sets the tone for the rest of the webinar.
• Logical flow: Organize your content in a logical sequence. Break it down into digestible segments, each focusing on a specific aspect of your webinar’s subject matter.
• Interactive segments: Intersperse your presentation with interactive elements. This can include live Q&A sessions, polls, or short discussion breaks, keeping the audience engaged throughout.
• Powerful conclusion: End your presentation with a strong conclusion. Summarize key takeaways and leave your audience with a call to action (CTA), motivating them to apply what they’ve learned.

Visuals and media

In the visual arena, it’s all about complementing, not overwhelming. Here’s what to keep in mind:

• Relevant visuals: Select visuals that are directly related to your content. Each visual element should add value and enhance the understanding of your topic.
• High-quality media: Use high-resolution images and videos to maintain a professional standard. This reflects on the quality of your webinar.
• Balanced design: Avoid cluttering your slides with too many visuals. Aim for a clean, aesthetically pleasing design that captures attention without overwhelming your audience.
• Format consistency: Maintain consistency in your visual presentation. This includes using a cohesive color scheme, font style, and layout that aligns with your webinar format and brand image.

The tools and software you pick can be game-changers for your webinar. They’re the unseen heroes working behind the scenes to make your webinar a hit.

Zoom webinar setup

Zoom has become a go-to platform for webinars, offering a range of features to facilitate interactive and engaging sessions. Follow these steps:

• Sign Up/Login: Start with a Zoom account, and opt for a plan that suits your needs.
• Schedule your webinar: In the Zoom portal, select ‘Webinars’ and then ‘Schedule a Webinar.’ Fill in the details like date, time, and description.
• Customize settings: Choose options for registration, audio, video, and interactive features.
• Invitations: After setting up, use the provided link to invite attendees.
• Rehearse: Test your setup before the event to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Presentation tools

When it comes to crafting engaging presentations for your webinars, the tools you use can significantly influence the impact and clarity of your message. Here are some top tools to consider:

• PowerPoint: A pillar in the presentation world, PowerPoint offers a familiar, user-friendly interface with a vast array of templates and design options. It’s ideal for creating slide-based presentations that are both professional and visually appealing. With PowerPoint, you have the flexibility to incorporate various multimedia elements, create custom animations, and leverage its widespread compatibility.
• Prezi: For those seeking a more dynamic and visually engaging approach, Prezi is a standout choice. Unlike the traditional slide-based format, Prezi allows you to create non-linear presentations with a zoomable canvas, making it perfect for storytelling and keeping your audience engaged. Its unique presentation style emphasizes relationships between concepts and offers a memorable visual journey.
• Canva: Canva has gained popularity for its simplicity and stylish design capabilities. It’s a go-to for users seeking to create presentations quickly without sacrificing aesthetic appeal. With a vast library of templates, easy-to-use design features, and the ability to collaborate in real time, Canva is an excellent tool for those who prioritize ease of use and visual impact.

Course platforms

When it comes to hosting webinar courses , the platform you choose can greatly impact the success and reach of your program. Here’s a closer look at some top platforms:

Thinkific is a top choice for those seeking a comprehensive solution for creating, marketing, and selling online courses. Here’s what makes it stand out:

• Intuitive course builder: This feature is designed for ease of use, allowing anyone to create professional courses without needing technical skills. It’s a straightforward, user-friendly way to bring your course to life.
• Advanced customization: You have the freedom to customize the look and feel of your courses and landing pages , ensuring they align perfectly with your brand’s identity. This customization extends to course structure, design, and user experience.
• Diverse content types: Thinkific supports a variety of content types, including videos, quizzes, surveys, and downloadable resources. This flexibility allows you to cater to different learning styles and keep your content engaging.
• Marketing and sales tools: The platform comes equipped with an array of marketing tools, such as the ability to offer coupons, run email marketing campaigns, and set up affiliate programs. These features help in attracting and retaining students.
• Student engagement tools: You can create an interactive learning environment with forums and discussions. Certificates of completion add an extra incentive for students to complete the course.
• Detailed analytics: Monitor your course’s performance and student engagement with Thinkific’s analytics. These insights can help you fine-tune your content and teaching approach.
• Community and support: Join a thriving community of course creators where you can share experiences, ideas, and get inspiration.
• Secure hosting and data ownership: Your content is hosted securely and remains under your control, ensuring your data and intellectual property are protected.

Teachable is renowned for its user-friendly approach, making it ideal for those new to online course creation. Key features include:

• Easy content upload: The platform offers a drag-and-drop functionality, simplifying the process of building your course. It’s a great way to quickly get your content online without any hassle.
• Customizable landing pages: Create landing pages that attract and captivate students, with easy customization to fit your branding.
• Integrated payment options: Teachable simplifies the monetization process, allowing you to focus more on content creation and less on the technicalities of payment processing.

Kajabi provides a comprehensive all-in-one solution for course creators. Its standout features are:

• Robust course creation tools: Build and structure your course with a range of powerful tools. Kajabi gives you the flexibility to design your course exactly how you envision it.
• Marketing capabilities: With built-in tools for email marketing, landing pages, and sales funnels, Kajabi is not just a course platform but also a marketing powerhouse.
• Membership site creation: This feature allows for ongoing engagement and revenue, providing a space for your community to grow and interact beyond the course.

While Teachable and Kajabi offer excellent functionalities, Thinkific stands out with its blend of user-friendly course creation, extensive customization options, powerful marketing tools, and a supportive community. This makes Thinkific an ideal platform for creators looking to launch, market, and scale their webinar courses effectively.

Laying out the red carpet for your webinar registration means more than just spreading the word — it’s about creating a buzz that resonates with your potential audience. Here’s how to ensure your webinar is the talk of the town:

Marketing strategies

To maximize attendance, use these promotional strategies:

• Email marketing: Whether you’re preparing to launch a webinar for the first time or emailing attendees that have attended previous events, your webinar email flow should be enticing, empowering, and inspire readers to register. Craft compelling emails that entice readers with the promise of valuable insights. The subject line should grab attention, and the body of the email should succinctly convey the benefits of attending your webinar. Don’t stop at one — keep the momentum going with a series of reminder emails, stirring up anticipation as the webinar day approaches.
• Social media savvy: Harness the power of social media platforms to amplify your reach. LinkedIn is perfect for targeting professionals, X for snappy, attention-grabbing announcements, and Facebook for broader audience engagement. Customize your content for each platform, using graphics or video teasers to pique interest. Remember, your social media posts are not just notifications — they’re invitations to a can’t-miss event.
• Collaborative charm: Partnering with influencers or brands can catapult your webinar’s visibility. These collaborations open doors to new audiences and add a layer of credibility to your event. Choose partners whose audience aligns with your webinar’s theme and message, creating a synergy that benefits all parties involved.
• SEO-optimized landing page: Create a landing page that looks good and ranks well on search engines. Utilize SEO best practices to ensure your registration page appears in relevant searches. The content on this page should clearly articulate the value of your webinar, encouraging visitors to take the next step and register.

Registration process

For a smooth registration process:

• Keep it simple: Your registration form is the gateway to your webinar. Design it to be straightforward and user-friendly. Request only the essential information to minimize barriers to entry, making the sign-up process quick and effortless.
• Confirmation and reminders: Automation is key here. Set up an automated system to send out a confirmation email as soon as someone registers. Leading up to the webinar, schedule reminder emails. These can include a sneak peek of the slide deck, special messages from your guest speakers, or any last-minute information about the live stream, keeping your webinar fresh in the minds of your registrants.
• Crystal clear instructions: Clarity is crucial. Ensure your emails provide explicit instructions on how to access the webinar. If your webinar platform might be new to some attendees, consider including a simple ‘how-to-join’ guide or a link to a tutorial. This approach helps reduce any anxiety or confusion about attending the live event, especially for first-time webinar attendees.

By implementing these strategies, you set the stage for a successful webinar, filled with engaged attendees ready to absorb what you have to offer. Whether it’s your first webinar or one of many, these approaches ensure a smooth experience for your participants and a rewarding outcome for your efforts.

When it’s time to host your webinar, think of it as your moment to shine and connect. It’s about bringing all your preparation to life and creating a memorable experience for your audience. Here’s how to ensure your webinar is an event that resonates:

• Test your tech: Before the big day, do a trial run to ensure all your technical equipment is in tip-top shape. Check your internet connection, audio and video clarity, and familiarize yourself with the webinar software’s features. This will help avoid any technical hiccups during the live event. You can also use a moderator on the day of to ensure your tech is working, the conversation is flowing, and everyone is enjoying your webinar. 
• Create a welcoming environment: As you start your webinar, set a warm and engaging tone. A friendly introduction can put your audience at ease and build a connection right from the start.
• Engage and interact: Throughout the webinar, encourage participation. Use interactive features like polls, Q&A sessions, and chat functionalities. This keeps the audience involved and provides valuable feedback and insights.
• Deliver high-quality content: Ensure your content is well-researched, relevant, and presented in an engaging manner. Use your slide deck effectively to highlight key points and maintain audience interest.
• Manage time effectively: Be respectful of your attendees’ time. Start and end the webinar as scheduled, and keep each segment of your presentation concise yet informative.
• Provide value: Your attendees are there for a reason. Make sure they leave with new knowledge, insights, or skills. The content should address their needs and offer real solutions.
• Follow up post-webinar: After the webinar, send out a follow up email , share a recording of the session, or provide additional resources. This follow-up is an excellent opportunity to keep the conversation going and nurture your relationship with the attendees.

Hosting a successful webinar is about blending seamless technical execution with engaging content delivery. By focusing on these aspects, you can ensure your webinar not only imparts knowledge but also leaves a lasting positive impression on your attendees.

The work doesn’t stop when your webinar ends. Post-webinar activities are crucial for maximizing the impact of your session and setting the stage for future success.

• Collecting feedback: Gather those immediate reactions with post-webinar surveys and direct chats. It’s like having a backstage pass to your audience’s thoughts.
• Repurposing content: Turn your webinar into a content treasure chest. Share recordings, spin off blog posts, pepper your social media with highlights, and enrich your emails with webinar wisdom.
• Analyzing success: Measure your success by attendance rates, engagement levels, and feedback quality. It’s like taking a telescope to your webinar stars, helping you navigate better for the next one.
• Engage your attendees: Touch base with past attendees and offer value with content that will resonate. You can even use your webinars to promote your online courses and other helpful content. 

You now have a roadmap to creating and delivering a successful webinar. From planning and preparation to post-webinar activities, each step is crucial in crafting an engaging and impactful experience. 

Remember, the key to a great webinar lies in understanding your audience, delivering valuable content, and continuously improving. So, start creating your webinar today and unlock new opportunities for growth and engagement!

What equipment do I need to host a webinar?

To host a webinar effectively, you’ll need a few essential pieces of equipment:

• Computer: A reliable computer with sufficient processing power is crucial. It should be able to handle your webinar software smoothly.
• Microphone: Good audio quality is essential. Invest in a quality microphone that can clearly capture your voice without picking up too much background noise.
• Webcam: A good webcam is necessary for visual engagement. Ensure it provides clear, high-definition video.
• Stable internet connection: A consistent and high-speed internet connection is key to prevent buffering or connection issues.
• Headphones: To avoid audio feedback and enhance sound clarity, consider using headphones, especially if your webinar involves interactive components.

Are there any free webinar hosting options?

Yes, there are several free or low-cost options for hosting webinars:

• Zoom: Offers a free basic plan with a 40-minute time limit for group meetings.
• Google Meet: Free for users with a Google account and supports up to 100 participants.
• Skype: Suitable for smaller, more informal webinars.
• Cisco Webex: Has a free version with limited features.
• Jitsi Meet: An open-source platform that is completely free and doesn’t require an account.

How long should a webinar typically be?

The ideal length of a webinar varies based on its type and purpose:

• Educational webinars: Typically last between 45-60 minutes, with additional time for Q&A.
• Product demonstrations: Usually shorter, around 20-30 minutes.
• In-depth workshops or training: Can extend up to 90 minutes or longer, with breaks.

The key is to ensure that the duration aligns with the content’s depth and the audience’s attention span.

Can I charge for my webinar course?

Yes, you can charge for your webinar courses. When monetizing, consider the following:

• Value proposition: Ensure your course provides significant value and unique content that justifies the price.
• Market research: Understand what similar courses are charging and position your pricing competitively.
• Platform capabilities: Use platforms like Thinkific or Teachable that facilitate course monetization.
• Payment options: Provide multiple, secure payment options for accessibility.

How do I handle technical issues during a live webinar?

To manage technical issues during a live webinar:

• Pre-webinar testing: Conduct a thorough test of your equipment and software before going live.
• Backup plans: Have alternative options ready, like a backup microphone or a secondary internet connection.
• Quick fixes knowledge: Be familiar with common issues and know how to quickly solve them, such as restarting the software or checking audio settings.
• On-call support: If possible, have a technical support person available during the webinar.

What are the best practices for promoting a webinar on social media?

Effective strategies for promoting webinars on social media include:

• Teasers and countdowns: Generate excitement with teaser posts and countdowns leading up to the event.
• Engaging visuals: Use eye-catching graphics and videos to grab attention.
• Hashtags: Create a unique hashtag for your webinar for easy tracking and visibility.
• Influencer partnerships: Collaborate with influencers to expand your reach.
• Live snippets: Share live snippets or behind-the-scenes looks to engage your audience.

How can I improve audience engagement during my webinar?

To enhance audience engagement:

• Interactive polls and surveys: Use these tools to encourage participation and gather instant feedback.
• Q&A sessions: Allocate time for questions and encourage audience interaction.
• Engaging visuals: Use slides and visual aids to make your presentation more dynamic.
• Real-time chat: Utilize chat functionalities for instant engagement and feedback.
• Breakout rooms: If your platform allows, use breakout rooms for small group discussions.
• Storytelling: Incorporate stories and anecdotes to make your content more relatable and engaging.

Stephanie is a content marketing expert with a passion for connecting the dots of strategy and content. She has worked with industry leaders including HubSpot, Oracle, Travel + Leisure, and Forbes.

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How to Create Your Perfect Webinar Presentation (+Examples)

Whether you’re doing webinar slides for the first time or just want to level up an existing deck, here you’ll learn how to create the perfect webinar presentation. We’ll go through best webinar practices and identify the key slides every webinar presentation should have. Are you ready?

Webinar Best Practices: 6 Things to Consider for a Great Webinar Presentation

First, let's set this straight: Powerful webinars don’t just happen. Impressive facts and figures don’t do it anymore. Nowadays, you have to be strategic in order to create webinar presentations that convert. So, before getting into the nitty-gritty of this post, I recommend you review these six aspects :

#1 Be clear on your webinar objective

As with all business activities, you need to set a clear objective for your webinars. Ask yourself: What’s the main purpose of doing this webinar? What action do you want your audience to take at the end of your presentation?

#2 Do your research

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to adjust your content to your audience’s needs. The big difference between a perfect webinar and a poor one is how the information you share solves your audience’s big questions . There are plenty of social media platforms, forums, and blogs you can review to ensure your webinar presentation covers what potential customers want to know.

#3 Only use high-quality visuals

People engage more with visual content ; that’s why pictures, graphics, and videos are a must in webinars. However, you need to be careful with the quality of your visuals. Consider that your audience could be looking at your presentation from a laptop, iPad, or mobile phone , so making sure your visuals are top quality is always a smart move.

#4 Brand your Webinar Slides

In the same line, your webinar presentation design is key for a well-rounded delivery. Don't make your work harder by pitching in plain boring PowerPoint slides. Instead, get your presentation on-brand and elevate trust in your business.

If PowerPoint design is not your strongest suit, consider hiring a presentation designer . Most companies outsource the design of their presentations, and it doesn’t cost as much as you think. For reference, you can check the 24Slides pricing table .

#5 Present your own data

Go one step further and conduct your own research. Start by simply sending an online survey to your customers or preparing a trend report around your market. Any finding that you get will only enrich your webinar presentation. And you'll likely position your brand as an authority in your niche.

#6 Cite your sources

And if you happen to use second-hand data, always cite your sources! Just because we find something on the internet doesn't mean it doesn't belong to anyone. This practice also helps to double-check where the information comes from and adds up to your credibility as a speaker.

The Anatomy of the Perfect Webinar Presentation (Key Slides)

Note that the “perfect webinar presentation” looks different for everyone because it depends on the topic and type of information you’ve got. However, all impactful webinars include a key set of slides that I’m going to break down for you:

#1 Introduce yourself

One of the reasons webinars are so popular is because they allow you to engage with an audience in real-time. But for people to get comfortable and spark conversations, you have to make the first move.

Use an “About me” slide for a quick introduction. You can highlight your credentials as an expert in the field or, even better, share the unique experience you went through that makes you qualified to lead the webinar. This is not about bragging but showing why they should listen to you.

And if you’re conducting the webinar with your team, there’s a special slide for them as well:

#2 Let your audience know what’s coming

Some people think of this slide as obsolete, but they just don’t know how to use it the right way. I’m talking about the Table of Contents slide.

Your webinar's first minutes are crucial to building your audience’s interest. Provide them with a glimpse of the topics you’ll cover using a table of contents. It also serves you to interlink your slides (as a menu) and create an interactive presentation.

The divider or section header slides also fall under this title. Use them to make strategic transitions between topics. Adding these breaks will make your presentation easier to follow.

#3 Present your content in different formats

We’ve made it to the meaty part! This is what people came for, and you can’t disappoint.

You’ve already got top-notch information, but what’s the best way to present it?

You can go the usual route and use text slides (no judging here!), or… you can channel your audience’s attention with fresh alternatives :

Data charts

It's very common to overload your slides when talking about data. But a wall of numbers won’t make your findings appealing.

Instead of copying your Excel tables, use data visualization slides. Check out these examples:

Another great thing about presentations is that you can insert multimedia elements! Use videos to illustrate a point, explain a complex idea, or show a testimonial. Just make sure to keep it short - people are eager to hear you, not to watch a movie.

Here are some webinar slides where you can embed your videos:

It’s not rocket science why people engage with diagrams. They provide a quick visualization of something that otherwise would take several paragraphs to explain. So, as a quick reminder, whenever you face the text-or-visuals dilemma, always choose the latter.

Now, there are so many diagrams that this post won’t suffice to show them all. But to give you an idea of what type of diagrams you could pick for your webinar, here are the most popular ones:

Want to see more options? Visit the 24Slides templates site and download the diagram slides you like the most - for free!

Quote slides have gained a bit of a bad reputation. We’ve seen for so long these random motivational quotes that add little to no value to a presentation and think it’s all these slides can do. But I’m here to prove you wrong.

A strategic way to use your quote slides is for social proof. You can showcase product reviews, client testimonials and even collect what people say about your brand on social media.

This is my favorite template for quotes:

Key takeaways

Help your audience remember the main points of your topic with a slide for key takeaways. Be succinct and sum up your key lessons or conclusions in a few words.

#4 Be open to Questions

As I said before, one of the benefits of doing webinars is that you can start a direct interaction with potential customers, so it makes sense to include a Q&A section.

To break the ice, try to prepare some initial questions for them and get the conversation going. You can use these webinar slides for an interactive session.

#5 Don’t forget your call-to-action

This point is linked to the webinar best practice #1 “Be clear on your webinar objective.”

What’s the whole purpose of doing this webinar presentation? Maybe you’re about to release an online class and want your audience to sign-up . Or perhaps you’re looking to increase brand awareness and it’d be cool if they tweet about the webinar . It’s all up to you, but you have to tell them. And these are the right slides for it.

So, to recap, these are the key slides every webinar presentation should have:

• About Me Slide (or Meet the Team Slide if there's more than one speaker)
• Table of Contents Slide
• Header Section Slides
• Data charts (to summarize complex information)
• Video (for visual engagement)
• Diagrams (to present a process)
• Quotes (to include social proof)
• Key Takeaway Slide (to refresh your audience's memory)
• Q&A Slide
• Call-to-Action Slide

But we're not done yet. Keep reading to find out how all your hard effort will come together in a perfect webinar slide deck.

Final Step: Your Webinar Presentation Design

Unlike traditional presentations, webinars are highly visual experiences . And to get there, the design of your slides plays a huge role. So, make sure to give your final presentation an eye-catching professional aspect.

But if PowerPoint design is not really your thing, there are still some alternatives. For instance, you can use a free webinar template like the examples above, or follow the 24Slides PowerPoint designers' secrets to create top presentation. Or even better, you can let them work on your slides! Check out how to get your webinar slides expertly designed from as little as $9 per slide.

If you've made it here, you're ready to take on your next webinar presentation like a pro. Just remember: Be strategic when it comes to choosing your slides and put the same effort into the design as you do into the content. Happy presenting!

You might also like these articles:

• +20 Creative Webinar Flyer Templates to Drive Registrations
• 20+ of the Best Webinar Slide Deck Templates for This Year
• How To Use PowerPoint For Your Webinar

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Webinar best practices: How to design, write, and host presentations

Webinars are a powerful asset in a marketer’s toolkit. Break down the elements of a stunning webinar presentation with this guide.

More than half (53%) of B2B marketers report webinars are a successful lead generation tactic. And 58% of B2B professionals say virtual events like webinars and online courses also produce the best business results — compared to assets like research reports and short articles.

And 62% of webinar attendees feel ready to request product pricing after watching a relevant vendor video. 

This makes it clear: not only do professionals use webinars as a great resource for internal communication and remote training , but webinars can also help generate leads for sales.

Download our free presentation template

Present your next big idea with a webinar deck template. spotlight inspiring quotes, thought-provoking stats, and additional resources your audience can take with them after the event..

Learning how to create a webinar is half the battle. Successful marketers focus on designing content and presenting a compelling webinar that holds attention. So how do you do it? Thankfully, we’ve got some presentation ideas and tips for you.

We know webinars are a great way to attract leads, convert customers , and share your brand’s story. While webinar promotions and the right content will attract your audience, keeping their attention is all about nailing your live presentation.

In this post, we’ll dive into the nuts and bolts of how to design, write, and host webinar presentations — from choosing a webinar platform to gathering feedback. By the end, you’ll master the fundamentals of presenting an attention-arresting show. Here’s what we’ll review:

How to set up a webinar in five steps

We’ve distilled the art of creating a webinar presentation into five easy steps.

Need more tips? Learn how to create a webinar , or check out Vimeo’s Webinar Confidential to hear real-life stories of virtual event mishaps and tips on how to run a great event. Watch now

1. Work out the webinar’s structure and presentation style

Dedicate this first step to ensuring smooth functionality and planning the nitty-gritty details of your webinar:

• What topic will you cover? 
• Who is your audience? 
• Will it be a real-time live webinar or pre-recorded? 
• Where will you host the landing page where guests can register for the event?
• Will there be an on demand video of the webinar available afterward?

Also, ask yourself how the webinar will unfold — the sequence it will follow, who will present, and the order of topics/content to share.

Once you’ve planned out the webinar’s basics, work out which presentation styles will complement your show: slides and audio, screen share, webcam, or a combination of the three. Ideally, show yourself and/or the speakers to connect with your audience.

2. Dump your thoughts into an outline

So you’ve ironed out details about your presentation style, webinar speakers, and structure. What’s next? A brain dump so you can start organizing your thoughts.

At the top of your outline, write down the key message you want to deliver. Next, write down all your topic-related presentation ideas — visuals, main points, transitions, etc. At this point, it’s advisable you don’t hold back or try to filter or pause to evaluate if an idea is good or bad. Simply 👏 write 👏 it 👏 down. 👏

As you jot down your thoughts, add any supporting evidence to your points. Think examples, data, stats, and customer stories that tie into your main webinar thesis.

Now, work on refining your brainstorm into an outline. Here’s a three-step process to get your outline in top shape: 

• Filter: Whittle down all your information so you have no more than three to five key takeaways.
• Distill: Select the most impactful data and examples to back your points.
• Polish: Make sure everything in the outline aligns with your webinar’s goal and is relevant to your target audience.

Remember that it’s important to only present the most important, most impactful content.

As Chris Anderson, curator at TED, describes in the Harvard Business Review , try to limit abstract language and focus on concrete examples:

“If you try to cram in everything you know, you won’t have time to include key details, and your talk will disappear into abstract language…You need specific examples to flesh out your ideas. So limit the scope of your talk to that which can be explained, and brought to life with examples, in the available time.”

“Limit the scope of your talk to that which can be explained, and brought to life with examples, in the available time.” Chris Anderson, curator at TED

Your final outline should read like a script or guide that will map the webinar presentation.

3. Make a plan to engage your audience

There’s nothing more disappointing than a bland webinar that does little to excite the audience.

In fact, in a recent internal Vimeo survey, we found that the main reasons participants exit webinars are technical difficulties (59%), poor moderation (46%), or boredom (44%). This means it’s imperative to have your production in order and content that’s concise and relevant.

Of course, grabbing your audience’s attention with well-designed presentation slides is crucial — and we’ve got tips on that a bit later in this article — but attendee engagement and getting your audience to “act” during the live event is your top priority.

Online whiteboard software Miro’s customer education manager, Jennifer Clark, acknowledges the importance of improving your attendees’ user experience for this. Not only does it help convince participants to stay till the end, but it also encourages them to attend more of your webinars.

“I [engage attendees] by welcoming folks with music, asking interesting icebreakers to warm up the chat, and offering several opportunities to raise hands or respond in the chat throughout the session. Humor is critical too — if we don’t have someone’s attention or we aren’t interesting to listen to/look at, we’re not going to retain our learners long enough to teach them something cool.”

“If we aren’t interesting to listen to [or] look at, we’re not going to retain our learners long enough to teach them something cool.” Jennifer Clark, customer education manager at Miro

To create a memorable user experience for your webinars, try adding a few things like an intro slate, a handful of ice breaker questions to fire up the chat, and a pause between sections. This gives presenters and speakers time to comment live by answering audience questions from the chat or to pose questions to the audience to help them retain more info.

Clark also focuses on paying attention to the small details to make your webinar stand out:

“I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to think through the end-user experience for the webinar itself. The sound and video quality should be high, the field of view should be clean if you’re sharing a screen, and ‘do not disturb’ mode should be on.

We shouldn’t see any bouncing apps or notifications. I think those little details mirror what I’ve done in person as an educator. In the past, that let your audience know you care about the small things and want their experience to be seamless.”

Technical execution is critical to keeping folks engaged in webinar content. Schedule a rehearsal before the live event to troubleshoot any issues with video and audio prior to the live stream.

How do you structure a webinar?

Typically, webinars contain an introduction, the meaty show time, and a q&a session to wrap things up. but you can get creative with presentation ideas, too, by trying anything you think will engage your audience., 4. prepare a short but engaging introduction.

A poor introduction can make attendees feel like it was a wrong decision to sign up, so they wouldn’t hesitate to take the exit route. Translation: you need a strong introduction .

So what makes a good introduction?

👋 Start with a greeting

A simple yet effective way to start is with a ‘Hi! Welcome to [webinar title].’ It’s also a good idea to thank participants for taking the time to join you.

⌚️ Reinforce the webinar is worth the time investment

Be quick to tell attendees how the webinar will benefit them. Consider sharing the takeaways in bullet points: three to four points maximum so you aren’t overloading things to the point that you make them easy to forget.

Or you can share a one-line take-home message. For example, a webinar on Google Analytics to track blog post traffic can have the following what’s-in-it-for-me message for its attendees: ‘You’ll leave feeling ready to use GA for tracking your blog performance.’

🎓 Share why you’re an expert in the topic you’re presenting

Introduce yourself next. Explain what makes you an authority on the subject. But instead of reading out your resume, consider summarizing your career highlights — packaged as a story. Stories are personal; therefore, they help you connect with your audience and gain their trust. A story is always way more memorable than a plain speech on what you’ve accomplished so far.

🏗️ Explain your webinar’s structure

Think of this as your general housekeeping. It helps set audience expectations, which makes it an absolute must component of your introduction.

Simply tell viewers what’s in store for them. Have a live Q&A session at the end? Tell them so they can start writing down their questions. Have polls in place throughout the sessions? Again, tell them.

Vimeo’s Master Class on hosting engaging town halls shares key takeaways in four simple bullet points:

• Why are town halls crucial to your business?
• Tips for planning the best content for your town hall
• How to boost employee (attendee) engagement during town halls
• How to extend the life of your town hall

Pro tip: Create a useful template, checklist, or framework to get your audience to stick around till the end. Tell them you’ll be sharing a gift or freebie at the end. But don’t reveal exactly what it is — build the suspense instead.

5. Prepare your presentation slides

With the legwork done, start creating your presentation slides. Use the outline you’ve created to write copy for the slides. Roughly, you’ll need to work on the following slides:

• Section headers/dividers
• Text-heavy slide
• Combination text + high-quality image(s) slide
• Big stats slide
• Pull quotes

The key, however, is to make sure you don’t stuff the slides with too much text. A good presentation slide formatting rule that can help here is the 5-5-5 rule:

• Add no more than five (5) words per line
• No more than five (5) lines per slide
• No more than five (5) consecutive text-heavy slides

How to build a webinar : Four design tips

Now, for some expert tips from Vimeo’s design team. Don’t worry; you don’t need design chops for this.

1. Variety is the spice of presentation slides

Text-based monotonous slides are the recipe for losing audience attention. Our in-house design team suggests leveraging animation, GIFs, motion, imagery, or iconography to break the monotony. Short video tutorials, such as screen recordings illustrating a point, also work well. For example, showing a product feature in action.

The general rule is to have less text and more visuals since you’ll be voicing over information as you present.

2. Make your slides easy to read

Use a legible font that’s displayed at minimum 30 points. This is important for making your slides accessible to attendees joining using their smartphones.

3. Brand your slides

Design using your brand colors and logo in your slides for brand consistency. This will also help leave a memorable impression on participants, especially if they continue to join more of your webinars.

Splash , for example, creates presentation decks using its brand colors.

If you choose to keep your logo but want to experiment with other colors, follow this expert advice from a Vimeo designer:

“Choose colorways that are complementary and provide enough contrast to be legible (i.e., don’t use white text on an off-white background).”

4. Highlight key information

This helps you catch attendees’ attention better. Our designer advises you to “make important callouts big and bold! Whether that’s a quote or a key stat that you want to highlight.”

“Make important callouts big and bold!” Designer at Vimeo

Now that you have a good idea about how to design and format your webinar presentation (remember: lower thirds are your friends!), let’s get into how to write a great webinar script.

Five tips for writing a great webinar script

A webinar script is a written version of what a speaker delivers in their presentation.

You need it as a guardrail to structure your thoughts into a cohesive layout while helping you communicate key points efficiently. If you’re having a bout of writer’s block, you can also leverage an AI script generator to get ideas flowing.

Besides outlining your introduction, webinar agenda, and call to action, use the script to include timing details (how much time you’d dedicate to each section and speaker) and navigational instructions such as which slides to share, interactive elements to intro, and more.

Begin creating your script as soon as you’ve finalized your presentation topic — go back to the outlining step in the section on how to create a webinar presentation for a refresher if needed.

Then follow these five steps to write a good webinar script.

1. Know your audience

Your webinar content can only be as relevant to your audience as your knowledge of them is. Speak their language, use examples that resonate with them, and touch on their pain points — show them you did your homework.

Here are a few tips on how you can write a simple script that is relevant to your audience:

• Remove business speak or jargon.
• Get rid of heavy vocabulary and an overload of abbreviations.
• Use as many short and medium-length sentences as possible.

Most of all, always front-load sentences so that important information is at the start.

The more you know your audience, the better you’ll understand their struggles, how to solve them, and how to present that solution within your webinar. By extension, you’ll be able to engage attendees better. Briar Goldberg, the director of speaker coaching at TED, talks about this :

“When your audience doesn’t feel like your words apply to them, when they don’t understand what you’re trying to say, or, worse yet, they don’t care about your ideas, then your carefully crafted slides, agenda or jokes simply don’t matter.”

“When your audience doesn’t feel like your words apply to them, then your carefully crafted slides simply don’t matter.” Briar Goldberg, director of speaker coaching at TED

A useful starting point then is one that Goldberg shares: ABC or Audience Before Content. Translation: before you put pen to paper, research your audience. The following three tips will help:

• Ask the marketing team to share audience demographics and buyers’ persona.
• Understand why attendees are making time for the webinar — what do they really want to learn?
• Figure out your audience’s expectations and how you can meet their expectations (social listening and asking this question in your sign-up form are two helpful ways to find your answer).

2. Know your goal

When learning how to create a webinar presentation, don’t saturate your content with too many ideas. Doing so dilutes your main message.

Semrush’s head of influencer marketing, Anton Shulke, stresses the need to have a clearly defined goal:

“Before doing a webinar, ask yourself why you are doing it, and if you have multiple reasons — just drop it. Webinars as any type of content serve one [to] two purposes; defining them before starting the work is absolutely essential.”

But what if you’ve gotten to this point and realized your goal isn’t necessarily relevant? Time to revise. What can you do to refine your intention and make your purpose better match your content and audience?

Revising your webinar’s goal is also crucial for writing a script that aligns with your goal and helping you tie in goal-relevant examples, screens, product tutorials (if needed), and calls to action.

3. Leverage storytelling

Good presentations are ultimately about telling a great story. Stories and real-life examples fascinate where business speak bores people — there’s science behind this too.

But what does this mean for you? Start with a story and build your ideas into your presentation as examples. This can help differentiate your webinar content, making it memorable and more human.

In a product-led webinar targeted toward people at the bottom of your funnel, for example, this would mean you don’t focus on your company or product. It means you tell a story about a customer, their problem, and how your solution can help them achieve their goal.

At Vimeo, we’re fans of sharing our customers’ success stories. It’s why in our Master Class on engaging town halls , we shared how Rite Aid created successful all-hands meetings with video.

Pro tip: If you plan to back your story with data, choose only two to three mind-blowing statistics. Dumping a laundry list of numbers increases your audience’s mental load.

4. Use the three to five takeaways rule

This one’s a hat tip to Vimeo’s content and programming lead, Julie Bergstein, who leads our event strategy.

The plan is easy: strip your script down to its simplest form. Why? Because simple is easy to understand and easy to remember.

One good way to keep things simple is by reducing your audience’s take-home messages to three to five points, according to Bergstein.

“I always like to highlight three to five key takeaways that our audience will walk away with so that they know exactly what they’re in for. Then, I always map the different ‘sections’ of content directly back to those three to five takeaways. At the end, I’ll reiterate the takeaways on a slide (in slightly different wording than the earlier slide) to really drive home the main points.”

“Always map the different sections of content directly back to three to five takeaways.” Julie Bergstein, content and programming lead at Vimeo

Don’t be afraid of repetition — throughout your presentation, loop back to the main points from your outline and continually drive your webinar takeaways.

5. Trim your script to fit the presentation’s duration

Before you consider your webinar script done, give it one last round of edits.  

Take care of two things in this final step:

• Read your script out loud. You want to know how it sounds to the ear. Rewrite or get rid of sentences that are overly complex, don’t add value, and aren’t easy to understand in one go.
• Time your script. Read your script with the timer running in the background. Don’t stop even as the time exceeds your presentation’s duration. This will help you figure out how much speaking time you need to cut so you can shorten the script.

Six tips for presenting webinars

There’s only one thing that you need to practice now: your delivery.

It’s easy to think about “winging it,” but there are areas in which preparation can save you from wasting time (i.e., rambling, not knowing what to say next, etc.).

So here are six simple tips for presenting webinars like a professional:

1. Practice each slide

Without practice, you’re likely to ramble instead of making a concise argument. Plus, you’ll likely shower your audience with a ton of “umms” and other filler.

Delivering such a presentation does little to hold your audience’s attention. The solution? Practice. Lots of practice. If you can, get someone on the team to help you or use a teleprompter to help you get comfortable talking directly on screen.. Or record yourself and listen to where you’re stammering or going off-track.

If the webinar has more than one speaker, it’s a good idea to chart the webinar’s flow, including time slots for each presenter. From there on, do a run-through to see how each presenter is doing and to fine-tune the flow (and transition between speakers).

2. Rehearse your pacing and tone

You don’t need to change the way you speak. But your pacing will need work. As will making sure each word you say is delivered clearly. Miro’s webinar host talks about this, too.

“Pacing is critical; the audience shouldn’t feel like we’re blazing through features [or pointers/ideas] or spending forever on one feature [idea]. It should take advantage of attention while moving freely enough to capture wandering minds.”

“[A webinar should] take advantage of attention while moving freely enough to capture wandering minds.” Webinar host at Miro

Practice will help you strike the right balance for pacing. Here are a couple of tips for nailing your speech and tone.

• Speak clearly with micro pauses. Consciously take steps to clearly say each word to make sure your audience is able to digest your message.
• Work toward an energetic tone. A slow, lazy tone indicates the webinar is going to be a slow kill. An interested, dynamic tone, on the other hand, is welcoming — and will help you retain your audience.

3. Check your internet connection

Poor internet speed can cause your presentation to stutter or freeze. Since your aim is to provide an amazing attendee experience, make it a rule to check your internet speed a week before the event.

You’ll need a minimum of 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps) upload speed for hosting a webinar, but an exact estimate depends on audience size and the video hosting platform .

4. Host from a noise-free webinar environment

This ensures your voice can be heard as clearly as possible. It also removes distractions for you, making it easy to keep up with your train of thought.

To this end, make sure you:

• Close all background tabs. You don’t want a song playing in the background only to find out it’s coming from one of your zillion tabs. 😬
• Host from a room with soft surfaces. Carpet and curtains absorb sound and reduce echo. If you’re working from home, make sure the room is inaccessible to children and pets.
• Wear headphones. It reduces background noise and echo.
• Get a professional microphone. Research proves audio quality ranks higher than visual quality. This means your laptop’s built-in microphone simply won’t cut it. Consider investing in a lavalier or clip-on mic that can save your audience from straining to keep up with you.

Have some extra budget to spare? Get a boom arm for your mic so it’s positioned close to your mouth to minimize background noise.

5. Recruit a team to help you pull it all off smoothly

For large events, you may need a few more teammates to help pull everything off smoothly. A moderator, for example, helps manage comments pouring through your live chat or Q&A or moderates the most upvoted questions to the speaker(s).

A spotter, on the other hand, is an extra pair of eyes that regulates all the technical stuff during a webinar.

6. Curate questions for the Q&A session in case engagement is low

Ask for questions ahead of time. This will help you fire off a Q&A session immediately without having to fill the awkward silence until attendees share their questions. Gather questions using the webinar sign-up form or ask your social media or newsletter community to share their questions.

How to conduct post-webinar feedback surveys

A successful webinar doesn’t end once you reach the last slide. Post-webinar feedback helps you understand how your hard work translates into value for the attendees. As you wrap your presentation, be sure to tell participants you’ll be sharing a survey form in a follow-up email.

Some presenter feedback survey questions you can ask are:

• What’s your biggest takeaway from the presentation?
• How can we make the webinar better for you?
• What would you like to learn next?

You can also ask participants to rate your presentation with a few questions, such as:

• How likely are you to recommend the session to a colleague?
• Would you like to learn more on this topic?
• What percentage of the content shared with you was new?
• How would you rate the host’s presentation skills, presentation pace, and knowledge of the topic?

Webinar presentation best practices FAQs

Discover the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about presenting webinars.

How do you structure a good webinar?

A webinar’s success is typically dependent on the preparation that goes into it. In order to structure a good webinar, follow the steps in our guide to:

• Set up a webinar
• Design a webinar
• Write a webinar
• Present a webinar

What makes an effective webinar?

Arguably, the most important part of a webinar is what the speakers say. Visuals are important, but a webinar script can make or break a presentation. If you want your webinar to be effective, you need to first create an effective script. Effective webinar scripts include a variety of relevant data and statistics, examples, anecdotes, and casual communication. And don’t underestimate the power of purposeful pauses.

What are the 13 components of webinar presentations?

Thirteen is an arbitrary number created by a European webinar provider, but since you asked…

The 13 components of webinar presentations include the following:

• Communicate audience expectations.
• Create a clear structure.
• Keep slide information brief.
• Build a dynamic presentation.
• Involve participants actively (engage your audience).
• Encourage attendees to take action (include a CTA!).
• Practice! Practice! Practice!
• Present slowly and thoughtfully (watch out for a pace that’s too fast!).
• Alternate your eye contact between the screen and the audience.
•  Explain your actions (e.g., “Now I’m starting a pre-recorded video…”) to increase clarity.
•  Explain who has asked any questions you address.
•  Don’t forget a post-event summary !
•  Keep your closing statement concise.

Wrap up: W ebinar presentation 101

Hopefully, you have a stronger idea of how to create a webinar presentation that will wow your audience. With these expert insights and presentation ideas, you’ll be able to host an awesome webinar that keeps your audience glued to their screen till the end.

Take a deep breath. Success is in identifying your presentation’s goal, packaging information in three to five takeaways, and practicing your script beforehand. Don’t forget to create breathable, clutter-free slide decks and engage your audience with polls and Q&As. And just remember: your ultimate goal is to connect with the person on the other side of the screen.

Go live with your next webinar

Get your audience talking.

Host pro webinars more often, more easily

Masooma Memon

Masooma Memon is a freelance writer for SaaS and lover of to-do lists. When she's not writing, she usually has her head buried in a business book or fantasy novel. Connect with her on Twitter .

Masooma is a contributing writer. Vimeo commissions pieces from a variety of experts to provide a range of insights to our readers, and the views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author. All content and any external links are provided for informational purposes only.

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What is a webinar your definitive guide to how webinars work.

• 24 Nov 2022

Ah, webinars. Almost all of us can say we’ve attended at least one (or a hundred) of them. But if you’ve found your way to this article, you’re probably thinking about flipping the switch on webinars and hosting one of your own.

Great choice.

Webinars are a tried-and-true tactic that drives results for many companies. If you do it right, a webinar can help you connect with your current and potential customers in a way that adds real value to their lives.

This comprehensive guide shows you everything you need to know about designing, promoting, and hosting webinars of your own. You’ll learn:

• What a webinar is.
• When you should use them.
• How to design, promote, and host webinars.
• The best webinar software.

But don’t forget: a good webinar is a well-attended one. When it comes time to promote your webinars, use  Biteable  to create a promo video in minutes. Brandable video templates, ready-made scenes, and smart editing tools make the whole process a breeze.

Create videos that drive action

Activate your audience with impactful, on-brand videos. Create them simply and collaboratively with Biteable.

What is a webinar?

As we already mentioned, a webinar is a style of  video conference  employed often by businesses, trainers, and entrepreneurs in all industries. Webinars are used to teach, train, or demonstrate a concept.

Webinars are sometimes pre-recorded, but more often they are live and interactive, with time built in for Q&A, discussion, polls, and other features.

People use webinars to reach a larger audience in scattered locations or when meeting in person isn’t convenient or feasible. Many businesses and entrepreneurs use webinars as a way to engage with potential customers.

A webinar example

Here at Biteable, we know the value of a good webinar. To give you an example of a webinar in action, here’s a recorded video of our live talk on making on-brand marketing videos.

How do webinars work?

Just like an in-person workshop or seminar, a webinar will usually consist of one host or a panel of participants presenting live for 30-60 minutes.

Attendees watch a live webinar from their computer screen. Then can often interact via chat and messaging, though some webinar hosts also allow them to use their microphones to speak during the Q&A portion.

The  average webinar  has around 100 attendees (with 260 registering and 40-50% actually attending). That said, it’s not unheard of for webinars to have 500 or more viewers in attendance.

Webinars are generally free, but may be paid as well. The value in free webinars tends to be lead generation, though they may also be used for onboarding or training purposes.

When should I use a webinar for my business?

Many companies use webinars as a way to connect live with new customers, demonstrate expertise and build brand authority, or to promote a launch. Webinars can also be aimed at existing customers for training or onboarding, as an extra value add, or to upsell.

Generally webinars work best for B2B or  SaaS  companies, bloggers, and small business owners who want to share their expertise.

For e-commerce companies, other marketing tactics tend to work better, though B2C companies who offer bigger-ticket items or services may also benefit from the webinar format.

6 tips for hosting effective webinars

Though actual attendance may be low, a well-promoted webinar may drive hundreds (or even thousands) of leads. Paid webinars can also be a source of revenue for bloggers and thought leaders who have a niche audience eager to learn from them. No matter who your audience, here are some general tips to keep in mind for an effective webinar:

1. Schedule smart

Consider your audience’s schedule — a B2B audience is  very unlikely  to attend a webinar on a weekend, but Wednesdays and Thursdays tend to be good days. If you have an audience across multiple time zones, aim to land somewhere in the middle.

In the U.S., 11am and 2pm local time tend to work well. Don’t get too hung up on scheduling though — many of your viewers will likely opt to watch a replay over attending live anyway!

2. Prepare well

With a webinar, it’s important to be well-prepared so you’re not stumbling over your words or leaving out key points, but you also don’t want to be blandly reading from a script.

Instead, you should map out a detailed outline of the information you want to cover, with plenty of time factored in for questions and audience interaction. You should also always do at least one dry run — preferably in the software that you’ll use.

If you’ve never used your webinar software, make sure to take time to get familiar with all the tools so there are no surprises on the day.

3. Know what you want to achieve

Are you hoping to build your email list? Provide well-qualified leads to your sales department? Onboard new customers? Market your product?

Generate revenue with paid registrations? The structure of your session, the content you cover, and your promotion strategy will vary depending on your goals, so be clear from the start about what you want to achieve and you’ll save a lot of time.

4. Leave time for questions

81% of marketers use Q&A  as a way to engage webinar audiences. Be sure to pause for questions, and/or leave time at the end. Make audience interaction part of your session too, by incorporating real-time polls, chat, and surveys.

5. Surprise the audience

People love surprises! Teasing a surprise in your promotions is a great way to drive interest and registrations. Try inviting a special surprise guest, providing an exclusive download, like an eBook or worksheet, or offering a limited-time discount for attendees.

6. Have one big takeaway

Be sure to clarify exactly what you want audiences to walk away with. Depending on your goals, that might mean sharing a handout or worksheet, clarifying next steps, or ending with a specific call to action.

How to promote webinars

How you promote can make or break your webinar’s success. The key here is to promote early and often. Keep in mind that about 15% of registrations will occur well before the big day — around 3-4 weeks ahead of time.

That said, some 33% of people who register will wait until the day of the event, so make sure you continue sending reminders right up until it starts.

Even if you do everything right when it comes to promotion, expect that only one quarter to one third of people who register will actually attend. That’s OK. Just by registering, they’ve identified themself as a lead and opted into your email list. Reach out to them with special offers or send a link to the webinar recording after the fact.

Here are the top marketing channels for promoting your webinar:

The  majority of marketers  cite email as their top promotion channel, so make sure you’re sending invitations to your existing email list. In the weeks leading up to your event, you can re-send emails to any recipients who didn’t open last time.

If you don’t have an email list, that’s OK too — webinar registration is a fantastic way to grow your email list and generate warm leads.

Social channels

Start promoting your webinar on your social channels several weeks ahead of time. Share sneak peeks of what attendees will learn in the session and invite your followers to submit questions ahead of time. If you’re holding a paid webinar, consider offering a special discount for your social media followers.

Your website​

You should definitely include information about your webinar and registration links on your website. Many webinars are aimed at either onboarding new customers or marketing and demand generation. For both objectives, your website is an ideal place to get the word out.

Pop-up or banner calls to action, blog posts, videos, and dedicated landing pages can all help you drive interest and registrations.

Whether embedded on your website or landing page,  embedded in an email blast , or shared on YouTube and  social media , video can greatly improve your click-through and engagement rates, ultimately driving registrations for your webinar.

Use  Biteable  to make a beautiful, affordable webinar promo video in minutes. Our video templates make it simple to get started with just a few clicks:

Best webinar software

While sharing unique and valuable content is hugely important for a successful webinar, perhaps the most important decision you’ll make is what  webinar software  to use.

There’s nothing worse for a webinar host than dealing with embarrassing technical problems that prevent you from delivering the information your audience has made time to hear (or even worse, paid for).

Luckily, there are some great  webinar software options  at every price point. As you’ll see below, choosing the right one comes down to your budget, the number of attendees you expect, and the features you need.

Free: YouTube Live or Facebook Live

While not the platforms you usually think of when you think ‘webinar,’ we’d be remiss not to include  Facebook Live  and/or  YouTube Live . Both offer live streaming features that can be used to host a webinar, provided your feature needs are simple and a more informal session is what you’re after. Let’s look at some pros and cons to hosting your webinar on social media:

• Browser-based, no additional software needed
• No limit on audience size
• Long duration limit (240 minutes on Facebook, 36 hours on YouTube)
• Potentially massive audience
• No barriers to participation like registration or downloading an extension
• Live chat functions can be difficult to manage — you’ll likely need someone else to help field questions
• Audience interaction is limited — no polls, surveys, etc.
• No registration pages means fewer lead development opportunities
• Less polished and professional appearance than a custom, branded webinar room
• No webinar-specific features like join by phone, Q&A tools, automated email, or CRM integration

While Facebook can be used for webinars, in terms of features, YouTube’s  video-specific features  make it a more powerful tool if you must choose just one, though it’s also possible to stream simultaneously on both.

The other option is to  choose webinar software with Facebook and YouTube integrations, which offers the best of both worlds — all the tools you need, combined with the large potential reach of social media.

Low-cost: Zoom Webinars

This popular conference calling software has a number of features that can be used for  webinars  too, but there may be some drawbacks depending on your needs:

• Free for up to 100 participants (however, free calls are limited to 40 minutes)
• An affordable $14.99/month plan removes the call duration limit and gets you some other helpful features, like reporting and a custom meeting ID.
• All plans include traditional webinar features like whiteboarding, messaging and chat, raise hand, and more.
• Participants don’t need a Zoom account to join meetings or webinars.
• Integrations with Facebook Live and YouTube Live allow you to stream simultaneously to both platforms.
• Zoom allows you to have multiple active participants without extra cost — ideal for panel discussions or webinars with multiple hosts.
• Duration limit on free calls.
• The  webinar-specific Zoom plan  increases the price to $79/month, which puts the cost closer to more expensive competitors.
• No built-in monetization, but an integration with Zapier allows you to charge a registration fee via PayPal for your Zoom webinars.

Mid-range: BigMarker

With strong user reviews and an affordable base price,  BigMarker  has some compelling features built specifically with webinars in mind.

• Many webinar format options, including live, simulated live, on-demand, recurring, and automated
• Audience interaction tools including chat, polls, Q&A, and handouts
• Built-in marketing features like email invitations, registration pages, customized landing pages, and custom branding
• Integration with CRM and email platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, and MailChimp
• Built-in monetization allows you to sell tickets for your webinar
• The $49/month Plus plan (billed annually) gets you unlimited webinars for up to 100 attendees with two hosts
• No downloads required
• May be less reliable — some user reviews reported technical issues with audio and video
• Lacking some advanced webinar features like breakout rooms or practice sessions
• Top-tier plan allows 1000 attendees — if you need more than that, you may need to go with a competitor

High-cost: GoToWebinar

Created by the same company as the popular GoToMeeting conference call platform,  GoToWebinar  offers some top-of-the-line features for webinar hosts. However, those features do come at a higher cost.

• Robust audience interaction features, including polls and QAs, handouts, whiteboarding, and more
• Custom registration pages and branding, automated emails, and reporting and analytics
• CRM and email integration for lead management
• Simulated live webinars for pre-recorded sessions that feel like live ones
• Many advanced features, including mobile webinar management, practice sessions, and more
• Join by phone or computer
• Free, 7-day trial
• It’s expensive — the lowest pricing tier is $89/month (billed annually) for just 100 participants
• Users must download software in order to join the webinar — this can be a barrier to attendance if they have trouble downloading or just don’t want to
• The platform’s user interface has a dated appearance compared to some competitors with a more streamlined look

Further options

The webinar and  web conferencing  space is a crowded field, and we’ve just scratched the surface. Depending on your needs, other options you may want to investigate include Cisco’s  WebEx on the higher-end enterprise side, and WebinarNinja ,  WebinarJam  or  LiveWebinar , some other mid-range favorites of bloggers, startups, and small businesses.

After your event is over, don’t let your webinar go to waste! Share the recording on the same channels you used to promote it, including email, social media, your website, and recaps on your blog.

You can also  repurpose the webinar  content into other formats: email courses, ebooks, training and course materials, or videos.

Remember, many B2B consumers will opt to watch a replay over a live webinar. To get the full value of your webinar, be sure to send the recording to all your registrants, not just those who attended.

After the webinar

Webinar faqs.

You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers. Here are the most frequently-asked-questions about webinars.

A webinar can be live or pre-recorded. Most (but not all) webinars start as a live event. The hosts often make a recording of the webinar available for people who couldn’t attend the live event. It’s a good idea to lightly edit your webinar recording before releasing it (add an intro scene, cut out dead space, etc.).

Zoom is a webinar software platform. More precisely, Zoom is a video conference platform that can be used for live video meetings of all types, including webinars. Zoom has a specific “Zoom webinars” plan. This plan allows hosting up to 500 attendees and includes other features ideal for webinars.

A webinar is a  type  of video meeting, while Zoom is a platform for  hosting  video meetings of all kinds. When you meet on Zoom, it might be for a webinar, but it can also be for a regular video meeting. Webinars are usually less interactive than video meetings, and they almost always include a learning component.

To make your webinar engaging and effective, the most important thing is to speak as though you were in front of a live audience. Don’t read from a script, and make sure to give plenty of “eye contact” to the camera. Also include interactive elements like polls, breakout rooms, and Q&A so people stay engaged.

Here are some ideas for making your webinar interactive:

• Enable chat at the beginning for attendee intros.
• Create breakout rooms.
• Take a poll(s) during the webinar.
• Let attendees submit questions ahead of time.
• Let people raise their hands or ask questions in chat (with the help of a moderator).
• Draw for a raffle prize.

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Discover how Airmeet’s tailored solutions can accelerate your business growth. Get a quick walkthrough and learn how to leverage event-led growth for success.

Cracking the Webinar Code:

Guide to hosting and creating incredible webinars in 2023.

(15 min read)

Webinars have changed a lot over the years, both in intent and presentation. And they are being used for a wide range of purposes, from training to marketing. Webinars are a powerful tool for brands — it’s a way to instantly connect with your customers — and meet them at the journey stage they’re at.

This guide will give you everything you need to plan and execute your best webinars yet. We’ll cover:

What is a webinar?

How do webinars work.

• Webinar use cases
• Types of webinars
• The most successful webinar formats
• How to make webinars work in 2023
• Webinar trends
• Webinar examples
• How to create and host a webinar, step by step
• Best webinar tips
• Compelling webinar ideas
• Top webinar platforms

Now that you know what’s in store, let’s get started! 

Webinars (web seminars) are easily accessible live, interactive events that can be used as a workshop, presentations, lectures or Q&A, or demonstrations. The goal is to build a relationship through sharing knowledge and answering any questions your audience may have.

In short, webinars work by offering an engaging platform for speakers to deliver their message to a wide audience online. Attendees can interact with the presenter by submitting questions, participating in polls, and using other interactive tools, making webinars a collaborative and dynamic event – making them an effective tool to reach a target audience, spread your message, and build fruitful relationships with your audience. 

As the demand for engagement is increasing, attendees are seeking webinars to be more interactive, entertaining, and high in value. For example, attendees may seek opportunities to connect with other attendees in more than one way and expect the content to be actionable, replete with high-value knowledge that helps them solve their problems.

What are the different use cases for a webinar?

Webinars are used for engagement, online training, community building, and business growth. It’s a way to nurture leads with targeted content that meets them where they’re at in the funnel. Some of the top use cases include:

Lead generation

Webinars let brands demonstrate their expertise while interacting with attendees. By sharing content that’s valuable and shows that you’re a thought leader, you are able to generate leads. But it’s important that you’re offering content that meets the customers’ needs. To do that, make sure that you:

• Have your ideal audience in mind. Use personas to understand that audience better.
• Create content that speaks to the audience/potential customers and shows that you understand their pain points.
• Give evidence of your unique solution.
• Follow up post-webinar to continue to nurture your leads.

Brand building

Build brand awareness and gain advocates using webinars. Leverage webinars for brand building by:

• Being authentic.
• Creating content using your mission, values, and brand voice.
• Branding with your visuals and graphics.
• Choosing webinar topics that resonate with customers and attendees. 
• Encouraging attendees to spread the word and giving them ideas of how they can.

Product demos

Make your webinar product demo more interesting with storytelling. This approach feels more personalized, especially if it reflects the pain points or needs of your audience. More importantly, it’s effective. Research suggests that people retain nearly 70% of a message when wrapped in a story compared to 5 to 10% of the facts in a typical sales pitch.

Give your product demo a narrative by:

• Delivering a simple and clear message.
• Talking about real circumstances and experiences.
• Having a clear story arc (beginning, middle, and end).
• Including emotion and adding an element of surprise.
• Making your customer feel like the main character.

Virtual workshops and training

Webinars are an excellent format for virtual training and virtual workshops. It also gives you the power to attract more people from across the globe — and even give others a way to view the content even if they can’t attend the live webinar. Successful webinar training and workshops have well-planned content designed to meet the audience’s needs and help them gain new knowledge and skills.

Customer onboarding, engagement, and retention

Use webinars to onboard, engage, and retain customers. You might do this by:

• Walking them through how to use or maintain your product.
• Hosting a troubleshooting Q&A.
• Presenting use cases and inspiring ways to use your product.

Webinars for HR

Webinars can be used for several HR purposes. For example, recruiting, hiring, workshops, or training about compliance topics.

What are three different types of webinars?

There are several ways to host a webinar. Three common types include:

Automated webinars are scheduled pre-recorded webinars. The webinar is created beforehand, and you’ll promote its day and time. It’s simulated to act like a live event but without the host.

A pre-scheduled event with a host and attendees. The content can be more flexible since you’re able to pivot topics during a live webinar.

On-demand webinars are pre-recorded and people are able to play them anytime with the click of a button.

What are the most successful webinar formats?

Webinars come in a variety of formats. The key is understanding your audience and choosing a format that engages them. It’s also about incorporating opportunities to connect and build trust in your brand. Some of the most successful webinar formats are:

Presentation

This format covers a broad spectrum of webinar ideas. For example, a presentation might be sharing thought leadership ideas or talking about industry trends. In essence, pick a specific, audience-centric webinar topic and build content around it. You want to inform, persuade, motivate, and inspire people.

Interview or talk-show style

Choose a dynamic expert in your industry to interview. Think of it as talk-show style. Your audience is there to be engaged by your interaction with the expert. Have a poignant set of questions, and allow the audience to chat, comment, react, or take polls throughout.  The interview topics should feel meaningful and authentic.

Panel discussion

A panel discussion can be a lively, informative event when done right. Your audience and what they want should come first. From there, create a group of excellent panelists who will inform without sounding like a sales pitch. The host can moderate, but your panelists should have the experience to navigate a discussion and make clear and valid points.

Q&A session

Give attendees the chance to find out everything they want to know about your brand and products. A Q&A webinar is wonderfully customer-centric and allows you to showcase your expertise. You can easily engage the audience, go more in-depth and elaborate on certain topics, and let you gather feedback on the spot.

Workshop or training

Think of a virtual workshop as a way to master a topic or skill remotely. When done as a webinar workshop, you’ll choose a skill based on your audience’s challenges or needs, and provide them with the solution. You can share files, offer chat, and other ways to interact or ask questions.

Product demonstration

Create your demo content with the intent to offer highly actionable insights. Your audience should walk away knowing what they can do with your product and be excited to try it. A compelling story makes product demos more engaging. And ensure it’s about the audience — not the sales pitch!

Customers love proof. And they want to hear how something was successful as a solution. Case studies are designed to do both of these things. During a case study webinar, provide strong stats and proof of ROI, along with the real-life scenario in which your product succeeded in.

Are webinars working in 2023? Yes - but there’s a catch!

Webinars are increasingly becoming a part of the marketing and retention strategy of brands. According to CMI (Content Marketing Institute), 61% of B2B businesses use webinars and webcasts as content marketing tactics, and over 70% of businesses believe it’s the best way to generate high-quality leads.

However, there’s a catch: webinars need to be done in a modern, fresh, and interactive way. Historically, webinars were one-way, tedious PowerPoint presentations. The new way is audience-centric, with more meaningful and engaging content.

Old way vs. new way

Webinar Trends: How to do a webinar the right way in 2023

Brands that want to host successful webinars need to up their game for their future webinars. The competition is producing personalized, attention-grabbing events that target audiences where they’re at in the buyers’ journey. To elevate your online event, and host an effective webinar, utilize the following webinar trends:

Adopt the Attendee First Mindset

To do a webinar that brings results, your attendees’ goals and motivations should be front and center in your strategies. People know the value of their time and are more careful about how they invest it. Your webinar must be something that provides an excellent return on that investment. 

Here’s how to get into your target audience’s mind:

Ask the what, why, and how: Put yourself in the attendees’ shoes by asking: 

• What will they get out of the event?
• Why will they sit (and stay) in this virtual room? 
• How can we make it enticing and valuable to spend time with us — especially if they have to ask for time off or give up something else that’s important to them?

Move hearts before moving your product

Attendees are looking for better experiences that resonate with them on a deeper level. They’re not just there for information, they want to be inspired. This often happens through connection, being able to relate or empathize, and authenticity. It’s about stirring emotions.

Use the HAAAM framework to help you move hearts. The HAAAM framework describes the 5 emotions attendees want to feel:

• Adventurous
• Accepted 

To do effective webinars, your content should produce these feelings. Virtual event attendees will be drawn to your live event by seeing a list of content that reflects how they feel. For example, instead of describing your content as “see how our product works,” use a story. Something like, “see how Mary’s life changed, and how yours can too.”

You need to promise potential customers more than what they could read in a book or learn in a course.

Use webinars across your customer journey

Webinars can be used at any point in a customer’s journey: From thought leadership and strategy discussions to weekly live demos, webinars are dynamic. Using them can help move prospects down the funnel from the first touchpoint in a customer’s journey to the purchase — and beyond.

Webinars have the potential to generate high-quality leads. They remain a great tool to identify sales-ready leads. When someone registers for your webinar, it provides a pathway to reach out and collect data that a sales team can use to create personalized outreach down the line.

Host more interactive webinars

People don’t want to be passive observers anymore; they want to participate and be actively involved. They’re seeking live interactions with real people and industry experts. They want a chance to feel heard and seen — and get answers to their most pressing questions from an industry leader.

Make your webinar hyper-targeted

Aligning the webinar experience, format, and content with your audience brings better results. You can tailor the experience according to the stage of the customer journey, demographic, industry, location, and even budget. 

Small, hyper-targeted webinars can also keep the momentum going after the main event. And drive people further down the funnel.

A step-by-step look at how to create and host a webinar

With the right strategies and tools, your next webinar will be a standout event that has the potential to connect you with high-quality leads. Here’s a step-by-step look at how to create and host your next webinar:

Map out your webinar goals and outcomes

It’s difficult to measure the success of your webinar — or even create it — without a clear goal and outcome in mind. What is your intent with this webinar? How do you want to serve your audience? How will you do it? And what do you hope comes from engaging with your targeted audience? 

Define your KPIs, and determine what topic, webinar format, and platform will help you reach your goals.

Fine-tune your topic to your audience

Use customer personas, or create some, to get to know your audience better. It should let you target where they’re at in the buyer’s journey and what type of webinar content works best for them. 

While creating a webinar plan, ask questions like: What are their pain points? What value are they looking for? How much time do they have? What incentives will entice them to attend your webinar? 

The more information you have, the more fine-tuned your webinar will be.

Pick a webinar format that’s best for you and your audience

Approach your webinar format from two sides: What works best for your content and your audience? Decide what features you’ll need, what supports off-site experts, how much you want your audience to interact, and how. 

By better understanding the formats, you’ll naturally gravitate to the one that best fits your webinar.

Select a webinar technology

Your webinar platform should fit within your budget while providing the features you need. Look at how much support you’ll get, as well as the maximum number of webinar attendees. If possible, take a webinar software for a test drive to see if it’s user-friendly.

Finalize a time and date

What’s an optimal date and time for attendees, your experts/host, and your team? Another thing to consider is if the topic is pertinent to your timing. For example, if you’re hosting a webinar about maximizing sales on Black Friday, are you doing it in a time frame that fits?

Reach out to speakers and partners

Get any speakers or partners on board at least 3-6 weeks before the event. This optimizes promotion efforts and lets you fine-tune your content even further.

Build an audience for your webinar with a promotion

Promote your webinar through several channels, but primarily the ones that fit your audience. You may:

• Use your brand partners to help you with your webinar promotion strategy on their social channels.
• Promote through social channels.
• Create a webinar event page or a webinar landing page on your site if you host them regularly.
• Write a blog post about your webinar.
• Use emails and SMS marketing.

Prepare your content and platform

On the day of your webinar, make sure your platform and content are set to go. If you have any files to share, ensure that they’re on hand. Double-check the link and test the technology you’ll be using.

Have fun, be authentic, connect, and make sure to follow up with attendees and guest experts post-event.

7 Webinar tips to create and deliver better webinar presentations

There are several clear do’s and don’ts in the webinar world. Here are seven things you should (or shouldn’t) do to deliver a better webinar presentation.

DON’T talk at people, converse

Have you ever ended up in a one-sided conversation where it’s all about the other person? It’s not fun or engaging. As a brand, you have the opportunity to interact with webinar attendees. So talk with them, not at them!

DO create a killer webinar deck

Use GIFs, prompts, and other appealing visuals to enthrall and keep the audience interested. Be deliberate in your visuals, and design them for optimal impact.

DO show energy and passion

A host that clearly loves talking with their audience is much better at capturing their attention. If your presentation is dull and bland, it’s unlikely to keep people entertained and invested in what you have to say.

DON’T forget to test your equipment and files beforehand.

Attendees come with certain expectations, and your content needs to solve their problems effectively.

DO include anecdotes and personal stories

People want to relate directly to your content, and stories and personal anecdotes are a great way to help them do that. By sharing real-life experiences, you’re saying, “Hey, we’ve been there. We understand your pain.”

DON’T be late

The worst thing you can do is keep someone waiting. They’ve set aside valuable time so honor that by being there when you say you will.

Webinar ideas to create fun and engaging moments

Fun serves a variety of purposes. It elevates your mood, makes you more receptive, and helps connect you with others: In other words, it’s engaging. If your webinar lacks pizzazz or entertainment of any kind, it loses memorability. 

Here are some ways to bring a bit of flair into your webinar and keep attendees engaged throughout.

Kick-off with icebreakers

Get to know your audience and let them get to know you. You can:

• Ask where in the world they are.
• Find out people’s first jobs.

Gamify your webinar 

Get the competitive juices flowing with some social media challenges or trivia and quizzes. You can even offer prizes to make it even more exciting. Other gamification options are webinar contests and using leaderboards to keep score. 

The more creative you are, the better. But make sure the fun and games fit the audience. 

Create can’t-miss live moments

Anything that’s unique and of high value will be a can’t-miss moment. This can include things like:

• Critique sessions by experts
• Competitions and gamified challenges

Have some interactive activities during your webinar

Interactive activities can help the audience network and allow you to get to know them better. Try:

• A scavenger hunt
• A round of Guess Who?
• Live polling
• Idea brainstorming sessions in breakouts or chats

Be present in the chat and engage

Chat is a great place to let people know you’re there and want to hear from them. Respond to queries, comment, and ask questions. Offer insightful thoughts when it adds to the conversation.

Provide entertainment

Entertainment can give attendees a breather or be a great way to start your webinar. It doesn’t have to be long, but should be something your audience will appreciate. Consider:

• A short standup comedy session
• One or two songs from a musical act

Allow the audience to find and build meaningful connections

Networking adds value, especially in B2B communities. To enhance the value of your webinar, promote networking sessions.

• Plan breakouts rooms and speed networking sessions
• Keep the lounge open pre- and post-event
• Enable LinkedIn profile sharing
• Invite notable industry experts
• Virtual photo booths
• Social walls
• Content hubs

5 Webinar examples to learn from

Sometimes, the best way to get webinar ideas and form strategies is through successful real-world examples. Here are 5 examples that set the bar high for effective webinars:

• HotJar UX Ecommerce Lightning Talks – HotJar created a series of lightning-fast talks, creating webinars that packed a ton of actionable information into brief talks with experts. Each expert had a short amount of time, to sum up, a topic/solution in a way that distilled the information down to the most valuable content. The result was potent insights that attendees could use to overcome pain points. And it didn’t eat up a lot of time to get the information.
• Drift in Action Monthly Live Demos – Drift targets both people who want to learn more about how the product works and help those who have it use it better with their Drift in Action monthly webinars. They offer insights about Drift, who it’s for, and how businesses can leverage their platform for optimal ROI. This type of valuable content presented by a subject matter expert boosts both sales and retention. 
• G2 Product Town Hall – The G2 Product Town Hall gave attendees the opportunity to “learn about G2’s latest products, roadmaps, launches, and features.” It also included a live Q&A that gave the audience access to their product and marketing teams to find out information that was important to them.
• Airmeet Power Hour – Airmeet’s Power Hour is all about packing 60 minutes with user experiences (customers tell their success stories), expert tips, and industry insights. The goal is for webinar attendees to walk away with the tools to boost the power of their events. Airmeet uses its own features to optimize networking opportunities, making the webinar even more valuable for the audience.
• Universum World’s Most Attractive Employer – Universum hosts numerous webinars throughout the year. They cover employer branding and best practices. One of the highest attended was “The World’s Most Attractive Employer.” It featured results from in-depth surveys and gave valuable insights into talent preferences and market evolutions.

What to do after hosting a webinar?

What you do after a webinar can be just as impactful as the webinar itself. It should start with a thank you to anyone who had a hand in your successful online event. Send an email or thank you card via mail, but also give them a shoutout online.

Follow up with your attendees as well. Ask them to post their experience or participate in a survey. Send out follow-up emails with an overview and any resources they may like. Find out what kind of webinar they’d attend in the future and what topics they want more of. Keep the engagement going, especially if it’s well-received.

Analyze success

Another action to take after hosting webinars is to measure and analyze the success of your event through a variety of KPIs. For example,

• How many people signed up and how many attended?
• How active was the chat?
• How many people contributed to the conversation?
• How many people joined networking groups? 
• How many people posted social feedback?
• What did the polls and surveys say?
• Did you meet your goals and objectives?

If you find challenges, make sure to find ways to address them moving forward.

Best Webinar platforms for 2023 (Free and Paid) 

Your webinar platform adds or detracts from your success. Choose one that best fits your needs, budget, and audience and helps you avoid any technical difficulties. Here are five of the best webinar platforms for 2023.

Loaded with features, Airmeet offers it all. Use powerful tools that let you gamify, create networking opportunities, and brand and customize your webinar experience. Track important data while providing a memorable experience. With Airmeet, it’s easy to create webinars that go beyond traditional. You’ll find thoughtful elements designed to truly make your webinar audience-centric and successful. 

#2 GoToWebinar

GoToWebinar is a great webinar tool that offers several features, like a custom registration page, event management, webinar templates, video sharing, surveys, audience management, and more. It works both on mobile devices and a computer.

Demio works to create a streamlined webinar experience that lets you captivate attendees, track engagement, and gather data insights. You’ll also have features to provide resources and let your audience interact during chats and Q&As.

No, Zoom isn’t simply meeting software. It is a webinar hosting platform too. Zoom promotes itself as simple, secure, and reliable and allows you to connect a large number of people on multiple device types. Additional features include webinar branding, recordings, and seamless integrations.

Webex offers a scalable webinar platform that lets brands easily direct the show. Add interaction, branding, and integrations, and make your webinar accessible. With Webex, you can host up to 100,000 attendees with real-time translations in 100+ languages.

Most of the top webinar platforms give you the power to host unforgettable webinars. The key is to find a user-friendly fit that offers you the level of support you need. Explore each platform and find the one that gives you the edge. And while free online webinars are great, it’s also worthwhile to invest in platforms that take you from good to great.

Host an unforgettable webinar with Airmeet for free 

Airmeet wants to show you how we’re different. For free. Sign up and use our platform to create and host a dynamic webinar with up to 500 attendees. You’ll be able to try our fun and engaging features and gain deep insights and data on every attendee. Go ahead…try Airmeet . You have nothing to lose!

What’s the purpose of a webinar?

A webinar is a marketing tool that lets brands connect more quickly with customers at any point in the funnel. Webinars are known for generating high-quality leads when done well.

What’s in a webinar?

Webinars are presentations that cover a variety of topics and purposes using a multitude of formats. From panel discussions and product demos to Q&As, use webinars to create rich content that solves customer challenges and offers value.

Make your webinars 10X better with just 10 simple questions

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What is a webinar?

Webinars let you connect with large online audiences and share video, audio, and content from any location and device for better engagement. Most organizations offer recordings of the webinars they host; a link to the recording is made available so that the live webinar can be replayed at a later time. This provides an opportunity for people to either re-watch the session or to watch the original webinar for the first time if they were unable to attend the live event.

The difference between a webinar and a video conference meeting is that a webinar typically features one or several key speakers or presenters addressing a large audience, whereas a video conference is usually a smaller meeting that supports informal discussions between all participants.

The audio is usually broadcast via a microphone connected to the speakers’ laptops, tablets, or smartphones.

The video is shared through a web camera connected to the speakers’ laptops, tablets, or smartphones, using conferencing software and/or an internet browser.

Webinar host and panelists are able to share presentations, videos, web pages, and other multimedia content.

In a webinar, the host organization is able to interact with its audience. Often questions or comments are communicated in real-time via a live chat and Q&A feature.

Webinar audiences can join the event from anywhere they have access to a decent internet connection.

Webinar features

Today’s best-in-breed webinar software offers hosts and participants a variety of features that support and enhance their online event experience.

Webinar control management gives the host the ability to manage participants. It enables the host(s) to check the audience list, mute and unmute individuals and groups of people, and even block a person from participating if they don’t adhere to appropriate behavior.

Screen sharing allows presenters the ability to share presentation slides, images, and even videos. With Zoom Webinars, panelists can present their presentations directly. The webinar host does not need to upload the presentation to accommodate final edits.

Q&A (question & answer) enables attendees to ask questions during the webinar, and for the panelists, co-hosts, and host to answer their questions. Optionally, attendees can answer and upvote each other’s questions.

In-webinar chat offers the host and panelists a simple and easy way to communicate with attendees. Presenters can share links, resources, and helpful advice throughout the event to give webinar participants information that is helpful to complete their experience.

Webinar polls give hosts the ability to check in with their audience in real-time. Questions can be customized to hone in on the particular interests of the webinar attendees. The level of audience attentiveness can be gauged by tracking their responsiveness. If appropriate, live poll results can be displayed to the audience to facilitate further discussion and interaction between panelists and the audience.

Post-webinar surveys can be scheduled to share with webinar attendees at the end of the event. A survey’s responses can be downloaded as a report to simplify feedback collection. In a Zoom Webinar , the host can redirect attendees to a third-party survey service (like Google Forms or Survey Monkey).

Recording the webinar provides the host with the ability to use the video of the event for various other purposes such as marketing, education, new hire onboarding, etc.

The Zoom Dashboard allows administrators on the Zoom Webinars account to view information ranging from overall usage to live in-meeting data. This data can be used to analyze issues that may have occurred as well as better understand how users are holding meetings within their companies. With Zoom, the Dashboard data updates at 12:00 GMT daily. Data is stored in the Dashboard for 12 months.

How do you create a webinar?

Scheduling a webinar.

Zoom Webinars allows you to broadcast an event to up to 50,000 view-only attendees, depending on the size of your webinar license. They can require pre-registration—with the option for the host to add custom registration questions—or registration can be turned off for attendees to join by simply clicking a link at the time of the webinar. Webinars can be held once, can reoccur in a series, or can be the same session held multiple times.

Webinars can require pre-registration before the event. Using webinar software, the host can typically approve the registrants, add custom registration questions and pull reports on the registration. Registration is not always required, although attendees usually need to enter their name and email address when joining the event.

Scheduling a webinar with registration requires your registrants to complete a brief form before receiving the link to join the webinar. In this way, host companies can collect the names, email addresses, and other information from the registrants. Using most webinar software, after you’ve scheduled a webinar with registration, you can:

• Import registrants via CSV
• Collect additional information by customizing your registration questions
• Edit the webinar emails and choose which emails to send
• Customize the registration page
• Use multiple URLs to track where your registrants are coming from
• Manage registrants and resend confirmation emails

If you do not need to collect registrant information, you can schedule a registration-less webinar.

Webinar presenters and panelists

With different webinar software, there are different definitions of those who are key webinar presenters. In a Zoom Webinar, there is the host, and there are presenters called panelists. Panelists are full participants in the meeting. They have access to most host controls including sharing video and viewing the attendee list. With Zoom Webinars, panelists receive permissions to do these things from the webinar host.

The maximum number of panelists is dependent primarily on meeting capacity, but also the webinar capacity the host sets.

Most webinar software allows you to manage the panelists and attendees in your webinar. With Zoom Webinars, you can promote a panelist to co-host or attendee to panelist, demote panelists to attendees, unmute, stop the video, and more.

You are also able to view reports after your webinar concludes, to see registration, attendee, polling, and other information.

Webinar attendees

Attendees are view-only participants who can be unmuted if the host chooses. Their view of the webinar is controlled by the host. They can interact with the host and the panelists through the Q&A, chat, and even live polls.

If the webinar does not require registration, you can copy the join link and share with your attendees.

If the webinar requires registration, the host will need to share the registration link and have the attendees complete the registration form. Once registered, they will receive an email notification with a unique join link.

With Zoom Webinars, there are three different ways to invite attendees to register: 

• Copy the registration URL and share via email, your website, etc.
• Select “Copy the invitation” to view and copy the invitation created by Zoom to send out to your attendees.
• Select “Email me the invitation” to receive a copy of the Zoom invitation that you can then forward to potential attendees.

Webinar benefits

Webinars are a relatively easy, cost-effective way to reach a broad audience and even generate new leads for your business. For business, education, healthcare, and other industries, a webinar provides an organization the opportunity to inform, educate, and interact with its key stakeholders and constituents.

Webinars help you present important information to a large audience to drive awareness. For example, webinars are commonly used by large companies to host all hands or town halls to convey important company information with distributed employees. Government and educational institutions may use webinars to communicate important information to the public community.

Nothing gives your newly launched product or service more credibility than a webinar that clearly shows features and benefits. This kind of webinar can help you to qualify leads, attract new customers, and accelerate your sales process.

Webinars support single-session virtual events with a group of presenters or panelists to an online audience who joins to learn and engage through chat and Q&A. A multi-session virtual event may consist of several webinar sessions.

A webinar is a very effective way to generate more leads and get new customers. For example, people who want to attend your webinar will need to register by leaving their email addresses. This gives an organization the opportunity to build up a large email list, which can be useful for future sales and marketing campaigns.

Share valuable information with your audience and receive immediate feedback. Webinars are a valuable tool for training and education. Q&A sessions allow the audience the opportunity to ask about the subject matter and any concerns or issues they may have. Since you can record the webinar, it can be used for educational and instructional purposes.

Webinar FAQs

Webinar software is the underlying software that supports web-based seminars Webinar software is designed to facilitate hosts to organize presentations that engage a large number of attendees through live or prerecorded video and digital content.

Zoom Meetings connect a group of people for interactive discussion and collaboration. Every participant joins a meeting with the ability to share audio, video and their screen to fully participate in the session. Meetings are best for group collaboration, team meetings, sales demos, online learning and training, and office hours. Meetings allow all participants to easily interact and share with each other and the host.

Webinars are best for presenting to a large audience where the host wants more control over the experience and audience members join without their audio or video turned on. The focus for webinars is on the presenter or panelists. The audience joins to listen and learn and then ask questions at the end. Zoom Webinars supports large internal and external events, such as company all-hands, city council town halls, product announcements, customer conferences, concerts, and even religious gatherings.

Yes. Most organizations offer recordings of the webinars they host, even if the actual webinar is live. Typically a link to the recording is made available so that the live webinar can be replayed at a later time. This provides an opportunity for people to either re-watch the session or to watch the original webinar for the first time if they were unable to attend the live event.

Webinar attendees typically receive an email or text notification about the webinar. They may also find a notice about the upcoming webinar online. To register as an attendee, click on the link or registration and complete any information that is required. After submitting the information, you should receive a confirmation email or text with a link that you will click to join the webinar at the scheduled date and time. As an attendee, you will be able to virtually raise your hand, submit questions in Q&A, and send messages to others. You will need the Zoom Desktop Client or Mobile App to join the webinar.

View flexible and affordable options to get started with Zoom Webinars

Written by StreamYard

What Is A Webinar? (Beginner's Guide + Tools)

Forget about spending big bucks on travel, hotels, and venues. Webinars are a wallet-friendly way to get your message out to the masses. Webinar platforms often have great features like live chat, polls, and Q&A sessions. They can also be recorded so that people can watch them later.

There’s little doubt webinars are a versatile and powerful means of communication. But if you’re new to them, they can be a little daunting. Where do you begin, and how can you make sure your online event is a success?

Don’t worry. You’re here now, and we can help! This guide will cover everything you need to know about running your first webinar. We’ll discuss definitions, benefits, the best webinar software, integrations, and even how to promote your live event via social media. We have some (fun!) ground to cover, so let’s jump right in.

What is a Webinar, and How Does It Work?

In simple terms, a webinar is a live, web-based seminar, event, or presentation that is transmitted over the Internet. On the one hand, you have one or more speakers. On the other, an audience.

We mentioned a webinar is live. In other words, it supports real-time communication, collaboration, and the sharing of information between the presenter and those attending. Participants can typically ask questions in real-time through chat or Q&A features, too.

In terms of content, webinars are commonly used for educational, instructional, or marketing purposes. So, it's common for them to include features like slideshows, live chat, and demonstrations.

We also said a webinar is transmitted over the internet. This means participants can join from any location and/or device that has a stable connection—no need for physical presence.

Lastly, many webinars are recorded, allowing people to access the content on-demand later if they cannot attend the live session.

The Industries and Creators That Use Webinars

Webinars are a big thing in lots of different industries and among all kinds of creators. And what they're all about really depends on who's putting them on. For example:

• Large corporations use webinars to run employee training sessions, workshops, and professional development programs.
• Schools and online learning platforms use webinars for virtual lectures and interactive lessons. They can also be an excellent addition to traditional classroom learning.
• Businesses use webinars to show off their products, give demos, and chat with potential new customers. Sales teams also use them for lead generation, presentations, and answering questions.
• Doctors and nurses might use webinars to learn new things, share medical info, and educate patients.
• Tech companies use webinars to launch new gadgets, teach people how to use software, and help with technical issues.
• Banks and financial companies use webinars to teach about money, give updates on markets, and help with financial planning.

These are just some examples, but webinars are very flexible! So, they can be used in lots of different ways across different jobs and interests.

The Advantages of Using Webinar Platforms and Tools

No matter what you're sharing (and whether you're live streaming or sharing pre-recorded content ), using webinar platforms and tools offers several advantages. So, let’s see some key benefits in a little more detail.

Advantage #1: Webinars Can Have a Global Reach

Webinars break down borders. You can connect with people from all over the world. It's a bit like throwing a virtual party, and everyone's invited. For example, as a business, you can engage with a broader and more diverse audience, regardless of their geographical location. Webinars also provide a platform for interactive presentations, polls, surveys, and other communication tools, making the experience more empowering and entertaining for everyone involved.

Advantage #2: Webinars Are Cost-Effective and Time-Efficient

Say goodbye to splurging on travel and venues. Webinars are budget-friendly, and they don't waste your time. The basic requirements for hosting a successful webinar are an internet connection, computer, webcam, and access to a solidly built webinar app. We’re talking about a cost-efficient operation that can play an essential role in driving up the profitability of any business. But that's not all. Webinars are also time-efficient. An average session takes between 30 and 45 minutes!

Advantage #3: Webinars Are Convenient

You can join a webinar from your couch, your office, or even your favorite coffee shop. This flexibility eliminates the need for travel, saving time and money. Anyone can easily access the webinar using their computer, tablet, or smartphone (which, by the way, also makes them more accessible). And, of course, if you can attend from anywhere, you can also host and present from any location, too. There’s no need for special equipment or dedicated venues.

Advantage #4: Webinars Are Interactive and Engaging

With live chats, polls, and Q&A sessions, webinars are more akin to a virtual playground. It's not just talking to people; it's talking with them. This high level of interactivity sets webinars apart from traditional seminars and presentations. It’s a two-way process that fosters active participation and helps maintain the audience's attention throughout the session. Note that this interactivity and engagement requires the right tool — not all webinar hosting tools are built the same.

Advantage #5: Webinars Work On-Demand, Too

If life gets in the way and you miss the live show, no biggie. Webinars often come with a rewind button. Maybe there was a mind-blowing revelation, a pro tip someone missed, or they just want to reinforce their understanding of a key concept. With on-demand access, the content is at a person's fingertips whenever they need a refresher.

Advantage #6: Webinars Are Scalable

Whether you're talking to a handful or a massive virtual crowd, webinars got you covered. This scalability ability isn't just about the number of attendees; it's about tailoring the experience. You could be presenting to a focused board of directors, conducting an interactive workshop for a few dozen enthusiasts, or delivering a keynote speech to thousands hungry for your insights. Webinars adapt, ensuring that your message, no matter how big or small, reaches its audience loud and clear.

Creating a Webinar: Beginner’s Guide

So, you've got something awesome to share with the world, and you're thinking, "Hey, why not host a webinar?" Great idea! As we have covered above, webinars are an excellent way to connect, educate, and engage with your audience.

If you're a newbie to the world of webinars, fear not—this beginner's guide has got you covered. Let’s break down the steps.

• Step 1: Define Your Purpose and Audience Before diving in, it’s important to clarify why you're hosting the webinar. Is it to showcase a new product, share industry insights, or teach a skill? Thinking about these questions can help you identify your target audience so you can tailor your content to meet their needs and interests, too.
• Step 2: Choose the Right Platform There are plenty of webinar platforms out there, each with its own features. Look for one that aligns with your goals, whether it's audience size, interactive features, or ease of use.

*Note: We believe StreamYard is your best option in terms of ease-of-use, stability, and quality. It’s also the most affordable. Nonetheless, other options include Zoom, GoToWebinar, and Microsoft Teams — these tend to be more expensive and lack features like displaying comments, branding, and the ability to watch it on-demand.

• Step 3: Plan Your Content It’s also essential to create a compelling outline for your webinar. For example, you can structure it like a story, with a clear beginning, middle, and end (many people find this a great approach to planning things). And, of course, don’t forget to include engaging visuals, like slides or videos, to keep your webinar attendees hooked.
• Step 4: Promote Your Webinar You should also build excitement by spreading the word . Use social media, email newsletters, and your website to promote the live webinar or event. And include catchy graphics and a brief description of what participants can expect on your landing page, too!
• Step 5: Set Up Your Tech Test your equipment, including your microphone, camera, internet connection, and ability to do screen sharing well before the webinar starts. You should also familiarize yourself with your chosen platform's features to ensure a smooth experience for everyone involved — again, we highly recommend StreamYard as your webinar platform.
• Step 6: Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse Practice makes perfect. So, run through your presentation, test your slides, and rehearse interacting with the platform. This will help you iron out any glitches, produce a high-quality webinar, and boost your confidence.
• Step 7: Engage Your Audience During the webinar, always encourage participation. This is, after all, one of the biggest advantages of using on-demand webinars as opposed to in-person events. You can use features like polls, Q&A sessions, and chat to keep things interactive.
• Step 8: Always Follow Up After the webinar, don‘t forget to follow up with its participants. Many types of webinars share additional resources, gather feedback, and thank people for attending. This helps build a lasting connection and sets the stage for future engagements.
• Step 9: Analyze and Improve Most web seminar platforms offer some useful analytics as part of their functionality. Review participant engagement, attendance rates, and feedback. Use this data to refine your approach for future webinars.
• Step 10: Keep Learning Effective webinars are a journey of continuous improvement. Stay updated on industry trends, gather feedback, and don't be afraid to experiment with new ideas to improve your online seminar and webinar content.

Tips for Creating More Interactive Webinars

Great webinars are not just about talking to your audience; they're about engaging and interacting with them. However, if you haven't run one yet, it can be hard to come up with proper activities. Worry not, though. We have some tips!

Let’s talk first about your audience. It’s essential to understand who you will be talking to . That way, you can tailor your content to their needs, interests, and skill levels. One thing is certain: The more relevant your content, the more engaged your audience will be.

A great way to break up the monotony is by incorporating** polls and surveys** into your webinar presentation. This is also an effort that requires less planning than other alternatives. For example, you can ask questions related to your topic, gather opinions, and share the results. It's an instant way to involve participants and make them feel heard!

Also, don't limit yourself to static slides. Not when you can use interactive elements like clickable buttons, hotspots, or embedded quizzes to keep people engaged! This is actually a great way to break up information and check understanding.

Another tip we want to do is to encourage you to create an environment where participants feel comfortable asking questions or sharing their thoughts. To do this, you can set aside dedicated Q&A segments throughout the webinar and actively encourage audience participation.

If applicable, always try to include live demonstrations . Whether it's showcasing a product, demonstrating a process, or giving a tutorial, adding a visual and interactive element to your virtual events can definitely help you capture attention.

Gamifying Your Webinar

You can always introduce a bit of friendly competition by gamifying your webinar. This can mean including quizzes, challenges, or interactive games related to your content. Or offering small incentives or shout-outs to keep participants engaged. Here are some more ideas you can use during your webcast, video conferencing, or webinar:

• Trivia quizzes: Begin with a quick trivia quiz related to your topic. Then, create multiple-choice questions or true/false statements. Participants can compete to see who scores the highest, and you can even display the leaderboard throughout the webinar to keep the excitement alive!
• Scavenger hunts: Create a virtual scavenger hunt by asking participants to find specific information, images, or answers related to your webinar content. You can also provide text or live video clues or prompts throughout the session.
• Live poll competitions: Structure your polls as mini-interactive competitions. For example, you can have a "Best Opinion" poll or a "Most Popular Answer" poll where your live audience gets to vote.
• Incentives and prizes: People love a chance to win something . So, you could offer small incentives or prizes for winners of quizzes, challenges, or overall participation. StreamYard has a free giveaway tool you can incorporate into your next webinar.
• Bonus round surprises: Keep audience members on their toes with surprise bonus rounds using spontaneous quizzes, quick challenges, or opportunities to share insights.

Launch Your Own Webinar Today

It's the interactive and engaging elements of webinars, such as live chats, polls, and Q&A sessions, that can create a super-dynamic and collaborative learning environment.

If you’re looking for the perfect platform to create that sort of environment and launch your first webinar, we can help.

StreamYard is a webinar hosting studio in your browser that you can access from any device, and we believe it’s the best. Especially for the price.

With the steps we have covered in this guide, you're well on your way to becoming a webinar pro. So, go ahead, start planning, and let your knowledge shine in the digital spotlight!

And try StreamYard today.

Start creating with StreamYard today

What is a Webinar & How does it Work? Full 2024 Guide

Everyone is watching more video content. That means your prospects, leads, and clients, too. So businesses have to keep up: 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool.

Webinars are a form of live video content with a lot of potential for interacting with your audience: increasing brand awareness, engaging viewers to turn them into leads, and converting leads into customers.

This article will cover everything you need to get started with webinars: what they are, why you should host them, how to successfully plan and host one, and more.

Let's dive right in.

What is a Webinar?

Webinars (short for web-based seminar) are real-time video presentations, workshops, or lectures hosted using a webinar platform .

Business-related webinars are often lead generation, authority-building, or trust-building tactics — but can serve any business purpose such as onboarding new customers, training employees internally, and more.

Webinars are a great format for businesses because of the ability to provide high-quality personalized experiences at scale: hundreds or thousands of people can register and attend the webinar live. They are much more scalable than in-person events and a lot easier to organize. No need to pay for a venue, flights, hotels — a webinar platform and a laptop are enough.

Another bonus to webinars is that they create tons of content the business can use to keep engaging and educating their audience even after the live webinar is done. Notably, this can be done by using on-demand or by repurposing the webinar (more on that later).

Run Modern Webinars to Engage your Audience

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How Does a Webinar Work?

Webinars can be accessed live, or made available on-demand.

There are 3 main parts to hosting a webinar :

• Using a webinar platform, someone will create the webinar. They will set a date, time, give it a name & description. Most tools will automatically create a registration page, so people can sign up for your webinar and access the content.
• The host is the person in charge of running (and sometimes moderating) the webinar: they make sure your webinar's content is engaging, interactive, and full of relevant value to the business' audience. They will invite guest speakers , write the webinar script, host Q&A sessions, and ensure the session is on-pace — all this to make your session as informative and interactive as possible.
• Viewers can register to an upcoming webinar on the dedicated landing page. They will get an invitation in their calendar and reminder emails before the session goes live. By showing up when the session live, attendees can interact with the hosts, guests, and other attendees through the chat, or use other interactive features such as Q&A or polls. Attendees can also access the webinar's replay on-demand to watch back their favorite moments or share it with their colleagues.

Make sure you choose a webinar platform built for interactivity to provide attendees with the most modern experience possible.

What are the Benefits of Hosting Webinars?

Now that you understand these 3 main parts of hosting a webinar, let's look into why you should consider hosting a webinar of your own.

These are the main reasons you should be hosting webinars:

Establish your Expertise

The #1 reason you want to be hosting webinars is to show your audience that you have expertise about a specific topic — webinars are a great element to add to your demand generation strategy. You want to establish yourself as an authority in your market and be the go-to source for information about your industry.

Webinars are a great format to not only show that you have expertise about specific problems your audience are facing, but also show that you have a solution. Once you build this trusting relationship with actors in your industry, you will be top-of-mind and the go-to solution for anyone facing this issue.

Showcase your Solution

Once you've established this preliminary trust with your audience, webinars are also a great way of showing your product to a group of interested people.

Product demo webinars are the opportunity to have one of your product experts show the main features of your product, how they fit together to solve the problems mentioned previously, making sure that prospects understand the value of your product.

But these webinars aren't limited to potential clients, product demo webinars can be used to educate current customers, inform users of new feature releases, or even used as training sessions for more complex features.

The use of interactive features during these webinars make for a better viewing experience: polls allow the host to gather information about the audience and Q&As allow the product expert to take chat messages and answer them in real-time.

Create Valuable Content

All your webinar content should be recorded, and if your webinar platform does not automatically record your webinars: choose one that does .

How often do you get to have an industry expert agree to a 1-hour interview where they will share their knowledge, anecdotes, personal experiences, and answer questions? Let me guess, not very often. But — invite them to a webinar — and they might just say yes.

Webinars are a goldmine for content. They make for great Hub content in the Hub and Spoke model . An hour-long webinar can easily be repurposed into 4-5 short clips, a blog article, a newsletter, 4-5 social posts, an FAQ, and more! With the right tools and techniques (and a little AI), you can easily extract 10+ pieces of content from each webinar.

All of these shorter pieces of content can be used to keep driving more people to your webinar replay: increasing engagement and building out your lead list.

High-Quality Lead Generation

Marketers generally agree to say that webinar lead generation results in some of the highest quality leads.

You will get information about every person who registers to your webinar: their name, email — you can even ask for their company name or phone number. All these registrants can be added to your list of audience members (using integrations or CSV exports).

Not only do you get information about these people, but you also have pre-qualified them: you know they are interested in the topic of the webinar. And if they show up, that's an even stronger signal that they are interested.

The best webinar platforms will provide you with detailed webinar analytics such as whether they attended the session live, if they watched the replay, and how long they watched (watch time). You can also get information about engagement: chat messages sent, poll answers, etc.

All this information makes it easy to outreach these warm leads, who are interested in your niche, product, or industry — with relevant messaging.

Support Marketing Team's Efforts

Marketing is all about engaging with your audience, prospects, and customers — and webinars can support efforts all through the funnel .

91% of B2B professionals say webinars are their preferred type of content. Paired with the 1-to-many aspect of webinars, this makes them a no-brainer for any marketing team.

Modern webinar platforms help marketers build thought-leadership through innovative and entertaining experiences, while helping generate a ton of value for content teams to redistribute unique and authentic content through different formats.

Increase Brand Awareness

Most businesses struggle with getting their brand out there, and webinars can be a powerful solution to this predicament.

Running branded webinars allows you to associate the authority and trust of the content directly with your brand. This will increase brand awareness and recognition for relevant people in your industry.

However, this can also be a double-edged sword. Make sure your content is on-brand, up to par with your brand's expectations, or you might disappoint your audience and create a negative brand experience.

Customer Education and Onboarding

Closing a new customer might be considered the "hard part" but the job isn't done until the customer is up & running and successful with your product.

Customer onboarding webinars are an excellent way of helping your customer success reps engage with new (and existing) customers. They can guide them through the more difficult features towards your products "aha-moment".

Creating an interactive (and fun) experience for client onboarding will not only help with information recall, but also positively impact the way they see your product and brand — increasing word-of-mouth and retention in the long run.

You can also embed the webinar on your website (or in your product) to make it available on-demand for all your users.

Improve Internal Communication and Training

We've talked a lot about how webinars can help you communicate and build trust with the outside world. But as organizations scale and teams get bigger, webinars can be used to improve communication between and amongst teams (and this is particularly true with the rise of remote work).

Webinars are a much more efficient way of communicating than 1:1 training or onboarding sessions, while providing a fun and human-centric experience. Would you rather watch a video of someone or read a long piece of text? I know what I'd prefer.

Onboarding and training webinars can also be used on-demand increasing capabilities and reducing ramp time for new employees.

Here's what Luuk de Jonge, Product Marketing Manager at Contrast has to say about webinars:

"We're a webinar platform. Obviously, we have to run webinars. But they've become a fun and authentic way to engage with our audience. We always have a fun time interacting with them during our live sessions, building strong relationships and trust. Webinars are a great way to get an expert to hop on a call for an hour with us and dish our some wisdom. We can then take that content and repurpose it into a month's worth of content in a few clicks with repurpose Ai ."

Types of Webinars

There are tons of different webinar types and formats, all with different and unique purposes and advantages. Make sure you pick the right format depending on your webinar's goal.

Here are a few of the most common webinar formats and content types:

Webinar Formats

The webinar category must be chosen before the content of the webinar is decided as it will impact what kind of content is used:

Live Webinar Live webinars are presentations, workshops, panel discussions, or other formats that take place in real-time and are broadcast to an audience. These are the most engaging, authentic, and entertaining formats as the audience can interact with the host, guest, and impact the rest of the webinar with questions or poll answers.

On-demand Webinars On-demand webinars are usually replays of webinars that viewers can access at any time. They help businesses increase the ROI of their webinars by extending the life of a webinar past the live, so it can keep generating leads, building thought leadership, and contributing to revenue.

Paid Webinars Some businesses run paid webinars instead of giving away their expertise for free — some businesses are even entirely built around this model. The registration page includes a payment gateway (using Stripe for example) so attendees can pay for their seat to access the webinar's content. Paid webinars can be live or on-demand.

Recurring Webinars Recurring webinars are are online events or webinars that are scheduled to occur at predetermined intervals. It is common that you find events or webinars to take place daily, weekly or monthly. In most cases, these webinars or events follow a consistent format. These webinars can cover a wide variety of topics: product demos, onboarding sessions, training sessions, or others.

Evergreen Webinars Evergreen webinars are timeless on-demand webinars. They are always relevant, no matter when they were made. Topics tied to current news, statistics, trends, or reports are unsuitable, as their relevance is fleeting and likely to evolve shortly. Evergreen webinars are best when they include content that maintains its value over time.

Webinar Content Types

Once you have decided on your format you can decide what kind of content you're going to put in your webinar:

Live video Showing live video during your webinar is a great way to build trust with your audience. In an age of AI and fake content, live video is pretty much impossible to fake. Make sure you have a nice, tidy background and turn your camera on to show the "human side" of your business.

Pro tip: Even if you're going to share slides, videos, or other assets, you can start the first few minutes of the webinar with just a facecam view to make your content more approachable.

Slideshow Presenting a slideshow is great way to structure your webinar and provide some supporting visuals to help educate your audience on the topic. Make sure you don't have too many slides or too much text on them or you might lose your audience.

Pro tip: Many webinar tools will make you upload slides as a PDF format, so you will lose any transitions or animations that you put in your slides. Either decide that you're ok with not having them or instead share your screen to present the slides.

Screen Sharing Probably the most common webinar content type, screen sharing is very versatile and gives you control over what you want to show during your webinar. For example, if you run a product demo you can share you screen to walk your audience through the tool step-by-step while providing commentary. This can also be useful for onboarding sessions, as audience members will be able to follow along and see where you are clicking.

As mentioned above you can also use screen sharing to share slides or presentations and include animations. At Contrast we like to use FigJam (from Figma ) boards that we prepare for the webinar ahead of time instead of slides. They give a much more fluid feel to the webinar, give visual hierarchy to the information, and makes for a nice asset to share post-webinar.

Pro tip: Make sure to prepare what you are going to screen share ahead of time so you don't make too many mistakes doing it live. If what you have to share is complex, consider recording it and using it as a video asset that you can comment instead of sharing your screen.

Webinar chat The webinar chat is the #1 way of creating a bidirectional interaction with the audience and will be the main way they will have of communicating with the moderator, host, or guest speakers.

Viewers will use the chat to ask questions, interact with each other, and start building a relationship with the people hosting the webinar.

Pro tip: Make sure you acknowledge chat messages so that the audience feels seen & heard — this will increase audience engagement. Try to recognize people who show up often and call them out!

Pre-recorded Video Sometimes a set of slides or a screen share isn't going to cut it — maybe what you need to show is too complicated or it needs some editing (blurring out information for example). For these cases, using a pre-recorded video as an asset during your webinar can be a great solution.

You can also use pre-recorded videos to deal with availability issues, for example pre-recording a speaker's intervention or playing a customer testimonial even though they couldn't make it to the webinar live.

Pro tip: You can go as far as to record the whole webinar in advance and just play it — however we only recommend this for very specific use cases as people will not be fooled: they will know it's a fake live. For most use cases we would recommend using a high-quality replay instead. Honesty is the best policy.

Polls Running a live poll during your webinar is a great way to learn more about your audience. Data suggests the best webinar hosts run a poll every 30 minutes, or on average 2 per hour webinar. You can use polls to ask the audience how they're feeling, what other topics they're interested in, or even asking them if they'd be interested in a demo of your product.

Pro tip: Show the poll results live on-screen during the webinar and discuss the results. This will give the audience the impression they are impacting what's to come with their vote and will increase completion rates of your polls.

Create a Modern Webinar Experience for your Viewers

How to Plan a Successful Webinar

There's a lot that goes into planning a successful webinar , and that can turn it into quite the stressful ordeal. But don't worry, we've got you covered.

We'll cover how to create the backbone of your webinar — A-Z:

• Identify your target audience
• Choose a webinar topic that will resonate with them
• Watch other webinars about similar topics
• Define your goals and objectives
• Pick your webinar format
• Choose a webinar platform
• Assign roles to your team
• Invite your guest speakers
• Create your webinar's assets
• Create an action plan

Let's dive right in:

1. Define your objective and goals

Why do you want to run a webinar? What's the purpose of the webinar going to be?

Lead generation for your sales team? Onboarding new customers? Establish your company as a thought-leader in your industry? Interveiw subject matter experts?

Webinars can serve pretty much any purpose, so you have to be very clear about it before getting started.

Once you've determined what the objective is, you can set goals. We recommend SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals:

• Specific  means your goal should be clear and precise, so you know exactly what you're aiming for. Instead of saying, "I want a lot of  registrants  for my webinar" specify the goal to something like, "I want 300 people to register to my webinar"
• Measurable  criteria allow you to track your progress. For the webinar goal, it's easy to measure the number of registrants in your  webinar dashboard .
• Achievable  means setting realistic goals that you're capable of accomplishing. It's about finding the balance between challenging yourself and not setting yourself up for failure.
• Relevant  ensures that your goal matters to you and aligns with your other business objectives. It's about making sure the goal is worth your time and effort.
• Time-bound  adds a deadline, creating urgency and helping you focus. For example, aiming to achieve those 300 registrants for your next webinar in 2 weeks.

2. Identify your target audience

Now that you know what the goal and objective are, and before you even start to think about content types, content formats, evergreen webinars or anything else, you first need to think about is identifying your target audience .

Identifying your target audience means figuring out:

• Who they are
• What they're interested in
• Where they spend their time

Once this step is done, it will be infinitely easier to determine everything else that you need to know about your webinar:

• What problems keep them up at night that they want to solve
• Where are they based (timezone) to decide date & time?
• What format would they be most interested in?
• What kind of guest speakers would make them show up?
• Where should you be promoting your webinar to get signups?

3. Choose a webinar topic that will resonate with them

Now that you know who you are going to talk to, it should be a lot easier to decide what the webinar topic is going to be. Starting from the webinar goals and objectives, and taking into account information about your target audience, what information can you share with them that they might be interested in?

There are infinitely many webinar topics to choose form, but here are some ideas for finding webinar topics for your target audience:

• Find topics they resonate with on your social media
• Look at webinars your competitors are running
• Analyze industry-specific information or data you have
• Repurpose your most successful blog posts or articles
• What speakers do my audience love & find their topics

Whatever your webinar topic — make sure you're specific about it. You've heard it before: riches are in the niches. For webinars, it's the same: engagement is in the specificity. Remember to use numbers to hook the audience members.

Pro tip: Dispel any objections your audience might have straight away by using "without": Get 10x more content from your webinars with AI, without spending more time.

4. Watch other webinars about similar topics

So you know why you're running the webinar, who the webinar is for, and you have an idea of what the webinar is going to be about. Now it's time to look for some inspiration.

Watching webinars by other actors in the industry can give you a lot of insights into what kind of content works, what people are generally interested in, who the main influencers are (recurring guests across webinars). Take notes of what they do well (and what they do poorly) so you can implement it during your own webinars.

Pro tip: Look for blog posts, social media content, YouTube videos, and other content formats to take inspiration from for your webinar. These will all help structuring your content and making sure it's understandable by your audience.

5. Pick your webinar format and content type

A lot of guides will suggest choosing whether you want your webinar to be live, on-demand, or another format. But whatever you choose — you'd be missing out on ~50% of views. So do both.

Live webinars will be the optimal setup for maximising engagement with the audience: taking questions, starting polls, sharing ideas, allowing for networking.

On-demand webinars will help you maximize the views and leads generated: making the webinar accessible whenever your audience would like, allowing them to go back, rewatch their favorite parts, share with colleagues, and more.

Modern webinar platforms will automatically turn your live webinar and make it available on-demand to help you maximize views.

Then, you need to decide on the content type. Your research (4) should help inform your decision but this is up to you. Have amazing guest speakers? Host a panel discussion. Running a product demo? Screen sharing and some pre-recorded video assets will probably do.

Pro tip: Whatever the format you decide to run with, consider how you can make the webinar more engaging and interactive by making it more fun and authentic.

6. Choose a webinar platform

Choosing the best webinar platform for your needs is an important part of running a webinar and can impact how successful your webinar is. Modern platforms will make your content feel more professional and will leave a lasting impression on your audience.

Some of the factors to consider when choosing a platform:

• How many attendees are you expecting?
• Does the platform's pricing fit your budget?
• Does the platform let you customize with your brand ?
• Can you send automated reminders/follow-up emails?
• How many team members and/or speakers can you invite?
• Does the platform give you detailed analytics on registrants/attendees?
• Does the platform integrate with the other tools you use (eg. HubSpot )?
• How easy is the platform to use? Do they have a free plan/trial to test it out?
• What do the online reviews say?

We might be a little biased, but we'd recommend Contrast — the best webinar platform for companies of all sizes. It's the easiest tool to set up, promote, run, analyze, and repurpose amazing webinars that your audience will love.

Here's what Aurélien from Numeral has to say about Contrast:

7. Assign roles to your team

Webinars are a team sport — they're pretty much impossible to run on your own. Hopefully your webinar platform has unlimited seats so you can invite your whole team to collaborate.

We've talked about a few different roles already but let's cover them in more detail:

Webinar host It's the webinar host's job to make sure that both the guest speakers invited to your webinar and of course the attendees have the best possible experience. People that attend the webinar, will often see the webinar host as the face of the company.

It's the webinar's host their job to create engaging conversations and enable the guest speaker to focus on what to say. This way they make sure that the audience gets the most value out of the webinar possible.

Reponsibilities of the host:

• Settings the agenda with the speakers
• Creating the slide deck and other visuals
• Run a test event to make sure everything is ok
• Engage the audience during the webinar
• Repurpose the best parts of the webinar

Pro tip: The choice of the host is an important factor in the success of the webinar. Pick someone with subject matter expertise, that is a good public speaker, and has good charisma. Bonus points if they perform well under pressure.

Webinar moderator For smaller webinars, the host can be the same person as the moderator. But for 100+ attendees we recommend having a dedicated moderator.

The moderator will be the person interacting with the chat, using the webinar platform's interactivity features (polls, Q&A, etc.), and making sure the webinar is on-pace.

Depending on the size of your team you might even have people who can help you create the content and assets, or help with promoting the webinar.

Pro tip: Consider having a backup host in case your host gets sick!

8. Invite your guest speakers

The speakers (just like the host) are one of the most important parts of a webinar as they set the tone but also bring their expertise to the webinar.

There are 3 main aspects to consider when picking a guest speaker:

• Subject matter expertise: You want a guest speaker that will be capable of talking about the topic of your webinar for a substantial amount of time, with assurance, and expertise. The expertise of the speaker will transfer in part to your company.
• Public speaking skills: Your speaker can be as knowledgeable as you'd like — if they suck at speaking and keeping the audience engaged, you're not going to have a successful webinar. Prefer speakers who have previous experience talking to crowds or on webinars.
• Pre-existing audience: A great speaker will not only know how to talk about a topic (and talk about it well) but will also be able to bring some new audience to your webinar because they will want to hear the guest speak.

Pro tip: Topical influencers make for good guests as they often have a combination of the 3 traits that make a good guest speaker.

9. Create your webinar's assets

We're almost there. Now we need to start preparing the content. This section will depend a lot on the type of webinar you are hosting, but make sure you have at least these:

Webinar title The webinar title is probably the most important asset for your webinar, as most people will decide solely from the webinar title if they will register or not to your webinar. Some tips for writing a good webinar title: 1. Include the keyword of your webinar 2. Speak to your audience's pains or wants 3. Be clear about the outcome of the webinar 4. Good writing 5. Tone of voice

Pro tip: Remember that the title of your webinar only has one function. and that is to get the person to read the description of your webinar. What's the purpose of the description? Get them to register.

Webinar cover image The cover image will be the second asset someone will see when deciding whether or not to register to your webinar — so make sure it stands out. A good cover image will include: - Guest speaker's pictures - Date and time of webinar - Webinar title And remember to use your brand colors and identity.

Webinar script/outline Depending on how confident the host and the guests are, maybe you don't need a webinar script . However, determining at least a rough outline will be beneficial for both the host, guest, and audience. Remember, overprepare and you'll lose the authenticity of the webinar, but underprepare and you'll be jumping from topic to topic without a goal and you might lose the audience.

Guest speaker questions No matter what type of event you are going to run, make sure you have some questions for your guest speaker . A few introductory questions to help the speaker present themselves and then some closing questions at least.

Webinar presentation A powerpoint, figma file, Prezi document, make sure you work with the guest speaker to have a main supporting document for the webinar. Remember to hook the audience at the beginning with the promise of a payoff and keep some space for engaging with the audience. Your presentation can either be a support or a crutch — you decide.

Pro tip: When planning the webinar make sure to build it specifically around audience engagement. How will you break the ice? Will there be a Q&A section and when? Will you take audience questions during the presentation? How will you use polls to keep the audience interested?

10. Create an action plan

Even before the webinar starts it's worth considering the post-webinar workflow.

• Where are we going to find the webinar analytics ?
• How are we going to get feedback from the audience?
• How will we use this feedback to improve the next webinar?
• How are we going to repurpose the webinar content ?
• How are we going to follow up with registrants?

Pro tip: Consider sending a post-webinar survey to get feedback from the audience on what they liked, didn't like, so you can adapt your next webinars and keep improving.

Modern Webinars your Audience will Love

How to Run a Webinar: Step-by-Step Guide

So you've just finished planning your webinar, not it's time to actually create the webinar, schedule it in your webinar tool, and run it.

Let's cover all the different steps:

• Decide on a date and time
• Create a registration page and form
• Set up reminder emails
• Share assets with speakers
• Promote your webinar
• Practice using your webinar tool
• Test your equipment

Here we go:

1. Decide on a date and time

The first step to running your webinar is to finalize the date & time of your webinar. Discuss with your team and guest and find a time that works for everyone (and block it in their calendars).

What's the best time and day to run a webinar ? There's not one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on your audience and their timezone.

Our research suggests that the best time to host a webinar is 12PM and 2PM in the attendee's local timezone with an average attendance rate of 45-50%.

What about the day of the week? Thursdays are the best days of the week to host a live webinar if you're optimizing for attendance rates (on average 41.5%).

Wednesday and Friday being second best. Mondays comes in close third.

Wondering how long your webinar should be ? Most webinars default to 60 minutes, but our data shows

2. Create a registration page and form

Now you've decided on a date & time it's time to actually create the webinar in your webinar software.

Because you've been following this guide to a T, you already have all the assets you need to create a page (title, cover image, description, etc.). It should only take you a few minutes to create the event (if not — you should consider switching to Contrast ).

Most webinar tools will automatically create a registration page when you create a new webinar. You can customize this page from the webinar settings. You can also customize the fields in the registration form to ask for company name, website, phone number, or any other custom property to qualify your audience and help will follow-ups.

You can also make your own registration page for your webinar and host it on your website. Then, using integrations (HubSpot, Zapier, Make, or APIs), connect it to the webinar so when people fill out the registration form on your website they automatically get registered to the webinar.

Pro tip: Try to keep your registration form as short as possible. There are many enrichment tools like Clearbit to get all the information you need from just an email. Keeping the form short makes it easier for people to register and will increase the number of people who register to your event.

3. Set up emails

Not everyone's going to remember your webinar — so to make sure people show up you need to set up some an email sequence . Contrast creates a default set of emails that are automatically branded, but that you can adjust however you'd like.

3 main email categories you need to remember:

• Registration confirmation emails are sent as soon as someone registers to your webinar. Confirmation emails should contain a calendar invitation, making it easy for registrants to add it to their calendar. Make sure to thank the person for registering, confirm the value they will get by attending, and remind them of the date and time.
• Reminder emails are sent a set amount of time before going live, try creating FOMO around your event and use every email to drill down the value of your event to make sure you maximize attendance rates . They should include a link to access the webinar (and ideally should avoid making the user sign up a second time).
• Follow up emails are sent a set amount of time after the event. They can be segmented depending on if registrants attended the live or not. Make sure they include a link to the on-demand version of your webinar. Follow up emails are also the best place to send a follow-up survey and get feedback from the audience.

Pro tip: We recommend sending a reminder 1 day before, 5 minutes before, and the follow-up 1 hour after the end of the webinar to maximize attendance and views. Make sure you write a good email subject line to increase open rates.

4. Share assets with speakers

Your speaker should have access to all the assets for the webinar: name, cover image, presentation, short description, personal link, etc. This will make it a lot easier for them to both prepare but also share the upcoming webinar.

You can provide them with insights about the audience, information about your company so that they can give relevant anecdotes or share personal experiences that fit well with your company & content.

5. Promote your webinar

Promoting your webinar is a complex topic that deserves a dedicated article. But the goal is to get your webinar registration page in front of as many of your ideal audience members as possible.

Let's cover some of the most common ways of promoting your webinar:

Webinar invitation emails Data suggests that webinar invitation emails are still the #1 channel for driving webinar registrants. Reach out to people in your mailing list, people who have registered to your previous webinars, etc. with a relevant message and making it very clear why they should attend the webinar: what's in it for them.

Social media promotion Another great way of driving registrations to your webinar is social media promotion . LinkedIn is the most common platform for B2B but you can also look into Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or other platforms depending on your target audience. You can also partner up with your guest speaker (or influencers) to help marketing your webinar.

Website, banners, pop-ups You're already driving tons of qualified traffic to your website, try to convert them with banners, pop-ups or other webinar CTAs . Try to create urgency by mentioning how much time is left before the webinar or how many spots are left to drive even more registrations.

Communities and network Don't forget to share your webinar with your customers, leads, prospects, and more! They're likely to be interested in the content you're creating. But you can also look for other communities on Facebook, Slack, Discord, or other platforms. Look for communities of people in your target audience and keep the messaging value-driven. Don't make it look like you're just trying to get leads or sell your product.

Pro tip: Don't forget to ask your guest speakers to share the link to the registration page to their audience. You can give them a link with UTMs to track how many registrations they're driving, and include some social media guidelines for sharing links to maximise distribution.

6. Practice using your webinar tool

Make sure you practice using your webinar tool, especially if it's the first webinar you run with it!

Jump into the webinar's green room (or Studio ) with the guest speakers, host, and moderator and practice using the main features of the platform.

Running a Q&A session at the end of your webinar? Make sure you know how to take a question from the audience and show it on-screen.

You can also upload all the content you're going to use to the webinar studio (slides, videos, etc.) and run through them with the guest speaker to make sure everything is ready for the live event. Polls and other assets can also usually be created ahead of time to avoid the stress of creating them during the live.

Pro tip: If you want to practice going live it's best to create a new test event, most webinar tools will start recording when you hit go live and this will turn your upcoming event into a replay.

7. Test your equipment

While you practice using the webinar tool, you can also test your webcam and mic . Make sure everyone's camera and microphone are being picked up, that there are no quality issues, and look into improving someone's setup if necessary.

Best Practices to Make a Webinar Engaging

Running a webinar (as you've seen already throughout this article) is a lot of work. But if there are 2 aspects where you need to focus 80% of your energy on it's: creating good content & engaging your audience.

People will be lenient if you are stressed, if your internet goes out, or if you get a little lost in your presentation, but only if the underlying value of the webinar is there.

Make your event interactive

An easy way to engage your audience is to make your webinar interactive . You can do this through the chat, polls, Q&A, and other features. But this is also done in the way you choose to present the content — make sure to include the audience: ask for their opinion, feedback, and thoughts.

Don't make it too salesly

The underlying goal of most webinars is to sell a product or service. But if you spend 45 minutes or an hour selling your product it's just going to bore your audience. Instead focus on delivering valuable content, building trust with your audience, and solving their problems — your product will sell itself.

High quality video and audio

It's 2024 — 240p video and audio that sounds like you're 10,000 feet under the sea just won't cut it anymore. Your mobile phone has a powerful camera and if you have a new-ish version of any major laptop brands you also have a good enough microphone. If not — you can get a high quality one for <$100.

Act like a human being

Yes, a webinar is a professional content piece — but that doesn't mean you have to act like a robot (or an NPC). Smile, have fun, crack a joke, tell a personal anecdote... just be yourself! People buy from other people and humor, vulnerability, and sharing personal experiences are powerful relationship-builders.

Repurposing your Webinar to Increase ROI

You spent all this time creating and hosting this webinar, you can't just let it die after the live.

Webinar repurposing involves taking existing webinar content and adapting it for use in different contexts or platforms. You'll often see that it includes editing, reformatting, or repackaging the original video to suit the requirements or preferences of a new audience or platform.

Modern tools like  Contrast  use Ai to speed up the process of repurposing video content:

The first step of repurposing a webinar is to get the transcript. Then it can be fed into different AI tools to extract the main value and transform it into different formats. Sound complicated? It doesn't have to be.

Every time you run a webinar on Contrast you automatically get:

• Transcript of the webinar
• Easy repurposing into 5 different formats
• 5 suggested subtitled clips
• As many subtitled clips as you want

You can use this to keep driving people to watch your on-demand webinar, which will feel your sales & marketing team with a ton of data about your viewers, as well as helping you fill your content calendar in just a couple of clips.

You can also consider embedding your webinar on your website once it's over so your website visitors can watch the webinar. Some webinar platforms will have features to make it easy to embed your webinar in just a couple of clicks.

What Equipment do you Need for a Webinar?

Webinars are a very cost-effective marketing tactic because you can start running they with very little initial investment.

All you need to host a webinar is:

• Stable and high-speed internet connection
• Reliable and modern webinar platform
• A webcam or external camera (you can use your phone and Camo for a very high-quality camera you already own).
• A microphone (and ideally a headset to avoid any echo)

Make sure you're sitting in a room with good lighting and a nice background, and you're ready to run your webinar!

Pro tip: Want to improve your webinar setup ? Look into improving your equipment in this order: Lights > Microphone > Camera.

Key Webinar Takeaways

Webinars are an amazing communication channel for businesses of any size — allowing them to reach infinitely large audiences while creating engaging and powerful experiences.

They can be of many different formats and serve different purposes but the fundamentals remain the same: identify who your target audience is, figure out what's bothering them or what they want to learn, and create high-quality, engaging content for them.

If you follow all the steps of this guide and follow the relevant links, we're sure you'll put on an amazing show for your audience.

Wondering where to start? Check out Contrast — whether your a webinar beginner or expert it offers all the tools you need to run a modern, high-quality, and engaging experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to participate in a webinar.

As a viewers, participating in a webinar is as easy as first registering through the form on the registration page. You can then add the webinar to your calendar with the link to access the live. The day of the webinar, you can join the room (a few minutes early to make sure you don't miss anything) and when the host goes live, the webinar will begin.

Can they see you during a webinar?

Webinars are view-only for attendees, meaning attendees cannot see or hear each other, and the host cannot see or hear attendees either. The host can decide whether or not they want to be seen during the webinar.

Do you have to talk in a webinar?

Webinars are view-only meaning attendees can't talk during a webinar: they cannot be seen (or heard). However, they can participate by using the chat feature to communicate with other attendees or with the host/the speakers.

What is the best webinar platform?

Contrast  helps you run your webinars in an easy to-use platform. With their webinar studio you create engaging live webinars that your audience will love. And Repurpose Ai helps you turn your webinar into a content goldmine.

Max is a growth marketer and content creator with a penchant for data and automation. He's Head of Growth and Marketing at Contrast.

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What Is A Webinar? How To Create Engaging Online Events

In this post

How does a webinar work?

Types of webinar, webinar features , benefits of hosting webinars, challenges of a webinar, tips for creating an effective webinar, best webinar software in 2024.

Imagine you can educate a global audience, capture high-quality leads, and train your remote team – all from the comfort of your desk. Webinars, a blend of "web" and "seminar," are powerful online workshops or conferences that can achieve all of this and more.

What is a webinar?

Webinars are online video conferences or presentations hosted often for business-related purposes. These sessions can be used to share knowledge, ideas, and updates with people around the world.  

Webinar platforms make it easy to develop presentations that align with your brand guidelines and increase audience engagement. Unlike physical seminars, webinars remove geographical limitations, allowing the host to connect with attendees worldwide. 

While renting a venue and hiring a catering company isn’t necessary, hosting an online webinar does require some planning.

Webinars offer a streamlined way of effective learning and communication between the host and their audiences. Here are the steps involved in organizing a webinar:

Choosing a platform

The organizer will select a webinar platform to host the online event. These webinar platforms offer useful features for registration, managing attendees, capturing leads , and presenting content.

Plan the webinar

The organizer must establish the webinar's goal, whether it's to generate leads or educate the attendees. Planning also involves identifying the target audience and content. Finally, a date and time that works for the target audience and speakers are chosen.

Promote the webinar

Post planning, it's time to promote the webinar through various channels, such as email marketing , social media, or paid advertising. This typically involves creating a landing page where attendees can register for the event.

Prepare the presentation

At this point, the webinar speakers will develop the presentation content, including slides, demos, or any other visuals they plan to use.

Conduct technical rehearsal 

Before the live event, the organizer conducts a dry run with the speakers to ensure everything works smoothly. This includes testing audio, video, screen sharing, and presentation software .

Want to learn more about Webinar Platforms? Explore Webinar products.

Webinars can take different shapes to suit different business needs. Check out some of the most common webinar types below:

• Live webinars  are the most interactive, occurring in real time. Attendees can participate through chat, polls, and live Q&A. Live webinars are ideal for presentations, workshops, and discussions where immediate engagement is crucial.
• Pre-recorded/on-demand webinars  are pre-recorded presentations that attendees can access at their convenience. They offer flexibility but limit interaction. On-demand webinars are suitable for evergreen content, product demos, or lectures where consistent information is key.
• Automated webinars  combine pre-recorded content with automated elements like email triggers and marketing messages. They're useful for lead generation, nurturing, or delivering introductory content without a live presenter.
• Hybrid webinars  combine live and virtual elements. They might involve a live speaker at a physical location presenting to a remote audience or a panel discussion with some participants attending virtually. This is ideal for large events or situations where travel is impractical.

The purpose of a webinar is up to the host, but the options available are wide. This means that the tools you use to launch your webinar have to be flexible enough to provide features that will keep your audience engaged, no matter the topic. 

Below are some of the features that most webinar tools provide. Learn how you can take advantage of them while hosting your own webinar. 

Engaging an audience, big or small, can be done in several different ways, but one of the most simple methods is enabling text chat. This allows your audience to ask related questions or answer questions that you prompt. Without being in the same room, it’s difficult to grab a presenter’s attention with a question or an answer, but text chat in webinar tools makes it possible.

Slide decks 

Making an engaging webinar can be difficult. If your webinar is educational in one way or another, consider having a slide deck handy to present to your audience as you talk through it. Having a slide deck also allows you to provide a clear agenda for your viewers, encourage engagement, and give the audience something to take away.  

Traditionally, webinars run live so that the audience can ask the presenter questions and get answers in real time. Although watching a pre-recorded webinar becomes less engaging, the information being presented or discussed can be viewed by those who missed the live version, can be referred to later by your audience, or recorded with a guest who is unable to make the scheduled time. 

Screen sharing

If your topic requires a demonstration, screen-sharing solutions in webinars will come in handy. Viewers will be able to see exactly what actions you’re taking on your screen and follow along on their own if needed.

Screen sharing can be useful beyond demos, too. If you’re sharing a video or presentation in a non-traditional way, screen sharing is a way to show your audience what you’re seeing. Additionally, if you’re demonstrating more than one process or using more than one tool or file, screen sharing is often more effective than screenshots for viewers.

If you’re explaining a complex topic and want to do it live, using a collaborative whiteboard enables you and other hosts to take notes, illustrate ideas with drawings, or draw arrows to demonstrate a process. The whiteboard feature that some webinar software provides allows your audience to feel like they’re right there with you and gives them a clearer idea of your subject.  

Surveys and polls

Providing polls during your webinar allows you to give your audience a set of options to choose from, keeping your results organized in one place. Polls and surveys give your audience an easy way to engage with your presentation and questions quickly and orderly.

From internal training to capturing leads, marketers from all industries use and define webinars for various purposes. No matter what industry you’re in, below are some of the many ways that you can use a webinar.

Present your newest product

It doesn’t make much sense to expect all of your customers to book a flight to your conference every time you launch a new product. However, asking them for an hour of their time online to showcase your latest creation is a lot more manageable. 

Product webinars are a chance for you to get everyone from your leads to your brand evangelists in one place. You’re not only there to educate registrants on the latest updates but also to answer questions.

Taking the time to discuss your viewers' questions and answer each one can reassure current customers that they’re in good hands while also pushing leads down the pipeline towards purchase. 

Position yourself as the expert

Hosting a webinar on a topic—whether related to how to code a website or mental health—puts the presenter on a virtual pedestal. While some registrants choose to attend for support, many of your attendees are tuning in to hear what you have to say as a thought leader. 

Even if your webinar is free, they’re still giving you their contact information and time out of their day to hear what you have to say. Registrants trust that you’re delivering information that is valuable, unique, and interesting. 

Engage your audience

Unlike social media marketing or banner ads, webinars hold a different power over your audience: the power of scarcity. Social media posts are here to stay, and advertisements are hard to get away from. But live webinars promise a value above traditional marketing tactics, and that value is a much more unique one. 

Showing up late, leaving early, or forgetting to attend your live webinar entirely means that your viewer – prospect, lead, or customer – is missing something. Other attendees now know something that they don’t, and the person who’s missed out is going to be feeling it. 

Even if you choose to record your webinar and post it later, it’s like your viewer is choosing to watch a viral series on Netflix months after it airs. They’ll be in the loop, but only after everyone else is. On top of that, they won’t have the chance to ask questions or answer others’, leaving them in the dark when it comes to interaction. 

Generate new leads

Without leads, there’s no business. Marketers can generate leads in many ways, but they can struggle to attract high-quality leads. Webinars on topics relevant to your business are a great way to generate high-quality leads that marketers are looking for. Why?

The people who see that you’re promoting your webinar will likely venture to your landing page and engage with your form by registering for the event. These are the people who are telling you that they’re interested in whatever it is you have to say. 

Some people may accidentally click on a link or download an asset and be pooled into your list of leads, but those who register and attend your webinar are as high-quality as they get. 

The benefits of hosting a webinar are plentiful, but they don’t come without their own challenges, either.

From attracting people to your event and keeping them engaged, below are some of the most common challenges that webinar hosts face and how to resolve them before they even arise. 

Technical issues

Webinars have a unique set of challenges, but technical issues are universal across industries, activities, and people around the world.

If you’re organizing a webinar, the largest challenge you’ll have to prepare to face is technical difficulties. From an internet connection to an operating system , the number of different issues you'll be confronted with is endless. 

Prepare ahead of time by running through a few checks. Check your environment for internet stability, camera positioning, lighting, and sound. Check your tech for ease of use, chat options, poll and survey features, and screen sharing. Finally, check your participants to ensure they understand how to use each feature.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a webinar is broadcast and nobody attends, do you even have a webinar? The answer to that second question is definitely “no”.

Preparing a webinar means nothing if nobody sees or hears what you have to say. Promotions will make up the majority of your webinar’s success, just like any event’s success. Promoting at the wrong time on the wrong channels will not generate high-quality leads, and it might not even attract an audience. 

Use promotion techniques like paid banner ads, email campaigns, social media, and more. Start at least four weeks before broadcasting. Don’t forget to send your registrants a reminder the day or even an hour before you broadcast.

Keeping your audience engaged

Our attention spans are shorter than ever, meaning that if there’s a way for us to lose our focus, we will. Holding someone’s attention in a traditional meeting or presentation is one thing, but doing it virtually is another hurdle to jump over. 

The format of your webinar will determine the difficulty of this first step, but one of the things that keeps people engaged is including them in your conversation.

Incorporate hand-raising, a Q&A, or polls into your presentation. Use GIFs, images, or videos to capture your audience's attention and make the visual appearance of your webinar appealing and exciting.

"A great way to break tension is to have a couple of jokes prepared for the intro. Having a few light comments ready to go while introducing guests, touching on housekeeping, or welcoming people can put you in a relaxed mood and help you navigate any awkwardness." AJ Alonzo Director of Marketing, Demand Drive

Measuring success 

It’s unlikely that you’ll make direct sales during your webinar, and most companies broadcast free webinars. If you’re not making any money during or immediately after your webinar, what does success look like?

How you determine success should be settled on far before your webinar launches.

Set a key performance indicator ( KPI ) for your webinar goals. Common webinar KPIs include attendance rate, increased traffic to your site, number of qualified leads, or pipeline generated.

The benefits of webinars can be seized, and the challenges that arise can be resolved, but no matter how well you prepare, your success is never guaranteed.

If you’re broadcasting a webinar for the first time or haven’t seen the results you’d like in previous webinars, be sure to use these tips. 

Before the webinar

• Know your audience: Tailor your content and delivery style to the needs and interests of your target audience.
• Choose a compelling topic: Pick a topic that's relevant, timely, and offers value. Consider the audience's pain points and what they'd like to learn.
• Structure your content: Create a clear flow for your webinar. Include an introduction, a strong body with key takeaways, and a dedicated Q&A section at the end.
• Craft engaging slides: Use clear visuals, concise text, and high-quality images to boost audience engagement.
• Promote effectively: Use multiple channels to spread the word and increase webinar registrations.
• Practice: Rehearse your presentation beforehand to ensure smooth delivery and timing and address any technical glitches.

During the webinar

• Start strong: Hook your audience from the beginning with an attention-grabbing introduction and a clear overview of what they'll learn.
• Be engaging: Speak clearly and confidently, vary your pace and tone, and use visuals effectively.
• Encourage interaction: Polls, quizzes, and Q&A sessions are great ways to interact with the audience and ensure they stay involved.
• Manage time effectively: Stick to your schedule and allocate enough time for presentations, demos, and audience questions.
• Embrace technology: Utilize the features of your webinar platform to share screens, conduct polls, and manage the chat function.

After the webinar

• Follow up: Send a thank you email to attendees with a recording of the webinar and any additional resources.
• Gather feedback: Use surveys or polls to get feedback from attendees.
• Promote post-event: Make your webinar recording available on-demand to reach a wider audience.

Webinar software differs from web conferencing and audio conferencing tools in that they’re created to have a focus on one authority and many viewers.

Like all software, there’s no one-size-fits-all webinar tool that works for every business. Depending on your company’s financial state, goals, priorities, and size, some software may be a better fit than others.

To qualify for inclusion in the webinar category, a product must:

• Be meant for multiple presenters with up to hundreds or even thousands of attendees in live webinar sessions
• Include lead capture and registration capabilities
• Provide for the creation of engaging presentations and videos for widespread viewing
• Include performance tracking and audience analytics

* Below are the five leading webinar software from G2’s Spring 2024 Grid® Report. Some reviews may be edited for clarity. 

1. Webex Webinars 

Webex Webinars empowers you to connect with audiences of all sizes and deliver exceptional virtual experiences.  Whether you're a small business or a large enterprise, Webex Webinars provides the features and scalability you need to reach a global audience, deliver professional presentations, and gain valuable insights.

What users like best: 

"Webex has quite a good number of features, like video conferencing, webinars, etc. We could easily attend the online training sessions arranged by our organization remotely. It generally doesn't let or crash like its competitors. Not only online training it is quite helpful on video conferencing with n number of people on the go using our mobile or laptop. It is quite easy to install and join meetings on any device."

– Webex Webinars Review , Anand K.

What users dislike: 

"They need to work on mobile support. The app does not work as I would like; sometimes, it throws video or audio errors; they should work on customizing the program for the Linux operating system. I do not recommend working with the Firefox browser. The audio and video quality decreases considerably."

– Webex Webinars Review , Zain K. 

2. Livestorm 

Livestorm is the perfect user-friendly platform that simplifies every step of your video conferencing needs. It empowers you to host high-quality webinars, product demos, online training sessions, and virtual meetings – all from a single, intuitive interface.

What users like best:

"Livestorm is affordable and has all of the features we need. We can easily add registration forms to our website; all webinars are automatically recorded – and in pretty good quality, too, compared to many of the other webinar tools I've used. Most importantly, though, you can integrate Livestorm with Hubspot so all registrants are automatically added to your contact list, which is really important for us."

– Livestorm Review , Elisabet N.

"Livestorm is not the most intuitive platform. The internal event room experience can be jarring for team members who haven't used it before, as it's not clear that you aren't visible to outside attendees when you join the stage until you start the actual event. We've experienced a number of issues with configuring event sessions, most recently caused by an uncommunicated migration to a new plan that prevented us from configuring hosts on an existing webinar session. I also wish Livestorm offered more control over the display of team members during the presentation, including the option to show only the team member who is currently speaking."

– Livestorm Review , Emily M. 

3. Zoho Meeting

Zoho Meeting is a secure web conferencing platform designed to empower your remote collaboration.  It goes beyond simple video calls, offering a feature-rich experience for online meetings, webinars, and even hybrid meetings in physical conference rooms. The tool enables high-definition video meetings with screen sharing, collaborative whiteboarding, and real-time chat for effective communication.

“We evaluated Zoho Webinar for our social non-profit organization for a month. We run an actual webinar with multiple hosts and approx. 100+ attendees. We aim to continue with Zoho after comparing other tools for our requirements. The tool is easy to use by people who are not necessarily technical. In the social service world, we encounter many people who are not tech-savvy. In a virtual event, the ease of use of the tool is critical for getting these stakeholders involved. The people from Zoho customer service and the account management team are very supportive and genuinely provide advice in our best interest."

– Zoho Meeting Review , Ashutosh K.

"The thing I dislike about Zoho Meeting is the audio in meetings can sometimes become degraded. When I informed Zoho of this, it was looked into immediately, and some adjustments were made, which seemed to have remedied the problem. Another annoyance is the quality of the background feature. If not in a good spot, it will make you disappear in part to reveal any activity that may be happening in the background."

– Zoho Meeting Review , Dwayne S.

4. Zoom Events and Webinars 

Zoom Events and Webinars is an all-in-one platform designed to empower you to host impactful virtual and hybrid events of any size. Built on Zoom's secure and reliable video conferencing technology, it offers a seamless experience for both you and your attendees.

"It is very user-friendly and has tons of useful features to help give a great webinar class; it has AI tools, and if for any reason you should have issues, they always have customer support ready to help answer any questions. It has an easy-to-understand integration, and this is the only application I use to run my online classes."

– Zoom Events and Webinars Review , Alberto S.

"There is a cooldown for free users if they use up most of their last 10 minutes of the 40-minute free video call time. This has been my problem ever since. I cannot go beyond 35 minutes, or else I won't be able to log in for a good 10 minutes in the next session."

– Zoom Events and Webinars Review , Eunice R.

5. BigMarker

BigMarker offers a comprehensive solution for creating professional, interactive webinars, virtual events, and hybrid experiences. It's the perfect platform for businesses, educational institutions, and anyone who wants to create impactful online events and connect with their audience in a meaningful way.

“The features that we like best that BigMarker offers include the instant updates from the admin back-end directly to the app, home screen widgets, background image, “My Favorites” schedule, onsite check-in process with custom question, attendee QR code scanning for networking/leads, AI matchmaking based on industry product categories and region, pre-scheduled push notifications, and post-conference analytics."

– BigMarker Review , Cassie S.

“The initial learning curve for some of the more advanced features. While the platform is generally user-friendly, diving into some of the more intricate functionalities required a bit of exploration and experimentation. However, the extensive help documentation and responsive customer support team were always there to assist whenever I encountered any challenges."

– BigMarker Review , Robert Attila F.

Ready to tune in? 

The potential your webinar can reach goes beyond your own imagination. But it’s impossible for a webinar to exceed expectations without preparing appropriately.

Just like any other marketing effort, it’s critical that your goals are set clearly, the way that you’ll measure your webinar’s success is determined beforehand, promotion is present on the proper channels, and you and other presenters are well-rehearsed before it’s showtime. 

Interested in checking out what other webinars look and sound like? See examples of G2's own webinars .

This article was originally published in 2020. It has been updated with new information.

Daniella Alscher

Daniella Alscher is a Brand Designer for G2. When she's not reading or writing, she's spending time with her dog, watching a true crime documentary on Netflix, or trying to learn something completely new. (she/her/hers)

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What is a Webinar: The Ultimate Guide

Webinars have become an integral part of many companies' event programs. But what is a webinar? For starters, they're an excellent way to engage an audience between larger events, create a reputation as an industry thought leader, and educate attendees on niche topics. 

So, how do you craft a webinar that can do all this? And how do you attract attendees when there are so many other digital events going on? Let's start with the basics, then we'll dive into everything you need to know about hosting successful and memorable webinars.

What Is a Webinar?

Webinars are seminar-style virtual events hosted by an individual or panel of experts who share their knowledge on a particular topic. Webinars generally last about 30-60 minutes, providing an opportunity for attendees to learn from experts in a convenient and cost-effective way using a video conferencing tool .

Your Guide to Planning and Conducting Webinars in 2024

For planners, marketers, and sales teams alike, building an effective webinar program is a major priority. In fact, 73% of B2B marketers say webinars are the best way to generate quality leads, and 99% of marketers believe webinars represent a critical element of their marketing plans.

Clearly, webinars are a necessary part of your organization's total event program, and your webinar strategy should evolve to meet current expectations and technological advancements.

This ultimate guide to webinars will help break down webinar basics and offer tips to improve your webinar programs to better feed your webinar funnel and maximize your ROI.

Benefits of Hosting a Webinar

Types of webinars, webinar formats, 6 tips on how to conduct webinars effectively in 2024, planning a successful webinar, webinar best practices, difference between webcast and webinar, must-have features in an ideal webinar tool, choosing the right webinar platform, let your webinar software lead the way, webinar faq's.

Webinars are held for a variety of reasons, including generating leads, educating or training attendees, conducting product demos or product launches , and hosting internal meetings . Webinars have long been used as an effective way to expand a brand’s reach, establish a company as a thought leader in the industry, and engage with prospective customers through an accessible platform.

In meeting these goals, webinars offer immense benefits not only to attendees but to the organizations who host them. The benefits of hosting a webinar include:

• Reaching a global audience
• Cost savings associated with virtual events
• Ability to offer access to on-demand recordings for those who cannot join the webinar live
• Increased brand engagement
• Continuous between larger events
• Lead generation (this one is HUGE, with webinars offering an average conversion rate of 55% )
• Establishing hosts as industry thought leaders
• Building brand trust and loyalty
• Opportunities for networking

If you're unsure whether a webinar is the right format for your event or you just want to see all the possibilities of hosting webinars, read on to understand the various types of webinars, including webinar formats and reasons you might choose to host a webinar. 

Webinars can serve many purposes, and with a short window of time to engage attendees, webinars must have a clear intention. Here are just a few examples of webinar types your organization might choose to host:

1. Thought Leadership Webinar

A webinar hosted by an industry expert or influencer to share insights, trends, and expertise on a particular topic within their field, positioning themselves and their company as a thought leader.

2. Panel Discussion Webinar

A webinar that features a panel of experts discussing a specific industry topic or issue, providing different perspectives and engaging in interactive discussions with the audience.

3. Educational Webinar

A knowledge-sharing webinar hosted to deliver lectures, workshops, or training sessions on a specific subject or topic.

4. Training Webinar

A webinar conducted by a company or organization to provide training and education to employees or clients, covering topics such as onboarding, software training, or compliance regulations.

5. Professional Development Webinar

Similar to a training or educational webinar, professional development webinars are intended to educate attendees with a specific goal of helping them achieve their professional goals.

6. Internal Communication Webinar

A webinar conducted within an organization to communicate important updates, share company news, or conduct a webinar meeting with remote or distributed teams.

7. Product Demo Webinar

A product demo webinar is a great lead generation tool companies can use to showcase and demonstrate their product or service to potential customers, highlighting its features, benefits, and use cases.

8. Sales Webinar

A webinar hosted by a sales rep or team to showcase products or services, address customer pain points, provide solutions, and allow for feedback and questions from prospective customers, with the goal of generating leads and closing sales.

9. Customer Success Webinar

A webinar hosted by a company to onboard new customers, provide ongoing support and guidance to customers, showcase best practices and new features, and answer customer questions.

10. How-To Webinar

A webinar that breaks down simple concepts, product features, or service options to help attendees better understand how to accomplish a particular task.

Now, you might be wondering, Does a webinar have to be live? No, a webinar does not have to be held live. There are various types of webinar formats to choose from, including live streamed, simu-live, and pre-recorded. Let's break down these options:

• Live Video:  The webinar occurs in real-time. Doing a webinar live can be more challenging, as there is no room for mistakes, but it also allows more options for attendee engagement through live polls, Q&A, and responding to comments in a live chat.
• Simu-live:  This is a webinar that is mostly recorded ahead of time, but the presenter jumps on to answer questions or discuss recorded elements. This format can allow for greater production value and requires less on-the-spot involvement from your hosts.
• Pre-recorded:  This is a webinar that is recorded ahead of time so attendees are logging on to watch at their leisure. This format allows you to push your content on-demand immediately without the hassle of live streaming. The downside here, of course, is decreased engagement from attendees.

The type of webinar you choose to host will play a large part in determining the best webinar format for your event. In many instances, on-demand Webinars offer a great solution for quick and routine communication, such as internal onboarding, new customer onboarding, trainings, and how-to content.

In 2024, we've reached an age of digital disruption — one that is helping planners and marketers alike reimagine the webinar format and reevaluate how they utilize webinar programs to make the biggest impact. Webinars can range from single speaker presentations or multi-person discussions to open forums and interactive conversations with attendees.

With improved webinar software, webinar programs have grown leaps and bounds, offering exciting new ways to engage with attendees, increased levels of interactivity, and heightened production value. If you aren't making the most of the latest webinar tech , it’s time to rethink your strategy and tools to meet attendees' heightened expectations for webinar engagement .

Before we dive deeper into the finer details of planning your webinars, here are a few tips to help you conduct webinars effectively in 2024:

• Choose a reliable webinar platform: Select a w ebinar platform that offers advanced features, seamless integration options, and excellent technical support to ensure a smooth and glitch-free webinar experience for both you and your attendees.
• Make your webinars free to attend: While there may be instances where it makes sense to charge for attendance, if your webinars are part of your total events program and help feed your marketing funnel, you'll likely get more out of them by charging no fees and raking in as many attendees as possible.
• Leverage interactive features for improved engagement: Encourage active participation by using interactive features like quizzes, audience polls, live chat, Q&A, and breakout rooms for group discussions. This will make your webinars more engaging and help your attendees find greater value in the experience.
• Incorporate multimedia elements: Make your webinar visually appealing and dynamic by incorporating multimedia elements such as videos, animations, and interactive slides. This will enhance engagement and make the content more memorable.
• Keep it concise and focused: Webinar attendees likely spend many hours a day at their desks staring at their screens. Keep your webinar content concise, focused, and relevant to ensure maximum engagement and keep the attention of your attendees.
• Provide valuable takeaways: Offer valuable insights, practical tips, and actionable takeaways that participants can apply immediately after disconnecting. This helps attendees recap what they're learned and decide how to put this knowledge to use.

Of course, there's always more to learn and consider when planning your webinars. Forbes even has  12 commandments for hosting a great webinar if you're looking for more tips!

Though webinars are everywhere, not all are created equal. It takes careful planning to create an effective webinar . From content to engagement, webinars must be created with the attendee in mind, and webinar hosts should utilize a webinar hosting platform that's up to the job.

Define the Purpose of Your Webinar

What is the purpose of your webinar?  It's a simple enough question, but your answer guides everything else — content creation, the tech you need, how you interact with attendees. It's important to view the purpose of every event through two lenses: what you want attendee to gain from the experience and what you want to gain from the experience. Webinars are no different — webinars boost your profits  and provide valuable data, and they also offer attendees something they were missing, whether it's information, training resources, access to experts, or otherwise.

Webinars work so well for both hosts and attendees because they’re accessible. They don’t take an enormous time commitment those producing nor attending them, they're often free, and getting to the "venue" is as simple as clicking a link. That’s why webinars are a wonderful lead generation tool. With the right form fill, you can collect key information about your attendees that can be used to set them off on their  attendee journey  to engage with more content, establish their level of intent, and get them in front of sales.

Set Goals for Your Webinar

Once you've defined your purpose, you can set more specific goals for your webinar. Whether this is your first webinar or hundredth, you need some benchmarks, or key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you track and measure your success. 

The best goals are based on past performance. If you regularly get 100 registrations, make the goal of increasing that number by 20%. If you often achieve huge registration numbers but significantly lower attendance rates, set a goal for attendance to better measure the impact of your webinar. Because webinars use technology at every stage, there is no end to what you can track and improve upon.

Think about your attendee touchpoints when setting your goals. Set goals for  email marketing campaigns, social media, time on the webinar event website, form fills, attendance, view time,  and, of course,  survey results  after the event. Data is powerful. It should be analyzed, learned from, and used to set new goals.

When choosing goals, don’t forget to think about your stakeholders. What do they want to see? Do they care how long an attendee watches the webinar, or do they care more about how many leads are sent to sales and the quality of those leads? Often, your internal stakeholders — from leadership to marketing , to planning, to tech — all care about something different. Articulate stakeholder needs, and use them to guide your goals.

Build Engaging Webinar Content

Find the Right Topic

You have your purpose, now you need to create a webinar topic that will match your purpose. A great webinar starts with great content. What do your attendees want to see? What products is your organization trying to drum up interest for? Once you have an initial idea of your webinar market, you can refine your topic. Want to teach customers to use new product features? A how-to webinar with an open discussion style allows attendees to learn and ask questions in real time. Trying to spark discussion in the industry? Start thinking of expert speakers to bring in for a lively panel discussion.

The right topic can only be chosen when you have an audience in mind. Who is your target audience? The topic you choose should interest potential attendees and align with a pain point they need to solve.

Pick Your Webinar Content Format

This is where content creation gets interesting.  Webinar tools  have grown leaps and bounds, and you no longer have to put up with a pre-recorded webinar built from simple slides, zero video elements, and no live features like chat or Q&A. You have options! As you consider the format of your content, keep in mind the different webinar formats available, including live streamed, simu-live, and pre-recorded.

Popular Webinar Content Formats:

• Single speaker presentation
• Multi-speaker presentation
• Panel discussion with moderator
• Live Polling with moderator
• Interview led by moderator
• Open Q&A led by moderator

Choose the Right Date

While a webinar can be thrown together quickly, the best ones take preparation, especially if you’re planning to promote the webinar in advance. A strategic email marketing campaign cannot be thrown together at the drop of a hat. When choosing a date and time for your webinar, first consider your webinar process. How long will it take to find a speaker, build the event, create a marketing campaign, and so on?

With an idea of how long it will take to execute, it’s time to open the calendar. Go as many weeks in advance as it will take to build your webinar. Webinars that take place on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday see higher registration than those on Monday or Friday (and much higher than those on the weekend).

If your webinar is global, consider that when choosing the time. Otherwise, choose 11:00 am or 1:00-2:00 pm as your start time. Why? Participants are unlikely to attend webinars early in the morning, during lunch, or late at night.

Most importantly, be aware of holidays or special events. If you decide to plan a webinar on a government holiday, there is a good chance you will have very few registrations. Remember, attendees want times that are convenient and don’t take away too much time from their personal or professional lives.

Choose a Relevant Title

Many companies have their own terminology and are used to phrasing things in a specific way. But that doesn’t mean attendees speak the same language. As you refine your webinar topic , look to SEO keywords to guide the way. You’ll want to create an engaging title that will show up in search and explains what the webinar is about.

How to Pick a Title That Will Show Up in Organic Search

• Find trending keywords using Google Trends and keyword tools
• Think about industry terms
• Utilize keywords in the title
• Keep the title short and keyword-focused
• Make sure the title properly conveys the topic of the webinar
• Test a few titles with colleagues to see which resonates most

Find the Perfect Webinar Host, Speakers, or a Moderator

Choosing a group of speakers can be a challenge but can also help to vary the webinar format. A team of speakers that is well-practiced at switching back and forth and sharing their thoughts can help to keep attendees engaged .

A moderator can be used when there are many speakers or if the webinar is a Q&A or an interview. A moderator should be thoughtful, able to think on the fly, and good at keeping the conversation moving. If you’re conducting a live poll, your moderator will need to understand how your  webinar technology works so they can pull questions from the live audience.

Here is a quick list of webinar best practices as you plan your webinars:

• 60 minutes or less
• Schedule for midweek at 11 am or 2 pm
• Pick a title that is SEO optimized
• Make sure the presentation is branded
• Follow presentation best practices
• Vary formats during the presentation
• Engage attendees with quizzes, chat, and surveys
• Break long sessions into a webinar series
• Provide speakers with instruction or tech

Check out the full list of webinar best practices !

The difference between a webinar and webcast is that a webinar is an interactive virtual event designed for smaller groups of attendees in the hundreds, whereas a webcast is a more like a broadcast, allowing for no input from attendees and generally streaming to larger audiences with thousands of attendees.

From high-quality production to chat features, here are a few webinar platform features that will help improve the viewing experience and ensure great ROI for your webinars.

Webinar Registration Page

By creating a branded, detailed registration page for your webinar, attendees will be able to understand the purpose of your webinar, see critical details like the date, time, and speakers, and register for the webinar.

Embedded Video

Display embedded video live streams or recorded videos within the your webinars for a seamless virtual attendee experience.

Live Q&A

With a Q&A feature, attendees can submit questions to speakers for an additional layer of interactivity. This allows attendees to engage with the event more fully, personalize their experience by having their questions answered, and impact other attendees' experiences by bringing forward topics they might not have considered.

Session Chat

If you want attendees to feel more like they're watching your webinar together and have the ability to engage directly with your webinar hosts, allow them to use a session chat. This is a great way to encourage networking, raise quick questions, and highlight great points made during the webinar.

Web Analytics (Clicks & Views)

Get page-by-page web analytics with clicks and views to understand what content is being engaged with the most so you can modify your future webinars and inform your total events program strategy.

Engagement Scoring

Engagement scoring  gives your sales and marketing teams a simple, actionable view of attendee activity for faster and smarter follow-up.

Virtual Attendance Tracking

Track attendance during sessions for governance and enable CE credit tracking. Data from tracking can help marketers and planners understand trends.

Screen Sharing

Screen sharing is a great way to share your screen with others during a webinar. This feature allows you to share your screen with participants and even give others control of your screen so they can navigate and interact with your content. 

Elevated Production Tools

If you want your webinars to be more than a slide deck viewed over screen share, opt for a webinar platform that features elevated production tools to help you build a more engaging, visually appealing webinar. Production tools can help you customize backgrounds with preloaded options, create lower thirds, switch between layouts, and use smooth transitions between videos, speakers, or slides.

You may already have an event management platform that's capable of handling your online events, including webinars. If so, that’s great! But even if you have a tool that works, take a moment to consider whether it does everything you need it to do. 

Webinar hosting technology has exploded in recent years, and capabilities are improving and expanding every day. As you execute your webinars, keep track of what did and didn’t work from a technical perspective, and consider how different webinar platforms might better meet your and your attendees' needs.

As you look at webinar solutions, ask yourself the following:

• What features does my current webinar platform provide?
• What capabilities do I need (Chat, Quizzes, production help, etc.)?
• What is my budget for webinars?
• Do I need a total event management and marketing platform that can be used for all my events?
• Is the webinar software user-friendly?
• Does the webinar tool integrate with the event software I already have?
• How many attendees can a room hold?
• Can I have more than one presenter?
• Do I need to host live webinars , on-demand webinars , or both?
• What data do I need, and what data and analytics can the webinar tool provide?
• Are there support resources available?

Read more -  How to Create and Host a Webinar

Webinars are often lower effort than in-person, virtual, or hybrid events, but the benefits they provide long-term can be just as impressive. From establishing your organization as a thought leader to gathering leads, webinars play a big role in your  total meeting and events program . 

With a great team that combines the expertise of planning and marketing, your event program can be a huge driver for sales and impact the organization as a whole. As you build your webinars, do it thoughtfully and strategically, and consider how your webinar software can not only help you deliver great content but track your success .

Start creating webinars with the Cvent Webinar Platform today!

Still have questions about planning and hosting webinars? Check out these FAQ's!

Are Webinars Effective?

Yes! Webinars can be highly effective for delivering targeted content, generating leads, building brand awareness, and engaging a wide audience. Take a look at the section titled "Benefits of Hosting a Webinar" at the top of this post for all the great ways webinars can bring value to your marketing funnel!

How to Create Webinars?

When you're ready to start creating webinars, you'll first need a webinar platform that can engage your attendees with interactive features, offers top-notch production capabilities, allows your speakers to collaborate easily, and offers you the insights you need to measure your KPIs.

How Do You Make Webinars Interactive?

To make webinars interactive, utilize features such as live chat, Q&A, live polls, post-webinar surveys , breakout rooms, and interactive multimedia content to encourage attendee engagement.

What Is the Difference Between a Meeting and a Webinar?

While a meeting typically involves collaboration among participants with very little production involved, a webinar is primarily a one-to-many presentation or training session with visuals, audio, and other elements produced in advance.

How to Cancel a Webinar?

Although canceling a webinar is generally worst-case scenario, sometimes it can't be helped. In such cases, you should be able to easily cancel your webinar from within the webinar software you're using and automatically notify attendees that the event has been canceled. Of course, it's best to reach out to attendees directly to explain why the webinar has been canceled, whether it will be rescheduled for a different date, and whether there are any resources or other events they might be able to access instead.

Hope Salvatori

Hope is a Senior Content Marketing Associate who has been with Cvent for more than two years. She has 8 years of experience producing content for corporations, small businesses, associations, nonprofits, and universities. As a content professional, she has created content for a wide range of industries, including meetings and events, government and defense, education, health, and more.

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The Ultimate Guide to Creating Compelling Webinars

Discover how webinars allow you to host events for your target audience and customers that impact your bottom line.

FREE WEBINAR PLANNING KIT

Free Strategy Template, Checklist, and Guide

Updated: 09/07/22

Published: 09/02/20

Have you ever considered holding a unique and fun business event for your target audience and customers? An event with engaging content, interactive exercises, and networking — all with the potential of improving your brand awareness, converting more leads into paying customers, and boosting revenue?

While the idea for and potential results of this event are great, you also may have thought, "... it’s impossible to host this event — our base of customers, colleagues, and members of our professional networks are spread out all over the world.”

What if I told you that you can host this event and do so live with all of these people who are critical to your business’s success included?

You just need to host your event via webinar .

Webinar Benefits

Webinar formats.

How Does a Webinar Work?

How to Record a Webinar

Webinar software.

Host a Webinar for Free

What is a webinar?

A webinar is an online video presentation, seminar, lecture, or workshop delivered via the internet. Typically, webinars are shared live, or in real-time, but they can also be recorded before being shared with audience members.

Whether or not a webinar is live, it must include an interactive element that allows viewers to participate, ask questions, make comments, or collaborate with the presenters and/ or hosts.

Let's review the typical anatomy of a webinar.

Elements of a Webinar

• Host and presenter(s)
• Desktop computer or laptop with a camera and microphone
• Presentation (usually in the form of slides)
• Interactive element for attendees to participate in (e.g. survey, poll, or discussion)
• Webinar software (we’ll review some of these options shortly )

What is the purpose of a webinar?

Webinars provide businesses with a way to host a digital, interactive event for members of their target audience and customers, no matter their location.

Webinars can be used to boost conversions, improve brand awareness, increase revenue , and establish yourself as an expert in your field.

Webinars are an effective way of reaching many members of your target audience at once through an engaging event that doesn’t require anyone to be in the same location.

Let's dive into some of these benefits in greater detail.

1. Personalize your content and event.

Webinars are an easy way to create unique and personalized content for your brand. You can include a variety of presentation features in your webinar to enhance the experience for viewers and audience members. These include drawing tools, interactive activities, slides, surveys, chat, and more.

2. Stick to your budget.

Webinars are budget-friendly. Think about it this way: If you’re hosting an in-person event for your target audience and customers, you’ll likely have to rent out space, order food and drinks, purchase presentation equipment, and more.

If you have this event catered, you might need to organize wait staff and pay for clean up, too. Meanwhile, webinars are low cost and can even be hosted for free .

3. Educate prospects and customers on your product of service.

Webinars are a simple way to educate your audience. You might choose to explain the benefits of your product or service, review its capabilities and features, or even hone in on how it resolves the challenges of your buyer personas and current customers.

4. Demonstrate your product or service.

In addition to educating your webinar attendees about your product or service, you can also provide an instructional demonstration on how your attendees can use or implement your product or service.

5. Establish yourself as a thought-leader in the industry.

By hosting webinars, you can establish yourself as a thought-leader in your industry. If you're regularly hosting educational webinars through which attendees are gaining actionable tips and learning from you and your guests, you'll be more likely to gain more authority in your industry.

6. Improve your brand awareness.

And speaking of establishing yourself in your industry, webinars are just another way of improving your brand awareness.

You're able to target your target audience and personas through this channel and encourage audience members to share your webinar, or invitation to your webinar, with their peers and coworkers.

7. Boost conversions and revenue.

You can use your webinar as a source of conversions and revenue . By establishing yourself as a thought-leaders, prospects will be more inclined to trust you and therefore, your product or service. Additionally, as you promote and share your webinar, your increased brand awareness will naturally lead to more conversions, too.

Another benefit to hosting webinars is the fact that you can choose the format that is most complementary to your goals and whatever it is you're trying to achieve. Here are some of those formats to give you a better understanding of what I mean.

• Industry Expert Panel
• Product/ Service Pitch or Demo
• Casual Chat

1. Industry Expert Panel

Invite an industry expert — internal or external — to discuss their niche, or whatever it is they're known for. You'll attract your audience and the experts' audiences, too.

2. Interview

Host an interview with an internal or external thought-leader, a member of your team, a current and loyal customer, or even someone outside of your industry.

Think about the various topics your audience members want to hear about, and then find the right interviewer and interviewee for the discussion.

3. Product/ Service Pitch or Demo

Provide your audience with a product or service pitch or demonstration to clearly show people the benefits and applications of whatever it is you sell.

Host a question and answer webinar between your brand and the audience. You might invite a member of your leadership board to host the Q&A and have employees (sales reps, service reps, marketers, product managers, etc.) sit in to answer questions that audience members have.

Offer audience members an instructional how-to webinar — teach them how they can achieve a goal that many of your current customers have. Or, look to your buyer personas and review their challenges — choose one of those roadblocks and offer a how to that describes effective resolution.

6. Casual Chat

Whether it's with a member of your team or an external thought-leader, have a casual chat during your webinar. This way, audience members can tune in, sit back, and enjoy wherever the conversation naturally goes — and they can ask questions to spark new directions for that discussion.

7. Case Study

Look at your past case studies — which one is most compelling or has the most views on your website or social platform?

Invite that client to come onto your webinar to talk about how your product or service resolved their challenges and why they're advocates for your brand. You may also allow time for Q&A at the end if you and your client choose to — this way, audience members can ask your loyal client any questions they may have.

Now that you have an idea about possible webinar formats, let's dive into how a webinar actually works.

How does a webinar work?

The host (and fellow presenters, if any) must set a date and time for the event and invite target audience members to register and attend. Then, host the event, likely using webinar software.

Whether or not your webinar is live, it should always be recorded. This way, you’ll have the recording for your files, future reference, and your website since webinars are often an excellent source of evergreen content .

As you host more events, share your evergreen webinar content via a resource library — similar to HubSpot’s Free Webinars library — on your website. Your site visitors, loyal customers, and team members will be able to easily reference your webinars in a central location.

A major part of understanding how a webinar works is also understanding associated best practices.

Webinar Best Practices

Let’s cover some webinar tips and best practices so your event is sure to be a success.

• Choose an intriguing, personable, and qualified presenter(s) to get your audience excited about attending and to hold their attention throughout the event.
• Determine whether the webinar is going to be live or pre-recorded based on factors such as topic, presenters, industry, and audience.
• Invite members of your target audience and your buyer personas to register (this will ensure your webinar content is shared with people it’ll be relevant and valuable to).
• Clearly set and share the event’s date, time, and other logistics so attendees can log on, view, and participate without experiencing any roadblocks.
• Stick to one major topic per webinar to avoid confusion and keep attendees engaged.
• Establish a format for the webinar (e.g. panel, FAQ, single or multi-presenter, demonstration, interview, or discussion).
• Complete a dry run (or several) before going live or recording the webinar.
• Find the right webinar software for your specific business needs.
• Allow ample time for attendee participation.
• Record and save your webinar —whether or not it’s shared live — to your webinar library.

Now, how do you actually record your webinar ? Let’s review the answer to that question next.

To record a webinar, you need a computer with a camera and microphone, and webinar software so you can manage and share your event.

No matter how you decide to format your webinar, simply click Record when your event begins and Stop Recording when your event ends (or similar commands).

Speaking of webinar software, let’s look at some of your options. Your software is how you’ll host the webinar , share it with attendees, analyze its performance, and more.

Webinar software offers features that streamline all aspects of hosting your event. There are many webinar software options available with a range of features and pricing options. Here are seven options to get you started.

1. GoToWebinar

GoToWebinar simplifies your event planning, promotion, engagement, and reporting. The software provides several webinar templates, custom registration, different presenter webcams, interactive surveys and polls, source tracking, and webinar analytics.

Note: GoToWebinar integrates with your HubSpot CRM.

Cost: GoToWebinar offers three plans starting at $89 per month.

Demio is a webinar platform built for engagement. Demio is a great option for Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success teams because it is a simple, no-download webinar experience, makes engaging attendees easy and effective, and provides the analytics tools you need to generate better business results. Whether you want to host a live, on-demand, hybrid, or automated webinar, Demio is a great option.

Note: Demio integrates with your Hubspot CRM.

Cost: Demio offers a free trial (no credit card required) and three plans starting at $49 per month.

3. ClickMeeting Webinars

ClickMeeting makes hosting and sharing your live or pre-recorded events easy no matter your webinar format (e.g. conference, group discussion, Q&A, or product demos). The software includes a feature to live stream your event via Facebook or Youtube to expand your audience.

Note: ClickMeeting Webinars integrates with your HubSpot CRM.

Cost : ClickMeeting is free for your first 30 days, and then you can choose to upgrade to one of their three paid options , which start at $25 per month.

Depending on the Zoom plan you choose, you can share your webinar with over 10,000 people at once. The software offers HD video and audio, live broadcasting features, reporting, and analytics. There are also various participant engagement tools such as chat, attendee-raise-hand, and polling to ensure your webinar is interactive.

Note: Zoom integrates with your HubSpot CRM.

Cost : Zoom has a freemium option in which you can host a discussion-based webinar event where everyone can see and interact with each other. If you choose one of their paid options , which start at $14.99 per month, you can host your webinar in any format (e.g. lecture-based, single presenter, or multi-presenter).

Webinars with Airmeet empower users to deliver a premium and immersive experience to their attendees. The platform helps manage webinar workflows, expand audience reach, improve engagement, streamline demand generation efforts, and increase ROI. It enables you to host a variety of webinars, including live, streaming, and pre-recorded sessions, catering to both small-scale and large-scale audiences.With its 360-degree features such as branding, engagement, real-time analytics, and customer support, Airmeet ensures a seamless and memorable webinar experience for organizers, speakers, and attendees.

Note: Airmeet integrates with your HubSpot CRM.

Cost : Airmeet offers a 10-day free trial, enabling users to explore its entire suite. The platform offers three pricing plans and personalized quotes tailored to user demand and requirements. The plans are unlimited in nature and based on the total number of attendees at an event rather than the total number of registrants. 

6. EasyWebinar

EasyWebinar is a great option for anyone new to the world of webinars because the software has users work through a five-step campaign process to ensure event success. It includes customer tracking tools to learn more about who your attendees are and why your content is relevant to them. EasyWebinar integrates with WordPress and YouTube so you can expand your reach among your target audience and current customers.

Cost : There are three tiers of EasyWebinar which start at $78 per month.

7. eWebinar

eWebinar is your best option for creating and hosting automated webinars (also known as evergreen webinars) since that is 100% the focus of their software.

Their setup process is simple and starts with uploading a video of your pre-recorded presentation. From there, you can program polls, questions, tips, and other interactions to appear at key moments in your webinar to make the experience interactive. Their unique and flexible chat system lets you chat live with attendees or respond to messages later through email at your convenience.

Cost : eWebinar offers a free 14-day trial and has four pricing levels based on the number of published webinars you have, though each webinar can have unlimited sessions and attendees.

How to Host a Webinar for Free

To host a webinar — and do so for free — you’ll need to combine all of the elements we’ve reviewed above. You might think about the following five steps to hosting a webinar for free as your webinar strategy .

1. Choose free webinar software.

The first step in hosting your webinar requires you to choose software that suits your specific needs. We reviewed some popular examples above , but for more options that are easier on your budget, take a look at these free webinar tools .

2. Invite your target audience to register for and attend your event.

It’s time to invite people to register for and attend your webinar. When you invite these members of your contact list and network to register, likely via email, clearly indicate the date and time of your event. This way they’ll know if they’re available or if they need to make time on their calendars to attend.

3. Send a confirmation email to anyone who’s registered to attend.

Next, confirm webinar registration is complete for each attendee who has signed up. You might do this by sending registrants to a new landing page with their confirmation details. Another option is to send a follow-up email to attendees shortly after they complete registration.

Either way, include details in your confirmation message about the equipment needed to participate in your webinar such as a laptop with stable Wi-Fi, speakers, a microphone, and a camera. You can also provide information about your presenters or the interactive element of the webinar to get attendees excited.

4. Provide a link for attendees to “Join” if the webinar is live or “Watch” if it’s pre-recorded.

One of the most important things you do pre-webinar is provide clear directions on how your attendees will join or watch the event. For example, you may include a link to Join or Watch your webinar on the confirmation landing page or in the follow-up email we mentioned above.

5. Set expectations for webinar participation.

Again, webinars must be interactive in some way. Set these expectations early on, and have your presenters reiterate them at the beginning of the event, so everyone is on the same page. If your event is live, facilitate participation and discussion throughout the event or set aside time for discussion and Q&A at the end.

If your event is pre-recorded, set a window of time after the webinar has been shared for attendees to send in questions. Then, presenters can either record or type their responses and send them back to the corresponding attendee.

6. Host the webinar, and follow up with attendees afterward.

It’s time to host your event! Explain the agenda to attendees at the beginning of the webinar so they know what to expect. (This is also a great time to reiterate those expectations for participation we mentioned above.)

Don’t forget to review all other details, like follow-up communication, any further inquiries, future webinars you’re hosting, and how attendees can learn more about your business. Feel free to email this information to your attendee contact list post-webinar so they can review it in greater detail later on.

Reach Your Target Audience With Webinars

Webinars have the power to propel you towards becoming a thought-leader and expert in your industry. They can also help you improve brand awareness, reach your target audience and buyer personas, and boost conversions. Determine which webinar software is right for your business, keep the best practices we reviewed in mind, and begin hosting your online events.

Don't forget to share this post!

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What is a Webinar and How Do Webinars Work?

November 27th, 2023 Michael Mayday

Webinars are one of the most indispensable weapons in a marketer’s armory. But what is a webinar and how does a webinar work ?

There’s a lot going on behind the scenes of even the most basic webinar software . And, when it comes to a world-class solution like the ON24 Intelligent Engagement Platform , we rely on some of the best talent in the biz to make the experience of setting up and delivering a webinar seamless for you.

Webinars are different from meeting tools, which are designed to let small groups meet and collaborate in real time. They’re also different from traditional streaming media like videos, which don’t give the audience any way to engage with the content.

Webinar Definition

A webinar is an engaging online event where a speaker, or small group of speakers, delivers a presentation to a large audience who participate by submitting questions, responding to polls, and using other available interactive tools.

Webinars differ from meeting tools, designed to let small groups meet and collaborate in real time. They’re also different from traditional streaming media like videos, which don’t give the audience any way to engage with the content .

Learn more about webinars:

• Going Bigger: How to Promote Webinar Marketing Events
• Taking In-Person Events Digital? Five Things to Consider
• 11 Excellent Questions for your Post-Webinar Survey

Even the most bare-bones webinar has separate streams for slides and audio. But most modern webinars go far beyond that, with slides, presenter video, integrated social media and live attendee feedback in the form of questions, polls, idea storming and more.

Webinar basics — how to create a webinar

To produce the best webinar experience possible, follow these five basic steps:

• Define your audience.
• Brainstorm relevant topics.
• Create content — from slides to scripts — for your presentation.
• Practice your material and present it.
• Analyze webinar successes and failures.

How to prepare webinar content

The first step to preparing webinar content is understanding the audience you’re trying to reach. Are they early in the buying cycle? About to close? Are they already customers? If so, are they looking for educational content? Thought leadership? Once you know who you’re trying to reach, you can prepare your content.

Webinar content should be designed to keep a conversation going. Presentation slides should be light and easy to read. Presenters, too, should be the centerpiece and set the pace of the event. Finally, create opportunities for audience members to ask questions and participate in the webcast. Webinar content works best when it invites conversation.

Is a webinar always live?

No! Webinars can be live, simulive or on-demand. Each version has its own benefits to consider.

Live webinars allow you to engage your audience in real time and get instant analytics on that behavior. Simulive webinars let you record a webinar in advance and engage your audience in real-time — often through Q&A chat features — during the pre-recorded presentation. You can even roll over to a live presentation from simulive for further interaction and engagement.

On-demand webinars can be live-turned-on-demand events and pre-recorded on-demand webinars. Using on-demand gives your audience flexibility regarding when they consume your content. It also gives you, the presenter, more flexibility on providing a more polished experience.

ON24 webinar benchmarks

When is the best time to start promoting webinars?

According to our webinar benchmarks report , most attendees register either the week before the webinar launch (41%) or two weeks in advance (29%). Marketers should plan to start promotions over a three-week or longer time frame.

What is the average registration-to-attendee conversion rate?

Overall 53% of webinar registrants converted into an attendee. Of registrants, 35% converted as a live attendee and 23% converted as an on-demand attendee.

What’s the best day to send promotional emails?

In terms of driving registration, Monday (21.7%) and Tuesday (21.4%) are the best days to send promotional emails followed closely by Wednesday (20.1%).

How many attendees can I expect at my webinar?

The average number of webinar attendees in 2022 was 188.

How long should a webinar be?

Audiences engage with webinars for an average of 55 minutes.

Learn more essential webinar statistics

Download the ON24 2023 Digital Engagement Benchmarks and get a high-level look at the best practices that make webinars great. Download Now!

So what are the most important factors of webinar technology? Let’s take a look:

Making the webinar presenter successful

At ON24, we’ve spent years perfecting our presentation manager, PMXD. Obviously, we wanted to make it easy for you to upload, modify, manage and deliver your presentations. We quickly discovered that great webinar presentations take more than a well-uploaded presentation deck.

Most of our customers go into every webinar with at least two key players:

• The presenter delivers the webinar content.
• The producer handles all the behind-the-scenes work, like queuing video clips, managing guest speakers, and routing questions from webinar attendees.

Webinar tips for presenters

Before the webinar.

Webinars have a lot of moving parts, so preparation is essential. Once you have a topic and an audience in mind, outline a presentation and draft slides. As you build your deck, look for opportunities to drive audience engagement through polls, surveys or Q&A.

Schedule a practice session with your finished deck, including anyone involved in the webinar — from presenters to producers and guests. Practicing identifies weak points and lets you adjust for better flow.

During the webinar

Start your webinars by guiding attendees through both the webinar console and the engagement tools included in the event. This way, attendees know how to interact with your event should they want to when prompted.

Run through your presentation as you normally would during your event, highlighting engagement opportunities (e.g., polls, surveys) as they arrive. If you’re running a Q&A session, your producer should select and prepare questions for the presenter to respond to.

After the webinar

Turn your live event into an on-demand webinar and email a link to your registrants and attendees within 48 hours of the event ending. Then, get creative.

Webinar tips for attendees

As a webinar attendee, all you need to do is fill out a form to register for an event. Once registered, you should get an email with the details of an event, including a calendar invite.

Place the event on your work calendar and, on the day of the event, click the link to log in. Then, it’s just a matter of adjusting console windows as you see fit.

During the webinar, you’ll have the opportunity to interact with the host through engagement tools like Q&A, polls, surveys, certificates and downloadable resources. To access, or hide, these tools, simply click on the corresponding icon on the bottom row of the webinar console.

Other than that, sit back, relax and enjoy!

After the webinar ends, you should receive an email linking you to the on-demand version within a day or so. Click the link to enter the webinar.

We knew delivering live webinars can be stressful, so we helped the production team keep in touch with real-time chat and intuitive controls for controlling the webinar flow, pushing polls, and swapping out presentation content on the fly.

Providing an engaging webinar experience

Engagement is what makes the ON24 platform stand apart. And we take that very, very seriously.

When you’re asking people to stare at their computer screens for up to an hour you have to give them something interesting to stare at, it helps if you can also give them something interesting to do.

Most webinars these days include basics like a place to submit questions. But we don’t think that’s engaging enough. So, we’ve added to popular interactive tools like surveys, polls, downloadable assets, and integrated social media. We’ve also created more niche widgets like idea storming, testing and certification tools and group chat.

But that isn’t where it ends. We also built a robust suite of integrations to make sure the data collected through all that interactivity is passed to your marketing automation and CRM platforms, creating a seamless marketing data environment.

Treating always-on webinar audiences like live audiences

If you only consider the live audience, you aren’t taking the full picture into account. According to our Webinar Benchmarks Report , more than 40% of webinar attendees only sign up for the on-demand event .

That presents an interesting challenge for us on the back end of webinar software. How will we treat all those people who, for whatever reason, just couldn’t make it to the live event?

Sure, treating on-demand webinars like static videos would be easier, but then your audiences wouldn’t get the full webinar experience. When we think about webinar engagement, we always consider additional viewers who watch webinars on-demand or simulive (pre-recorded webinars, then broadcast to a live audience at a designated time).

Every ON24 webinar, no matter how it’s delivered or when it’s viewed, must have all the bi-directional interactivity of a live webinar, from moving windows around the console to the ability to submit questions — and get an answer.

Webinars have changed significantly over the past decade or so, and they’ll continue evolving as new technologies emerge. But for those of us who build the platform, the mission is always the same: to give you everything you need to engage an audience and meet your business goals.

What is a Webinar and How does it Work: The Full Guide

Discover what is a webinar and learn how to make engaging webinar content that converts your audience.

What is a webinar ?

Webinars are workshops, video presentations, or lectures hosted online .

It is a virtual presentation in which the hosts share valuable information with their attendees—like an online seminar.

Most webinars are business-related and allow webinar hosts to share knowledge, expertise, or tips with a vast global audience.

Webinars are a smart addition to your content marketing strategy . They are great way to build brand awareness and authority.

They're interactive, engaging, and with the right webinar guests or key-note speakers, they can be highly informative .

As an added bonus, webinars are easy to host, especially compared to in-person events. Instead of renting out a large venue and paying for flights and hotels, an online conference just needs a reliable webinar hosting platform and a set time.

How does a webinar work ?

Webinars can be live-streamed or accessed on demand . To host a webinar you need a video engagement platform that allows people to join remotely through their web browser or download the recording.

The webinar host (or guest speakers) will share a virtual presentation with attendees, where they explain the topic at hand and emphasize the most important points by going through a slide deck.

Afterward, the webinar attendees typically have the chance to raise queries . A strong webinar platform will have a Q&A function and question upvoting to help you manage audience questions.

Get an introduction into webinars

In this video, we explain:

• What you can expect from a webinar
• Who to involve when running a webinar
• How to create a webinar presentation

What are the benefits of webinars?

Now you know exactly what webinars are, here are some of the benefits of webinars , of the reasons they are so popular in the business, education, and marketing communities.

Showcase your product

Webinars are an excellent way to demo a product in front of an interested audience. Features can be highlighted, ensuring your prospects understand your product’s value.

Webinars provide companies with a great way to showcase their products. They can be used to educate your existing customers about a new product or features.

Hosts can learn from potential through polls and interactive chat. The data from the polls and questions asked are added to the post-webinar analytics and can help shape future webinars.

Engage, educate, and onboard customers

A user onboarding webinar is an excellent way for companies to engage users and help them achieve their "a-ha moment" with your product.

Video is proven to help users retain information , which is essential for services with a steep learning curve.

Modern products can be pretty complex, so helping users understand how your product can help them solve their pain points is a vital point for adoption.

Generate new leads and marketing opportunities

Webinars are a great way to get high-quality leads . Webinar attendees are people who are interested in your niche and open to your product.

Webinar registration can provide you with the names and contact details of warm prospects. And if your webinar is valuable, they could be very receptive to your outreach.

Additionally, webinar platforms provide detailed analytics about who attended, how long they watched, and whether they watched the replay.

This information can give you further insight into which leads are the most interested in your product or service.

Learn how we do it here at Livestorm

Increase your authority online with webinars

Webinars provide an excellent way to showcase your expertise through unique and valuable content . They allow you to speak specifically to a problem that prospects are facing and then provide them with the solution to their problem.

Webinars allow you to demonstrate that you understand the problem, know the solution and are able to help implement it.

Read more on how You can see how Recruitee used Livestrom to build their authority .

Improve internal business communication and employee training

Of course, webinars aren't just limited to customer outreach. They can take the place of traditional internal business meetings , which is especially valuable in the age of remote working .

The versatility of many webinar platforms allows you to go from 1:1 meetings to large-scale company events.

Additionally, you can use webinars for training sessions and employee onboarding. Video can help your remote employee onboarding process by connecting your team no matter where they are in the world.

Webinars benefit marketing teams

A web seminar or virtual event is an excellent way to engage with an audience or your actual customers .

By providing attendees with valuable and useful content , you can build up your engagement funnel or generate warm leads. Of course, webinars are about more than just marketing.

You can use them to educate the public, help with user onboarding, or share thought leadership on a wide range of products.

Webinars are an effective tool in your marketing strategy , to reach a global audience or engage a remote workforce.

Whether you've got interesting things that you'd like to share, or you want to use webinar marketing to boost sales or awareness, this exciting video conferencing tool allows you to communicate and engage with anyone around the world, as long as they have an internet connection.

Livestorm’s Guide to Webinars

Get the most out of webinars. Learn how to set up great webinars, promote them, and follow up on your leads.

What are the different types of webinars ?

There are lots of different webinar formats or webinar types that you can use to get across your message or reach your business goals. Some of which include live webinars, paid webinars , on-demand webinars, evergreen webinars, and more.

Live webinar

Live webinars are online presentations that take place in real-time . These live events are interactive and the audience can engage with the content as it actually occurs. Live webinars are the most engaging kind of webinars.

A live webinar is usually interactive and attendees have the opportunity to ask questions or share comments.

On-demand webinars

Just like on-demand screening services, on-demand webinars allow users to access an online seminar when they want . Once someone registers for the webinar they can watch it on-demand.

Paid webinars

Some information is too valuable to give away for free. A paid webinar can be your entire business model , with attendees tuning in just to hear your message. Some integrations can facilitate payment walls for your webinars.

Evergreen webinars

An evergreen webinar is a great way to attract qualified leads because they are always relevant, no matter what is happening in the news or pop culture.

The key to producing evergreen webinars is selecting content that is relevant for a long period of time.

Learn more about Evergreen Webinar

Evergreen webinars are a great way to communicate information that can be available to your audience either on-demand, where it's available 24/7, or as an automated webinar that can be pre-recorded and scheduled at a certain time or even on a recurring basis.

How to successfully plan a webinar ?

A successful webinar requires good planning and even better content. Here are some tips for your webinar, to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible.

First, you need to lay out your webinar skeleton . Choose a topic and format, truly know your audience, approach guest speakers, and sort out the technical requirements. Here are all the steps to plan a webinar:

Plan and outline your webinar

• Define your target audience
• Choose the topic that will interest your audience
• Invite guest speakers
• Pick your format
• Choose your webinar platform

Create your webinar presentation

• Get high-quality video and audio
• Define your goals

Webinar conclusion and action plan

You are planning your first webinar? The first thing you need to do is define what you want to get from your event.

Is it about brand awareness? Generating new leads? Educating customers or employees on a new product?

Always understand what you want to achieve from each webinar and use this as your North Star Metric to guide and define the KPIs or business goals you want to achieve.

The next thing to consider is the script . While you may not be giving the talk yourself, you'll need to work out what needs to be said by way of introductions or between each speaker.

Then, decide which guests you'd like. Remember, valuable guests are often busy people, so contact them well in advance so their schedule can accommodate it.

Finally, your webinar will need a host. It could be you, or in some cases, a hired presenter.

Get to know your target audience

The most important part of planning any type of marketing intervention is to get to truly know your audience.

You need to be able to tell:

• If they prefer a live or on-demand video webinar
• At what time they’re more likely to join the live streaming
• What’s keeping them awake at night and how can your webinar solve that problem
• If they’ll be willing to attend or would rather consume any other form of content
• What are the type of problems they usually encounter at their jobs and personal lives

Plan your webinar content

Use your published content to define your webinar title .

Review your social media and blog analytics and spot the topics that perform best. Look at your social media comments and user feedback to plan your webinar content.

Another idea is to center your webinar around industry trends or news . Make it specific, e.g. instead of presenting “marketing trends for 2023”, host a webinar on “TikTok trends for promoted content in the first quarter of 2023.”

Learn how to create and host a webinar

Webinars are growing in popularity, and for good reason. Compared to live, in-person events, they're easier and cheaper to plan, and allow audience members to connect from anywhere. If you're interested in getting started, this video is for you!

Reach out to partners and guest speakers

Your speakers are one of the most important parts of your webinar. They should be subject matter experts and have an existing audience of their own that will be drawn to register for your event. Choose experienced public speakers to entertain (not bore) your online event attendees.

List out all of your potential guest speakers and start contacting them in order of preference. Also think about any partnership you would do with other companies.

If you have a flexible date, stick to your first or second option and adjust to their agenda.

Choose a webinar format

Webinars can happen live or on-demand. Choose which one suits your purpose best.

Host a live webinar if the content you’re presenting is:

• Likely to generate doubts that you don’t want to leave unanswered
• Designed to facilitate idea sharing, brainstorming, or networking (e.g. in breakout rooms)

Plan your event to be accessible at any time using an on demand webinar software if:

• The content is pretty straightforward and you can anticipate most of the questions
• It’s an introduction to your product or a topic in which you’re an expert

Take time to determine other considerations such as:

• The number of speakers
• The flow of the presentation (panel, Q&A session, standard presentation)

Pick the right webinar platform

To ensure your presentation goes smoothly, you'll need a reliable webinar platform .

Look for a webinar software that lets you:

• Host your expected number of attendees without crashing
• Record your session and create on-demand links that you can gate for lead generation purposes
• Create custom registration landing pages
• Invite people on stage so only they can speak
• Automate the start and end of an event, e.g. use this feature to play an intro and closing video
• Send automated email reminders
• View and export all your attendees' contact information and spot the most engaged ones

Livestorm is webinar software for companies of all sizes that lets you plan, promote, and host all kinds of virtual events, from webinars and sales calls to internal meetings.

Plus, this automated webinar software can help you follow up with all registrants via integrations with CRM tools like HubSpot and Marketo.

To keep your webinar engaging, visually interesting and to increase the impact of your talk, it's a good idea to have presentation slides to back up your talking points.

Prepare them well in advance and even do a run-through to identify and solve any potential issues you might run into. You can do this through screen sharing or integrated presentation software.

Our 5 tips for webinar presenters

In order to stand out from the crowd, optimizing your presentation and engaging your audience is key.

From incorporating storytelling into your webinar presentation, to finding moments to interact with your audience, don't miss these 5 tips for webinar presenters!

Make sure your video and audio tech is high quality

Organize a set and pick your hardware to present your audience with good audio and video experience.

There are several technical issues that can affect your webinar. Echoes, choppy sound or video, invitation emails not being sent. If you want to do things right, choose a professional webinar hosting platform .

If you plan to be on camera some or all of the time, make sure you have a webcam that works and outputs a decent picture.

You'll need to think about sound too. A decent microphone will offer a crisp, professional sound at a reasonable price.

Buy or rent a high-quality 4K camera that’s compatible with your webinar software and use an external microphone . Don’t rely on your computer-integrated options and have a backup in case a device fails on the event date.

Define goals and success measures

Set yourself specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART) goals. Define what a successful webinar looks like and how you’ll measure it.

For example, if you’re on Livestorm, you can use the analytics dashboard to measure things like attendance rate, audience retention, and poll engagement.

See how your webinars stack up on our webinar statistics page

Once the webinar is done, it's not over. There are many actionable insights that you can get from your audience .

These can be on your presentation itself or the product or service that you are using the webinar to promote.

Additionally, conducting a webinar post-mortem is crucial to learning the lessons which will improve your next webinar.

Build the best webinars

Create engaging webinars with Livestorm and delight your audience.

How to create a webinar ?

You have well planned your webinar strategy and now you’re ready to create your webinar!

Create your webinar registration page and invite people to join .

Determine other crucial steps regarding branding and logistics of your webinar marketing. Follow these steps:

• Pick a date and time
• Design your registration form
• Set automated emails
• Invite others
• Promote on social media

Share resources with your speakers

• Brief your moderator
• Host a dry run

Confirm the date and time

Confirm the date and time with all the key stakeholders . Manually block the time in their calendars after they’ve confirmed.

Then, invite them to the webinar event and let the platform send them automatic email reminders. If you’re inviting a global audience, be mindful of the different time zones before setting a time.

Build your registration page

Create your registration form for the audience and embed it on your webinar landing page.

With Livestorm, you can build your registration form and add custom fields to gather as much information from the attendee as you need. Automatically include that form in your registration page and customize your branding.

Check your email cadence

Email cadences are important to ensure a high participation rate .

Depending on your webinar platform, you might need to set email reminders manually in your customer relationship management (CRM) system.

With Livestorm, these are set automatically as soon as you create your registration page. Every attendee that joins gets a series of automated messages:

• A “thank you for registering” email
• A reminder email X days before the event
• Another reminder email X hours before the event
• A post-attendee email with the webinar recording link for them to watch on-demand Adjust the cadence and delivery time to your liking.

Send out invitations

It’s time to invite your potential attendees by email. Rather than spamming everyone on your mailing list, segment your audience and reach out to the ones that will find it interesting.

You can also use personalized fields to tailor each invitation to the recipient. Generic emails that aren’t relevant will irritate your audience and make them unsubscribe from your email list.

Promote your webinar

The next step is to promote the event . You should have some idea of who your target audience is and where they congregate.

If you have a mailing list, that's one of the best ways to get the word out. Additionally, social media is a great tool to find people who are interested in your online events.

Use your social media channels to promote your webinar . Don’t stick to your mailing list alone, find communities where a potential audience is already engaged and reach out to them.

This means joining and participating in Facebook and LinkedIn Groups and eventually promoting your webinar (watch out for specific group guidelines). You can also pay for influencer marketing or Facebook Ads.

11 ways to promote your Webinar

Looking to promote your virtual event across all marketing channels? Check out this video for 11 tips to promote your online event via your website, email, social media, and through collaborative marketing.

Share the final presentation and any other relevant resources with your speakers ahead of time.

Give them a how-to-join booklet if your platform isn’t intuitive enough, or choose a platform like Livestorm that has one-click browser-based access.

You can also provide them with audience insights like pain points, motivators, and desires to help them tailor their presentation.

Brief your webinar moderator

A webinar moderator works behind the scenes to make sure the entire event goes smoothly.

While the moderator won’t be on-screen during the presentation, they’re an important member of the webinar team. Brief them on the flow of the event, the speakers, and the actions they’ll need to handle for you.

Test your software and hardware

Schedule a practice run for your webinar several days before the actual event. Run through the slides and script with the speakers and ensure that the moderator is aware of all their responsibilities.

Ask your team members to use the webinar tools to test the microphone and camera. Consider this your webinar training for organizers.

Make sure that everyone involved with hosting the webinar is comfortable with the technology and software you’ll be using. If you run into any issues, take care of troubleshooting before the big day.

What are the webinar mistakes to avoid

People will forgive you for being nervous, making mistakes, and even a few technical glitches on one condition: that you provide valuable content .

Good content is paramount. It needs to be helpful, fresh and provide audiences the sorts of insights they can't get elsewhere.

Otherwise, some of the other webinar mistakes you'll want to avoid are:

• Under-promoting the event : A lot of organizers send reminders a week before. But don't be afraid to up the cadence.
• A boring presentation : A little interactivity goes a long way. Polls, live Q&As, and group chats are excellent ways to keep your audience alert and absorbed.
• Too sales-focused : While the focus of your webinar might be to sell products, your audience shouldn’t feel like they are being pitched. Try to help people solve their problems. Again, offer valuable content.
• Poor quality video or audio : Try and make the best product you can. Avoid presenting from a mobile phone, test your equipment beforehand, and present from a room with good sounds and no echoes.

Learn all the webinar best pratice in our dedicated guide

How to find new webinar topics ?

To keep your customers engaged and use webinar marketing to generate leads, you'll need to produce great content frequently. Here are some tips that you can use to develop ideas that will resonate with your audience.

Customer feedback and questions

Your own customers are one of the most valuable and rich sources of potential content. As the end-user of your product or service, they know and understand the pain points your product solves.

There are several ways to get customer feedback, from open-ended surveys, product reviews, social media, etc. Look for interesting questions that come up a lot. These are often the subjects your audience wants to hear about.

Key website and marketing data

Use your website and marketing data to evaluate which topics and areas engage your audience the most. It could be the pages or products on your website that drive the most traffic, your most downloaded ebook, or even your most liked or shared posts on social media.

Online research

We are living through the information age. There are resources for every type of niche or discipline you can imagine, no matter how arcane. Subscribe to industry newsletters, website feeds, follow thought leaders on social media, and read relevant magazines and websites to stay up to date on the latest news, and you'll never be short of ideas.

Attending other webinars

To keep your finger on the pulse, you should occasionally attend webinars by competitors or adjacent industries. You'll pick up ideas, new approaches, and strategies that you can use to power or improve your own webinar.

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What are the key webinar features ?

There are many webinar tools available, and some are better than others. If you want to start creating webinars, you'll need a webinar tool packed with features that can keep your audience engaged.

Below, we list some of the things you should look for when choosing the best webinar software .

Avoid cumbersome, featureless webinar solutions

The best webinar software is browser-based, meaning they don't require you or your attendees to install software to access the event. They should be end-to-end platforms, that will allow you to organize, promote, activate and report. Additionally, you should look for a webinar solution that captures analytics.

Webinar landing page

A webinar landing page will help you attract as many attendees as possible. After all, it's the best place to describe your event and turn page visitors into registrants. Webinar tools like Livestorm allow users to create a landing page with one click and easily customize them to fit around your brand identity. Additionally, you can even manage and send promotional emails straight from the dashboard.

Activation features

An effective webinar engages the attendees. But it can't just fall on the guest speaker or webinar host to keep the attendees interested. Interactive tools like chats, polls, and emoji reactions are an excellent way to get feedback and build a relationship with your audience. Automated page redirects and CTAs during your webinar are great ways to drive conversion.

Integrations

Integrations allow you to extend the functionality of your webinar platform even further.

CRM and Marketing automation integrations are also very important when creating a webinar in order to pass the data from your webinar platform to your CRM. The Livestorm app marketplace provides integrations for more than 1,000 apps, such as Google Analytics, Google Calendar, Zapier, Slack, Salesforce, Marketo, Pardot, and hundreds of others. You can also connect Livestorm with HubSpot by using the native integration within the two platforms.

Whiteboard presentations

Digital whiteboards are another powerful webinar tool. They allow you to present ideas and collaborate with your attendees. Users can enrich their webinar content with text, drawings, shapes, and more. These compelling and creative tools will add a professional edge to any presentation.

The most important features of a great webinar platform should help you to plan, host, and follow-up after your webinar. All-in-one solutions will give you the tools you need to create powerful marketing tools.

>> Find out how Untapped New York used Livestorm to increased attendees by 84% and save time

Livestorm, the best webinar software for video engagement

When it comes to hosting webinars , video engagement is absolutely critical. An audience that isn’t engaged with the material won’t retain the information and they probably won’t take any meaningful action after the webinar is over. They won’t sign up for a product demo or schedule a follow up call or any other action you want them to take.

Livestorm is designed specifically to help you keep the audience engaged before, during, and after a webinar .

• Automated emails make it easy to invite contact lists and remind registrants to attend
• Pre-built registration pages can be customized to meet your exact needs
• Polls, chat tabs, Q&A, emoji reactions, and virtual backgrounds help to activate attendees
• Automated recordings take the guesswork out of following up with registrants

These features, along with others, allow you to make your webinars far more engaging than they would be otherwise. And higher engagement almost always translates to better results down the road.

Discover the world's first video engagement platform

Create the most engaging webinars with the world's first video engagement platform.

What is not a webinar?

By now, you might be wondering what is not considered to be a webinar. Since there are so many different ways to communicate online, some clear distinctions need to be made.

Webinar vs. online meeting

A webinar is like a live event or conference. They typically happen on a much larger scale. Online meetings, on the other hand, are typically smaller, more collaborative events. They are a lot more like a typical office meeting.

Webinar vs. webcast

Webinars generally have attendee limits. A webcast is something more like a television broadcast. TedTalk is a good example of a webcast. People are free to watch these casts, often on-demand.

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Table of content

Frequently asked questions about webinars

Is there a free webinar service.

Livestorm offers a free version of its software with some limitations on lengths and attendees. A paid version of any webinar platform will come with significantly more features and overall quality.

Can people see you in a webinar?

If you are the webinar host, you can choose to let your audience see you. If you are attending a webinar, other attendees won't be able to see you unless you are invited "on stage" by the guest speaker or other team members.

How to schedule a webinar?

Scheduling your own webinar requires a few considerations. What day (Wednesday and Thursday traditionally have the highest attendance), how and where you'll promote the webinar, and how long you plan the event to last are all factors to contemplate. 

How to record a webinar?

Webinar software tools like Livestorm come with an option to record the webinar automatically. You just have to set it and forget it. It's good practice to offer an attendee or a registrant a link to a recording after the event.

How to be more confident during your webinars?

Public speaking is a big fear for many people. But like everything, practice and preparation will go a long way to becoming a more accomplished speaker at a webinar or similar event. Just relax, breathe, and focus on the topic at hand. 

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What is a Webinar and How Does It Work?

Written by: Mahnoor Sheikh

In this day and age, attending an event is as easy as making a few clicks on your computer—thanks to webinars. Businesses use webinars to generate leads, educate their customers and even run team meetings with members from different parts of the world.

So, what exactly is a webinar? And how can you use it for your own business?

In this article, you’ll find everything you need to know about webinars, how they work and how to host your own webinar successfully.

What is a Webinar?

A webinar is an online video conferencing tool used to conduct interactive, web-based seminars, meetings, product demos and more.

It’s a scheduled event with a predetermined time and date. Those interested can register for a webinar using their email address, through which they’ll receive a link to access the webinar when it goes live.

Webinars can be a great alternative to physical events. They’re interactive, so attendees can engage with the speakers by asking questions or participating in discussions. Webinars also eliminate the need for renting a venue and save the cost of travel.

Most importantly, webinars can help you reach a bigger and even global audience by being accessible through the internet.

There are three types of webinars commonly used by businesses.

• Live: This type of webinar usually involves a live video of either a screen or the speaker/s who can actively engage in conversation with the attendees. A live webinar can be a great way to build personal relationships with your audience.
• Pre-recorded: You can also pre-record your webinar and host it live on an actual time and date. However, the only way to interact with your audience in real-time is through text chat.
• On-demand: On-demand webinars are recorded versions of live or pre-recorded webinars that can be accessed at any time after the actual event.

It can be tricky to choose between a live and in-demand webinar for your business. But research shows that a combination of both can be far more effective than sticking to one option.

According to ON24’s Webinar Benchmarks Report 2019 , live webinars get the most views.

However, a large chunk of your audience is probably only watching on-demand webinars. The statistics above show that 36% of viewers watch only on-demand webinars and 5% watch both the live and recorded versions.

Additionally, viewers tend to watch live video 10 to 20 times longer than they spend watching on-demand content.

If you stick to only one type of webinar, you might not be able to reach people watching the other type. This is why it’s recommended to host live webinars and then upload a recorded, on-demand version of it later on your website.

When to Host a Webinar

Businesses can host webinars for various different reasons.

However, it’s important to note that webinars might not work for all types of businesses. In fact, research shows that 61% of webinars are hosted by B2B companies while only 17% are hosted by B2C companies.

That said, here are some major reasons why businesses host webinars:

1. Generate leads.

One of the biggest reasons why companies create and host webinars is to generate high-quality leads. Lead generation webinars are usually free of cost to encourage more people to register.

People who actively register for your webinar have already shown a certain level of interest in your business or topic. Their email addresses are truly valuable to you as a marketer as you’d want to engage with them further and nurture them into customers.

2. Educate or instruct.

A large number of businesses use webinars to educate their audience and establish themselves as thought-leaders in their industry.

Webinars are excellent tools for explaining how-tos and instructional guides, or holding a two-way discussion on a relevant topic. You can even repurpose your blog posts into short webinars to turn them into engaging pieces of content.

Visme hosts free educational webinars to help viewers learn more about visual design and marketing. You can register for the upcoming live webinars or watch replays of previous ones.

Webinars can also help you sell online courses. For example, you can hold an introductory session with registrants to get them interested in buying the full course.

3. Give a product demo.

A webinar can be an effective way to shed light on your product or any new updates that you’ve introduced. It does the job of both an educational and marketing tool.

You can show how your product works in real-time, highlight it’s core features and benefits, and address any questions and concerns to help those interested understand it better.

If your product is technical, you can also use product webinars to onboard new users, conduct training and walk them through getting started with it.

At Visme, we have an on-demand webinar that walks people through the basics of using our design tool to create beautiful infographics, presentations and more.

Start watching the Visme 101 on-demand webinar! Register Now

Plus, a product webinar brings all your potential and existing customers in one place, sparks conversation, and ultimately helps you look professional and reliable.

All of this can help you build stronger relationships with existing customers and nurture leads into making a purchase by showing them the potential of your product.

Better yet, conducting product demos online can also help you gather valuable feedback from your target customers so you can further improve your business.

4. Conduct employee training and meetings.

Webinars aren’t just used for marketing purposes. They’re also a wonderful tool for conducting employee training and workshops. This is especially useful if you’re dealing with a large or remote team.

Use this training certificate template to appreciate your employees after the webinar.

Customize this certificate template and make it your own! Edit and Download

You can also use webinars to host team meetings that are interactive and completely remote. Use tools like whiteboards, presentation slides and screen sharing to make the experience even better.

Here’s a meeting agenda presentation template you can use during your team webinar.

Customize this presentation template and make it your own! Edit and Download

How to Host a Webinar in 7 Steps

Now that we’ve gone through the various purposes of hosting a webinar, let’s find out how you can actually create one for your own business.

The process of hosting a webinar is pretty simple. This is because most of it relies on choosing the right webinar software to work with.

Follow the steps below to get started.

Step 1: Plan your webinar content.

It can be tempting to jump right into the webinar creation process. But if you want your webinar to be a success, make sure you have everything planned out beforehand.

This means you need to have a content plan that outlines all the details. Decide on the topic of discussion, map out the format and structure, and jot down the talking points to focus on.

What tools are you going to use? Will you be facing the camera or sharing your screen? Who is going to be participating in the webinar?

Use this event planning template to put together a solid content plan for your webinar.

Customize this event plan template and make it your own! Edit and Download

Don’t forget to set the duration of your webinar and pick a suitable title before you start.

The title should be catchy and intriguing, but should also make it easy for viewers to understand what the webinar is about.

As for the duration, an ideal webinar should be between 30 to 60 minutes long. Make sure you leave some time for questions and answers at the end.

Step 2: Choose a webinar platform.

Once you have all your content planned out, it’s time to choose the perfect webinar platform for your needs. But before you choose one, there are a few things you need to consider, such as:

• The number of attendees you’re expecting.
• The number of speakers who will be participating.
• The duration of your webinar.
• The ability to share your screen or use a whiteboard.
• Support for text chat during the webinar.
• The cost of the webinar tool.

Pick a tool that offers you the most value for your money in terms of your usage requirements.

Some popular webinar tools include Livestorm, ClickMeeting, GoToWebinar and BigMarker. You can also choose to use a free video conferencing tool like Zoom or Google Meet.

Step 3: Schedule your webinar.

After you've decided on a webinar platform , pick a time and date for your event.

This naturally depends on your business type and customers. For example, B2B webinars are more likely to be viewed during the weekdays during business hours. If you're a B2C company, though, your webinar might get more views on the weekends or after work hours.

Make sure you schedule your webinar at least 2-3 weeks in advance so you have ample time to promote it and get as many people to register as possible.

Step 4: Promote your webinar.

So how do you actually get people to register and participate in your event?

This is where webinar promotion comes in.

You need to make sure you promote your webinar on the right channels to attract people who are genuinely interested in knowing more about your topic.

Most businesses create a landing page for their webinar .

Image Source

A dedicated landing page helps you share a compelling description of what your webinar is about and how viewers can benefit from it.

Here is some essential information to include in your webinar landing page:

• The title of your webinar.
• Short and compelling copy that provides an overview of your webinar.
• Bullet points detailing what viewers will learn or how they’ll benefit from it.
• The exact time and date of the event, along with the timezone.
• Headshots, names and titles of the featured speakers.
• A call-to-action (CTA) encouraging people to register.

The next step is to promote your webinar on different social media channels.

It’s a good idea to create promo graphics to share on social media as they’re likely to grab more attention than plain text-based posts.

Here’s a Twitter post template that you can edit and use for your own webinar.

Customize this social media graphic template and make it your own! Edit and Download

You can also use animated GIFs to share on your socials instead of just static images. Animated graphics are engaging and are more likely to stand out in the sea of visuals on your audiences’ feeds.

Here’s an animated social media graphic you can use.

A CTA button like in the template above is a nice touch for encouraging more people to register instead of just scrolling past.

You can also use this graphic as a paid ad to promote on Facebook or Instagram.

Don’t forget to use Instagram stories to promote your webinar . Instagram stories are engaging and interactive. You can even add a link into your story so users can simply swipe up to register.

Here’s an Instagram story template to get your audience excited about your event.

Customize this Instagram story template and make it your own! Edit and Download

It’s good practice to plan out your promotional campaign in advance to see better results out of it.

For example, you can create a webinar marketing plan to share with your marketing team so everyone is on the same page.

Another idea is to create a roadmap or Gantt chart to organize the tasks involved in your promotional campaign. Here’s a Gantt chart template you can use.

Customize this Gantt chart template and make it your own! Edit and Download

Last but not least, make sure you reach out to your contacts via email. If you already have an email list of leads, send them an attractive email to invite them to your webinar.

Reach out in a personalized manner instead of sending a generic, promotional email. This will make your contacts feel special and more likely to sign up.

Step 5: Send a reminder email.

Webinars are scheduled and promoted well in advance—it’s only natural that some people would forget they even registered.

To increase your webinar attendance, send registrants a reminder email a day before the event. You can send another email an hour or two before the event just to be sure.

Here’s an example of a quick reminder email that Visme sent over to its webinar registrants.

Make sure you add all the necessary details. In the example above, we have not only added a link to the event, but also options for registrants to add the event to their calendars and a list of recommended browsers for the best viewing experience.

Step 6: Run your webinar.

Finally, the big day arrives.

Make sure you have all your tech and equipment in order before the event. Double check your microphone, camera, screen sharing feature, slides and anything else you’re going to use.

During your webinar, keep track of the comments and questions in the text chat. If possible, try to answer the most important questions on video or have a dedicated member answer them in the chat.

Step 7: Follow up with the attendees.

Just because your webinar is over doesn't mean your job is done here.

To make the most out of it, follow up with your attendees through email and thank them for their participation.

Give them an opportunity to reach out to you if they have any questions, and don’t forget to add a link to a recorded version of the webinar in case they wish to revisit it in the future.

This gesture plays an important role in building a relationship with your attendees and leaving them feeling satisfied with your event.

Tips for Making Your Webinar a Success

Creating a webinar is a fairly straightforward and easy process. But hosting a successful webinar is a whole other story.

Here are some tips and best practices to make your webinar a success.

1. Put together a slide deck

If you’re hosting an educational webinar where you need to explain concepts, steps or processes, using an engaging slide deck is a great idea.

A well-designed presentation can help you introduce statistics, outline steps and visualize processes using images, videos, charts and graphs.

Visme user Claudia has saved over 100 hours by putting together entire webinars using presentation decks and the ability to add audio in the background.

Create your own webinar using this template. Edit and Download

If you’re hosting a webinar to educate your audience about a topic or your product, an engaging presentation like the one above can come in handy.

You can also use a slide deck to conduct webinar training sessions. This helps you clearly communicate training goals, key takeaways and activities.

Here’s a presentation template you can use for training webinars.

You can easily share your screen and navigate through the presentation during your webinar. Make sure you discuss the topic in detail instead of just reading points off the slides.

2. Use a virtual whiteboard

An online whiteboard tool is just like a real whiteboard, except that you use a digital pen or your mouse to draw on it. There are tons of whiteboard tools available online and you can use any of them.

All you need to do is share your screen during the webinar. Some webinar tools even come with their own whiteboard tool, like ClickMeeting.

Virtual whiteboards can be very useful for brainstorming sessions or explaining concepts while speaking. You can also use them for annotation purposes.

You can also easily share your screen using a webinar tool like LiveWebinar , helping you to illustrate your point even further.

3. Find top presenters and industry experts

Encourage more people to register for your webinar by inviting well-known speakers from your industry. This adds value to your event and makes you look more professional.

Reach out to top presenters and industry experts and ask them if they’d like to speak in your webinar. Create a compelling infographic or proposal to explain your event idea and get them onboard.

This Visme user got a 70% closing rate from the speakers he approached for his virtual summit by creating an infographic.

4. Share live updates on Twitter

During the event, share live updates of insightful tidbits on Twitter, along with a branded hashtag. This helps your webinar get more eyeballs and encourages people who missed out to sign up for the next one.

Use data to deliver content that will create the most impact and resonate with your client’s audience. #SproutSessions pic.twitter.com/pGGsxkg7Kg — Sprout Social (@SproutSocial) May 14, 2020

You can also ask your attendees to tweet quotes or insights from your webinar that they like. Don't forget to ask them to tag you or include your branded hashtag!

5. Practice before the event

A webinar is an opportunity for you to represent your business. If you want to look professional and make your event a success, you need to come prepared.

Make sure you rehearse before the actual event. Write down a webinar script and practice speaking in front of some friendly faces, like your colleagues.

This helps you be more confident during the webinar and prevents you from stumbling over your words or making silly mistakes during the live event.

Get Started with Your Own Webinar

Webinars can help you achieve various goals for your business or organization, like educating a global audience, generating high-quality leads and shedding light on your product.

Ready to create your own webinar?

Start planning your webinar content using Visme’s plan templates , put together a webinar presentation or create some great-looking social graphics to promote your event.

Create beautiful, engaging content your audience will love.

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About the Author

Mahnoor Sheikh is the content marketing manager at Visme. She has years of experience in content strategy and execution, SEO copywriting and graphic design. She is also the founder of MASH Content and is passionate about tea, kittens and traveling with her husband. Get in touch with her on LinkedIn .

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How to Give a Webinar Presentation

• Dorie Clark

Strategies to make the experience less awkward for you — and your audience.

Presenting in a webinar — when you often don’t have access to visual cues about how the audience is responding — can sometimes feel disconcerting or awkward. Here are a few strategies to improve the experience for you and your audience. First, make use of the camera. Many professionals don’t like looking at themselves on camera, but that’s not a valid excuse when you consider how much more engaged listeners are when watching a real person talk to them. Next, an important corollary point: If you’re using the camera, you have to be mindful of visual aesthetics. Specifically, adjust your camera so that it’s giving a straight-on view of your face, and test out how your chosen backdrop appears to participants. It’s also a good idea to rehearse the mechanics of the webinar software you’re using. And finally, decide in advance how you’ll handle audience participation.

As more and more companies cultivate a global workforce and international client base, it’s increasingly necessary to present remotely. For years, teleconferencing was the best option, but in the past five years internet speeds and web conferencing technologies have become sufficiently robust to support a shift to live video streaming. But presenting in a webinar — when you often don’t have access to visual cues about how the audience is responding — can sometimes feel disconcerting or awkward.

• Dorie Clark is a marketing strategist and keynote speaker who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. Her latest book is The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World (HBR Press, 2021) and you can receive her free Long Game strategic thinking self-assessment .

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