A critical element for a successful webinar is maintaining an engaged audience – straight through to the Q/A session. A good webinar will budget 15-20 minutes at the end of a session to faciliatate asking and answering questions as a means to allow everyone to get involved. It’s a great way to get additional clarification or insights, and it’s also an opportunity to continue to share and promote your Thought Leadership.
It can be exciting to engage with your audience, but try to avoid replying with “that’s a great question.” It well and truly could be a great question, but repetition is impersonal. Get into the habit of personalizing responses to help individualize interest while sounding authentic. If a question leaves you momentarily perplexed, pause for a moment, collect your thoughts, and then respond in a natural voice with something like, “Harry, I’ve often been intrigued by the notion of how sending multiple email invitations to the same person will impact their receptiveness to the invitation, and here’s what our experience has taught us,” and then give a few short examples.
Encouraging your audience to ask questions frequently during your webinar helps you track their inspiration, and it also shows how well you engaged with them. By simply not replying to each question with the same response, you’ll find yourself better able to respond as naturally and conversationally as possible – an approach your audience will appreciate.
For more information on how to produce and delivered a polished webinar, check out my free eBook, WebinarReady
Here’s to your webinar success,
Mike