A webinar in an online presentation. Your attendees listen on their telephone while they watch their computer screens. It gives the same quality of information as if they were sitting in an auditorium listening to you and watching the large screen up front.
As a business owner, webinars make a lot of sense. There are three major benefits you get when you present your information as a webinar.
1. Webinars provide a familiar learning method. All through college and into professional conferences, the attendees sit and listen to the speaker, watching the slides or demonstration on the screen.
If you’ve had any presentation experience, this feels very familiar to you. You are able to carry it off with the same professionalism you would a live face-to-face presentation. And attendees give you the same attention and respect they give to the “big name” conference presenters.
2. Webinars provide a rich participation environment. Depending on your purpose, you can provide
– the ability for attendees to ask you questions during the presentation
– live chat among the participants
– polls that let you know where they are and keep them focused on the screen.
Likewise, you can provide handouts before the presentation. You can invite other speakers and even hand them the mouse so that they can control the screen for a while. In effect, it’s the closest thing to being in an interactive, face-to-face environment.
3. Webinars provide a higher perceived value than any other live presentation mode. While teleseminars are still an excellent choice for some presentations, people just perceive that a webinar, with its richer communication environment and the video recording, is worth more.
That means you can not only charge more for the original presentation, but you can also charge more for the resulting product. In the long run you can easily double or triple your revenue by presenting via a webinar versus a teleseminar.
While webinars provide the richest communication with your prospects and clients, they are not the easiest presentation to set up. Whereas with a teleseminar you can just get on the telephone and start talking, a webinar takes more preparation and planning.
The wise business owner will get at least some basic training in effective webinar presentations before offering their first webinar. Add webinars to your business and watch your profits soar.
I’m thinking about using webinars. I know it’s a really powerful “IM” weapon. Plus my mentor does them all the time.
They are great because you teach valuable information to your list members, and present them with a product in real time. Conversion are extremely high.
Thanks for the articles.
Franck
I agree, Franck. Webinars are so helpful in so many ways. As a former educator, we used a form of webinars – we called them video conferences. And of course they are all derived from television. So anything you can do in person or on TV you can do with a webinar.
In the elearning world, from whence I came, we used to challenge one another with “can you teach square dancing” with the medium? And sure enough, I think you can teach square dancing with a webinar! So you can teach pretty much anything with it.
If you’ve not yet started offering your own webinars, get started with http://WebinarsMadeSimple.com (shameless plug!) 🙂
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Hey Janette great blog!
I think webinars are a great way to teach and learn
They really seem to be ‘catching on’ as the best way to sell and teach online
Participation is important, but some webinar host don’t seem to interact at all with the viewers -big mistake in my opinion
You bring up a good point, Jeff. Interaction on webinars are a challenge, especially for new webinar hosts. There is a lot to watch and keep track of, depending on how complex your presentation is. If you’re just doing slides by yourself, it’s not too hard. But if you integrate live demos, perhaps have a guest and other moving parts, it’s tough to “interact” with several hundred people. That’s why I recommend you have a moderator to help you filter questions and input if you want interaction with more than 30 people.