Each webinar or seminar should include tips, lessons learned, best practices, and even worksheets or a workbook that the participant can use today for their business or life. You can take all these aspects of your face-to-face workshop and still implement them into an online delivered webinar. Read on to learn more about webinars and seminars and how they can help your business.
Webinar and seminar
Webinars and seminars are a great way to expand your audience and grow your business. Webinars are online events, and workshops can take place online or in person. They can be hosted by one person, several co-hosts, or even a large group of people. Hundreds of thousands of viewers can easily access webinars.
What makes webinars effective is that they are a two-way form of communication. Participants and presenters give, receive, and exchange information with each other in real time. Webinars are live sessions that allow for real-time interaction between the presenter and attendees. Since online seminars and webinars are more interactive than standard presentations or meetings, many brands use them for networking.
Webinars and seminars can be recorded and uploaded to video hosting for on-demand viewing by previous attendees and anyone who was unable to attend the live event. With streaming media and powerful webinar tools available to all of us, face-to-face seminars can also be sold as digital events. Now that we have sophisticated media streaming methods and webinar tools available to just about anyone, seminars can actually function as a hybrid of personal and digital. You can learn more about these highly interactive platforms here.
These webinar workshops tend to be much more interactive than traditional online meetings. Many companies will use online webinars as an opportunity for attendees to ask questions directly to their audience which in turn can allow them to connect with the company on a deeper level. Consider creating a spreadsheet that your audience can complete before the workshop. This will allow you to tailor the webinar with that content during the workshop to increase engagement and participation.
Workshop into a Webinar: Tailoring your content
Keep in mind that your content needs to be well-planned, clear, and to the point to keep people interested and engaged. You will have done this already because you run workshops. But remember – it’s easier to walk away from an online seminar than a seminar you attend in person. If you signed up for a webinar, you don’t want to waste time attending it and not getting the most out of it. It is less rude to walk away from an online event than it is to walk out on a room of people. So it pays to make sure your content is relevant and engaging to keep the participants at your event. If you want to run a successful lead generation seminar (and do it consistently), you need to know how to get people to stay in your webinar longer.
The focus here is on extracting educational content from your workshop. Or perhaps even an e-book and turning it into a webinar where your students not only learn how to solve a problem. Think about the step-by-step logical process of what you are teaching. You can even share key content such as basic models, concepts, and theory before a webinar. Doing this will help learners establish a basic understanding. So that when attending a webinar, they can make good use of the time to discuss any issues and focus on the application. They are not simply just after the information, because they can always download these charts or models from the internet themselves, they are after an expert who can answer their questions regarding the material.
Webinar workshop delivery
When it comes to how you deliver value to your audience (what they get from you) and how your audience engages with that value (what you get from them), it’s worth learning more about the difference between seminars and webinars. Seminars focus on education and dissemination of information. While webinars are traditionally organised for education and sales and almost always have a small sales pitch at the end. You can use webinars to expand your audience and then offer them seminars that meet their needs.
Webinars have many uses, often business related. The most important and effective use of webinars is educating and engaging the audience. Over the last decade, webinars have become one of the main ways to educate students and potential clients, generate leads for your business, and attract a large online audience. Participants don’t have to travel to an event anymore, and online webinars are growing to be the single most important learning tool. As well as Q&A webinars, tutorials or group coaching sessions can be delivered live. Or they can be pre-recorded and offered upon request. Many businesses now take a small fraction of their expertise and create pre-recorded webinars as a lead-generation tactic.
Will the online platforms be the same as in person delivery?
Of course not. There are pros and cons for each. Which you are certainly learning about. There will be a learning curve if you are unfamiliar with the technology as well. Please don’t be too concerned about the difference in engagement. It depends on your platform but web platforms may allow you to ask questions or raise your hand virtually. Again, read about different platforms for their specific attributes. Some are severally limited regarding engagement, some seem quite difficult to get involved whereas others are designed for more engaging meetings or sessions.
The biggest problem when moving from a live seminar to a webinar is your inability to rely on your interpersonal skills. You have to learn a new way to communicate learning. And you don’t want to make it seem like you are only reading to an audience from slides, add in interactivity to showcase your knowledge. These are new skills that have to be learnt. There are many opportunities for participants to discuss topics and complete exercises together. There are even platforms that allow for breakout room. These personal discussions (and they feel more personal when you are at home as opposed to being on your best at an event) make online seminars and webinars a great opportunity to network with others who share an interest in the topic.
Remember:
When turning your workshop into a webinar, don’t forget to also record your webinars. You might offer it to the audience as a replay. This is a great idea especially if you find your audience is spread out across the globe. As previously mentioned, you could use these again (perhaps with some editing) as lead-generators in exchange for email addresses. You can also learn from them as you can recall specific questions the audience asked. You can use these to help you improve your delivery for the future.
