Q: I have listened to several webinars you have done with AT&T, Steve. It got me to thinking – how can I incorporate webinars into my business? — DM

A: Like you, I enjoy listening to and watching online webinars. For the uninitiated, a webinar, or web-seminar, is an interactive online speech.

Generally, it works this way:

You learn of a webinar and sign up to attend. At the appointed date and time, you surf over to the website and you will be instructed to click a link that will take you to the virtual “room” where the webinar takes place. You are also given a call-in telephone number. Enter the room and call the number. You will then be placed on a mass conference call where you listen to the lecture while following a visual presentation online.

They are easy: Webinars are easy in two ways:

1. Offering a webinar requires only that you have a great subject, a PowerPoint presentation, and a hosting service for the webinar. A simple Google search will yield a host of hosts who can help you put on and promote the event.

2. From the speaker’s perspective, a webinar is fairly easy because there is no travel involved, and as you are speaking on a phone, you can have as many notes as you like in front of you.

There are many reasons why you might want to try a webinar:

They add value: Offering a webinar, either on your own site or someone else’s, creates value for the participant. I do webinars for many companies and they frequently offer the webinarsfree to their best small business customers. It is an affordable way to create goodwill and customer loyalty, add value, and to stay top-of-mind.

They can be a nice profit center: You can make money two ways with a webinar. First, you can charge people to attend. If your topic is compelling enough, that works. Second, because webinars can be recorded, by recording yours, you are creating a product that you can sell and sell again for a long time.

They position you as the go-to expert: If you are the presenter, you must be an expert, right? Another option is to bring in other experts to your site and offer them to your customers.

For example, I have listened to many fantastic teleseminars at SpeakerNet News – a resource for speakers, consultants, authors, etc. They have a cadre of great speakers. Similarly, my pal Tara Reed brings in experts for her Teleseminar series, teaching artists how to make money with via licensing, branding, etc.

They capture email: Creating your own e-mail list is important for marketing purposes. People who sign up for your webinar are opting in, giving you their e-mail address, and in the process, helping you grow your list.

They engage your audience: It is not enough these days to have a static website. People expect more. Webinars are a cool Web 2.0 tool that engages your audience and helps you forge a closer connection to your customers.

Finally, if you think you want to put on a webinar, make sure to:

•Promote the heck out of it. Many more people will sign up for the webinar than will actually attend it, so promoting it will ensure that you get enough people to check in on the day of the event. Plug the webinar on your site, tweet it, and use plenty of follow up e-mails.

•Have a great subject: There is no shortage of competing ideas out there, especially online. So a great topic and name is a must.

•Over-prepare. Know your subject cold. Practice the presentation, and then practice some more.

From USA Today.com, posted by Steven D. Strauss, a lawyer, author and speaker who specializes in small business and entrepreneurship. His latest book is The Small Business Bible. You can sign up for his free newsletter, “Small Business Success Secrets!” at his website —www.mrallbiz.com.

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USA Today ran a column by Steve Strauss on the basics of business webinars. It’s a high level introduction to the subject for neophytes. Fine… I have no problem with Steve’s quick overview or his advice to businesses that are thinking of adding webinars to their communications mix.

The content of the column isn’t what interested me so much. It’s the first two reader comments published online (the only comments so far as I write this). I hope I’m not violating copyright by quoting them here:

1) “Ahhh… Webinars. Best way to get an quick 1h/2h break from work and do nothing. I don’t think I have ever been able to acquire or improve any skill through one of them. Just too many interruption, or other things that gets prioritized ahead of the session. Great as a speaker, fairly low value as an attendee.”

2) “Yeah, right, let’s have a webinar. You have got to be joking!”

Ouch. Do we have a problem of perception, a problem of personalities, or are webinars truly useless as a business tool?

The second comment doesn’t give us much to work with, unless the writer disagrees so vehemently with Steve’s column that s/he finds it ludicrous to even consider webinars as a business tool. I know this does not match reality… Thousands of companies are benefitting from expanding their marketing, training, customer communications, and other types of collaboration through webinars. So let’s assume instead that the ridicule implies that it’s ludicrous to attend a webinar. I’ll address that below.

The first comment has more meat, so let’s see why the writer has such a bad opinion of webinars from the audience perspective and evaluate whether your webinars are helping to perpetuate her attitude.

“Get a break from work and do nothing.” – Do your webinars force your audience into a passive mode? If you don’t address each listener as an individual and invite them to think, participate, and mentally apply the concepts you introduce, then you end up with audiences that view your webinars as an opportunity to “do nothing.”

“I don’t think I have ever been able to acquire or improve any skill” – Do your webinars consist of “data dumps” that replicate a white paper or textbook? Then you aren’t helping your audience acquire knowledge or skills. Use the unique advantages of visual and audio communication – along with the opportunity to collaborate with and engage your audience as active participants – to drive home key points, engage enthusiasm for your subject, explain applications of the factual information they can study offline. I give lots of webinar presentation training online. The comments I see indicate that my students feel they are acquiring and improving skills in a way they couldn’t do by reading a book.

“Too many interruptions” – Do you make it easy for your audience to drift away from your presentation? A monotonous presentation delivered in an abstract lecture style is sure to let interruptions take precedence. The interruptions are more interesting than you! Assume that your audience is constantly trying to do something else. You need to repeatedly recapture their attention and enthusiasm, again and again.

“Other things get prioritized ahead of the session” – Do your advance communications stress the value that your attendees will get by attending? They should be so clear on the benefits they will receive by attending that it is silly to let something else take precedence. If your confirmation and reminder emails only contain login information, you are setting yourself up to be the lowest priority task for that time period. Each email must succinctly restate the value proposition of your webinar from the audience’s perspective. Satisfy their self interest and the priorities will take care of themselves.

“Great as a speaker, low value as an attendee” – As you prepare and practice, do you listen to your presentation with an attendee’s ear? Are you quickly delivering the value you promised in your promotional materials? Are you being explicit about why each fact and concept you introduce is valuable and useful for your audience? Are you thinking about the speed and density of information transfer to make sure your audience can absorb the information and stay with you? If not, you are creating a webinar that is only great for you. And that’s not worth your time, energy, and money.

Your webinar can be the exception that surprises and impresses people like these commenters. It takes a commitment to think from your audience’s perspective during planning, preparation, and delivery. If you just knock together a monotonous, tedious data dump because someone in your company tells you that it’s your turn to present, you are not only going to drive away your own audiences… You’re going to turn them off webinars in general. And that doesn’t help anybody.

Re-posted from The Webinar Blog, and written by Ken Molay, President of Webinar Success

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“One of today’s hottest B2B marketing topics, along with social media, is content,” writes Susan Fantle in a guest post at Marketfish. And if you want your content marketing program to generate and nurture the right kind of leads, she has advice like this:

Tell them what they want to hear. Ask your leads about the three biggest challenges they face, and use feedback to create content—e.g., whitepapers and webinars—tailored to their specific concerns.

Don’t skimp on no-strings-attached insight. “[I]f your solution is collaboration software,” she suggests, “include usable advice on how to improve collaboration without buying your product. That approach positions your company as a trusted ‘thought leader’ and shows that you truly care about helping them solve their problem—not just selling them software.”

Give everyone something to consider. The more complex a sale, the more decision-makers and influencers you will encounter. Be sure that your content addresses a wide range of interests and pain points.

Make them register—but only sometimes. You’ll reach a larger audience when access to content doesn’t require registration. “However,” she notes, “a B2B marketer’s ultimate goal is generating qualified leads that can be nurtured and turned into sales. To do this, one must require registration for access to the more in-depth content or informational offers being made.”

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Does your webinar marketing strategy include things like “conversion,” “ROI” and “new customers?” If the answer is yes, then webinar registration pages are something you’ve thought long and hard about.  Webinar registration pages broker the exchange of information between you and your prospective attendee. Combining an eye-catching offer button with an effective registration page can convert mere visitors to engaged registrants.

7 Webinar Registration Page Best Practices

1) Pass the Blink Test – Visitors to your page will often make the decision of whether or not they’re going to fill out your form before the page even finishes loading. Make sure where you’re sending folks appears immediately professional and easy to fill out. In other words – make sure they can understand the topic and what you’re asking for in the time it takes them to blink.

2) Keep It Simple – A key thing to remember about your registration pages is that anyone who reaches it must have clicked on something to get there. So, theoretically, you will know something key about these folks immediately.  You should be able to plan your next move pretty well armed with that information, and not have to ask for much more. Use that to your advantage and keep everything about this page, including the amount and nature of the questions you ask, simple.

3) Keep It Short – Seeing a massive list of 15 or 20 questions will make your prospect think hard about the value of his or her time, and whether or not they feel spending it filling out your form.

4) Graphics and Endorsements Matter – Remember, you’ll be asking people to submit information they may consider sensitive.  Credibility will be key.  Make sure you have your logo or client testimonial at eye level in one of the margins or in the header – or somewhere else they can quickly see it without having to scroll.

5) Go Naked – They are a few keystrokes and a click away from becoming a bonafide webinar registrant. The last thing you would want to happen is for them to get distracted. “Going naked” refers to the practice of making your registration page deliberately sparse. Customize this page so that it has zero navigation – no menu, no link back to the homepage, no other places to click, nothing. This page needs to be devoid of any and all hyperlinked distraction. Have the form and the “submit” button be their singular point of focus, and usher them through to completion.

6) Restate Value – Use a simple, bulleted list near the top of the page to restate what you’re presenting and why it’s valuable. Doing so will ensure your registrant knows exactly what they’ll be attending.

7) Eat Your Own Dogfood – Before publishing the page, ask yourself: would I fill this out? Would I find this page confusing? Would I feel comfortable sharing this information over the web? Use these questions to ultimately perfect the look and feel of your registration page before going live. And of course, as always, test, test, test!

What other tactics have you found to be successful in improving your webinar registration page conversion rates?

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Having high-quality audio in your webinar video production is even more important than having a perfectly crisp picture. People need to hear the dialogue and information to understand what’s going on.

Quality Audio Checklist:

1. Plug headphones into the camera to listen to the audio feed while you’re recording. That way you will be able to hear more detail.
2. Always do a sound check before you officially begin recording. Check audio levels and sound quality.
3. Remove all background noises, if possible. Check for buzzing from items like refrigerators or ventilation systems.
4. Avoid filming in open rooms with tile or other building materials that could create echoes.
5. Make sure you stop or pause your recording if you’re interrupted by loud noises like sirens or construction.

Use Lavalier Mics to Individually Mic Each Person:

If you are recording an interview, you may want to individually mic each person to make sure the sound comes in loud and clear. For this video, use a lavalier mic, also known as a “lav” or “lapel mic.” Lav mics clip onto a person’s collar or shirt a few inches from a person’s mouth.

1. Check what kind of audio input your camera uses. (Most likely, it will be XLR or 1/8 inch input.)

2. If you are putting a mic on each person, use a soundboard to collect all of your audio feeds. Connect the soundboard to the camera.

3. If you don’t want to use a soundboard when using two mics, use a splitter to enter two feeds into one jack. However, this may decrease the audio quality or cause a slight buzzing sound.

4. For wireless mics, clip the transmitter onto the person being recorded. Make sure they turn the transmitter on!

Use a Boom Mic to Record a Scene:

If you are recording a video using a hand-held camera, you may want to use a boom mic. A boom mic, or shotgun mic, is a directional microphone that connects to the camera. For most boom mics, you will need a camera with an XLR input.

Excerpted From HubSpot eBook how_to_use_online_video

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There are three key factors that determine the quality of your video: video picture, audio and lighting. Here’s how to succeed with each factor:

1. Set the Scene for Your Video

When filming, first “set your stage.” And remember, details are important! For example, if you’re using a tripod, make sure it’s level. Are there papers in the way? Any classified information on the wall in the background?
Also, make sure your scenes stay consistent, also known as maintaining continuity. This is incredibly important for post-production and editing. Was there a mug on the table in your first take that somebody moved in your second take? If you use clips from both takes, it will look awfully strange when a mug suddenly appears!

2. Use Specific Camera Shots and Film Techniques

How you film your video can make your content more interesting and add a touch of professionalism. When filming different scenes, think about the best angle and perspective for each shot.

Over Shoulder: This is a great angle to show the perspective of one person listening to another person. This technique could be used during a camera interview or a character dialogue. To get this shot, put the corner of the camera directly behind someone’s shoulder. You can use this technique with multiple people to capture the dynamic of a conversation.

Low-Angle Shot: This camera angle is done by putting the camera below an individual, pointing up. This gives the person on camera an essence of power and strength. These shots may be great for presidential figures, bosses and heroes.

High-Angle Shot: This shot is the exact opposite of the previous shot, with the camera above the actor, pointing down. This shot makes the character seem timid, lost or young. This would be a good angle to show an adult looking down at a child or a superior looking down at a scared employee who is about to be reprimanded.

Bust Shot: If you are filming a video interview, this would be the best shot to use. Frame your characters from the belly button up, or lap up if they are sitting. This shot is important if you need to see hand motion and interaction.

Close Up: This shot shows detail of a character’s face, and focuses on a character’s expression. This would be a good shot to use if a character is feeling an intense emotion or has an epiphany.

Pro Tip 1: As you’re getting all of your video footage, take multiple shots from multiple perspectives. It’s much easier to edit your footage later when you have lots of variety to work with

Pro Tip 2: When filming multiple angles in one scene, make sure to follow the “180 Degree Rule.” This rule ensures that the people in the shot maintain the same left/right relationship. If the camera passes this line, it appears awkward to the viewer and makes your characters appear to “switch places.”

Excerpted From HubSpot eBook how_to_use_online_videoars

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Webinars are a key component to generate compelling, relevant content to feed your lead generation, lead nurturing and content marketing programs.

We see all too often, however, that companies take a “show up and throw up” approach to webinars, and therefore are only scratching the surface in terms of capitalizing on the opportunity.

1) Pre-produce the webinar:

Pre-producing the webinar greatly improves the webinar experience for both viewers and presenters. When pre-producing the webinar, the webinar will still be presented as if it’s live (it has just been pre-recorded and edited), followed by a live Q&A. The pre-production allows for removal of any extraneous segments, and multiple takes for the presenters as necessary to deliver their messages most effectively.

This also serves to greatly reduce stress on the presenters, and has the added benefit of helping to manage the all-too-common scheduling conflicts. We’ve had two cases in the past week where presenters could not attend their webinars at the last minute (one due to a client emergency and one due to travel issues), and this was a non-issue as the webinar was already produced.

2) Create a 90-second trailer:

This can be an easy edit job from your pre-produced content. Think “movie trailer” as a way to draw in an audience – a link that can be easily posted to Twitter, YouTube and social media.

3) Create an executive version:

Edit down the webinar to create a 6-9 minute executive version. Executives are likely in your target audience but most won’t have the time to view an entire webinar. You want someone from their team to view the webinar and have something of value to pass-along. A link to a 6-minute executive summary has much more pass-along value than the full webinar, and greatly increases the chance that your webinar becomes viral.

4) Create a chapter-indexed, edited archive:

The webinar archive should not have extraneous waiting music — go straight to the webinar content for your audience. The archive should also be chapter-indexed so that viewers can easily return and locate relevant segments, and viewers that did not view the original webinar can browse the webinar archive with the best user experience.

5) Create transcripts of the webinar:

Transcribe your webinar. You can then post the transcript itself within web pages as part of your webinar archive, which will have a substantial impact on search engine indexing of your keywords.

6) Create a microsite after the webinar:

Don’t view your webinar as a point event -– it is an ongoing magnet for you to engage prospects. The aforementioned webinar archive, trailer, executive version and transcripts should all be housed on a microsite to further engage with viewers, give them an easy pass-along step and give you content to engage non-viewers. And if you have marketing automation in place you will be able to track the ongoing impact of your microsite at the company or individual level.

7) Edit key snippets to enable sales and nurturing:

Lastly, extract key snippets from the webinar into vignettes (flash modules) and slides that can be incorporated into sales enablement and nurturing programs. The key is to maximize your return on the webinar well beyond the webinar itself.

Originally posted by by Zak Pines on ShariSax Is Out There Blog

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1. Decide What Type of Video You Want to Create
There are many different types of videos you can make. Which type of video is right for your project? That depends on how you want to film your video and what the purpose of your video will be.
Pick a video type for this project. For example, you could make a: Creative or “viral” video How-to video Video interview Talk show-style video

film in HD? Do you want to record using a 16:9 (or wide screen) aspect ratio? (Many companies do!) Perhaps you will create a stationary set, and use a tripod to film your video. Maybe you will hold the camera while recording. To help you decide, watch other videos to see what you like.

2. Set Your Video Goals
Creating video is a lot of fun, but as with any marketing project, it’s important to set goals for the video you produce. What do you want to achieve from your video?

Suggested Goals:
1. Increase “direct traffic” to your company’s website
2. Grow your YouTube Channel’s subscribers
3. Grow your blog RSS subscribers
4. Build inbound links into your website
5. Develop company personality and brand
6. Recruit new employees or build company culture
7. Increase brand awareness (search traffic for your company name)

3. Storyboard Your Video
Storyboarding is a technique to map out a video sequence prior to filming. In true form, a video producer would draw the scenes on paper as they would appear on camera. For marketing purposes, create a storyboard in written form to plan for your video’s content.

A. Pick your topic. What will your video content be about? This could be a simple interview subject or a complex plot and storyline. Brainstorm the topic of your video with a team.

In your brainstorm, you could ask: What’s popular in mass media or on the news? Does someone in our company have an interesting talent? Could we do a parody of a popular song? TV show? What does our target audience find funny? What does our target audience want to learn?

B. Write the script. Once you’ve picked your topic, you need to write your script. If your video will require multiple shots, characters and scenes, script out your video in detail. Be sure to include the sets, stage actions and dialogue.

If your video will be mostly conversational, create a list of bulleted notes. It will keep you organized during filming and save you time later.

C. Decide on your video’s call-to-action. Too often, marketers leave a video’s call-to-action to the very last minute. Decide what your call-to-action will be while writing your script. What do you want people to do after they watch your video?

Be sure to connect your call-to-action with the goal you set for your video.
Here are some call-to-action examples: Google [your company] Subscribe to [your company] on YouTube Watch this next video Friend us on Facebook Subscribe to our blog

It’s also important to remove as much “corporate friction” from your video calls-to-action as possible. If your call-to-action (or the video itself) is too corporate in nature, people will be discouraged from sharing it with their network, decreasing its reach. You don’t want people to think your video is a commercial if that’s not its purpose

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11:00 AM – 12:00 PM MDT
Program C – Webinar Best Practices for Demand Generation
Bret Smith and Mike Agron, Co-Principals of WebAttract, LLC (Rensselaer, NY) Will discuss webinar strategies designed to drive net new leads for your company (Demand Generation). They will cover topics like; Successful planning process, Audience recruitment, Communication strategies and channels, List building, Messaging and timing, Post webinar opportunities and more…

http://www.integratedmarketingsummit.com/agenda.php?id=3

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