Curiously, Successful Webinars Containt This Element
Picture this. A conference room. No refreshments. The a/c has been jacked way up. The presenter stands on a stage, a laptop open on the podium with a projection screen directly behind him. Page after page of bullet points with sad clip-art for show. But it gets worse. All the presenter does is read directly from a powerpoint that does absolutely nothing but lead you to ask more questions, but one question in particular stands out: why did I get out of bed for this? Yes, it’s a seminar nightmare. And, to top it off, you’re sitting in the front row!
A poorly planned webinar will have the same effect on your audience, but with a nice little bonus for your attendee — they have completely neglected paperwork they can complete while you ramble on blandly.
Your job as the webinar host is to keep the audience engaged and interested. How do you accomplish this? Quote Stork Solutions offers several options but in the interest of brevity, we will discuss one key strategy here (if you want more, you can sign up for the free newsletter). This strategy alone, however, will keep all of your presentations fresh and interesting.
The most important ingredient to a successful webinar is curiosity. That’s right, curiosity will keep your audience interested and engaged. By maintaining their curiosity from slide to slide, their minds will seek out solutions to the presented problems (instead of solutions to get out of the meeting). And the best part is that your audience will find themselves begging for the next slide, anxious to see what comes next.
Numerous examples exist for how you can raise your audience’s curiosity level. Since webinars are a visual media, all you have to do is look to your favorite films for ways to accomplish this important goal. Look at Star Wars — viewers not only kept watching, but they returned time and again to see the series again, even after they learned that Darth Vader was Skywalker’s father. Saw — how do these people free themselves? Pulp Fiction — how do these characters fit together? Okay, you get it. The point is, these films succeeded in very different ways in keeping their audience tuned in to the story.
For the webinar presenter, achieving a high curiosity level involves giving the audience problems. Typically, unsuccessful presenters give a million answers instead. If great filmmakers don’t give the answers, why should you? After all, a lot has been studied about great managers and it seems these effective folks (Jack Welch comes to mind) provide the questions and allow employees to come up with the answers. Of course, the manager always has an “end” but by allowing the employee to produce the “means” has benefits outside the scope of this article. Use the webinar to empower your staff or clients; letting them make the decision results in greater long-term commitment.
As an example, a financial adviser might understand that bearish periods where market valuations are low, the best thing to do is invest. Now, this is an answer and even the most mediocre financial advisor can come up with at least a hundred bullet-point reasons to invest. But instead of providing answers, provide questions. What do you do when gas prices are high? (You only fill partially, or you drive on empty). What do you do when gas prices are low? (You fill up everything, including the lawn mower!). What has Carl Icahn done time and time again? (Taken advantage of cheap companies and flipped them at a gross profit). You get the point — all of these questions point to one answer. Buy low (ahem, today) and sell high (well, about 2 years ago!).
The market leader in the webinar market is Citrix Online with their GoToWebinar solution. Through Quote Stork Solutions, you can try GoToWebinar for Free and enjoy an additional $10 if you decide to stick with the program. The GoToWebinar solution allows you to host unlimited webinars and reach an unlimited amount of employees and clients. Great way to practice raising the audience’s curiosity level!
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