5 Ways to Make Your Webcast Stand Out (Part 2)

Posted by Amit Rathee on Fri, Mar 22, 2013 @ 10:33 AM

webcast,live webcasting,webcasting tipsIf you have joined the growing trend of using live webcasting to hold your important business meetings and other conferences, you need to learn some webcasting tips that will help you create the most impressive event possible. You want your webcast to be different from all the others that are out there and provide your viewers with an interesting format they will want to follow. With these tips, you will be able to keep your audience engaged and interested in what you have to say.

1. Promote Your Webcast

Just like any other aspect of your business, you need to advertise your event to make sure your target audience is aware of it. One of the best ways to do this is to make use of the areas where you won’t have to spend extra money. For instance, if you have a list of addresses, send out emails advertising your event. You can safely send two or three invitations out, each of which leads to a registration page that makes it easy for people to sign up for your live webcasting event.

If you use social media, you can make use of these websites to quickly spread the word about your upcoming event. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are all great ways to send links to the people who already follow you on these sites. It is also easy to send out reminders, reaching as many potential attendees as possible.

You don’t need to stick to only free methods for promoting your webcast. If you have money in your marketing budget to cover this type of event, make good use of it. Think about where your target audience is likely to see the advertisement, such as local newspapers, industry publications and even other websites. Create a compelling advertisement and place them wherever you think people will see them. To help you track the success of each individual advertisement, assign each one a promotion code people will enter when they fill out the registration form. This can help you more effectively advertise in the future.

2. Keep Things Interactive

Live webcasting isn’t just about talking to people; it’s about interacting with them. If you want to keep your audience as engaged as possible, you need to follow the proper webcasting tips to keep things as interactive as possible. You want your audience to remain engaged in your webcast, not trying to do something else at the same time. Requiring them to participate or even giving them the opportunity to do so will ensure they are truly paying attention.

There are many ways you can make your webcast as interactive as possible. Polling can be a useful tool through various stages of your event. You can ask questions early in the presentation to gather information and then use feedback throughout to tailor your event to the audience. A question and answer session near the end of your event can also be helpful to keep your audience engaged. In fact, if you let them know about this portion early in the presentation, they can work on thinking of questions during the course of your presentation.

3. Create the Right Slides

Most people use PowerPoint presentations as part of live webcasting events. However, there are right and wrong ways to create the slides that make up these presentations. The goal of these slides should be to serve as visual aids only. This means you need to limit the amount of information you put onto the slides. A slide that is filled with information and words isn’t going to be as effective as one that includes a chart that showcases the point you are talking about or one that lists a few supporting statistics. The slides should complement your presentation, not replace it. If you have additional information to share, you can provide that to your audience through an email after the event.

4. Analyze Your Event Afterward

Some people think the webcasting tips end with the event. However, there are still things you need to do after the event to ensure its success. If the event was recorded, watch it after you present it so you can critique yourself and learn what you can do better next time. You can also take into account any feedback you have received during and after. For instance, many businesses send out a questionnaire following any type of live webcasting to gather information to help them create a better webcast later.

It is also the perfect time for you to evaluate your audience and the effectiveness of your marketing. Pay attention to the number of people who attended the webcast and whether they were able to interact appropriately to the topic. If it seemed as though some people didn’t belong in attendance, evaluate how you could have better reached your target audience. Another important element to look at is what percentage of your audience attended for the entire presentation and when it seemed most people who did leave made the move.

5. Reach Out to Those Who Didn’t Attend

There are many reasons why someone may sign up for a live webcasting event and then fail to show up. Something may have come up, they may have forgotten or they may have simply changed their minds. In any case, it is important to thank those who did attend and to send an email to those who didn’t attend to let them know they were missed. In this message, you can include a link where they can watch a recorded copy of your webcast, as well as ask for feedback as to why they didn’t attend. This gives them a chance to see the event, even if they missed the live event.

The most effective live webcasting event has to be one that will truly speak to your audience. This means more than just getting your message across; it also means you need to make the event interesting and exciting for those who will attend. When you follow these webcasting tips, you will be able to create a webcast that has the greatest effect on your audience.

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