So much to do, so little time… I like to think of webinars as “movie trailers” or “mini events” and, like all events, there are a lot of moving parts. As with all events, webinars should be framed with a set of business objectives that becomes a roadmap for all of the best practices that follow.
I like to think of webinars as “movie trailers” or “mini events” and, like all events, there are a lot of moving parts. As with all events, webinars should be framed with a set of business objectives that becomes a roadmap for all of the best practices that follow, culminating in an engaging, impactful event.
First, a webinar production team must be led by a strong project manager and must be comprised of a production team possessing all of the needed skills, from creative design to content/messaging development to sound/video editing to reporting and analytics. It’s very important to know what each person’s roles, responsibilities, deliverables and activity due dates are. And, in true collaboration, key internal/external stakeholders from the client’s side need to be integrated into the process as well. Generally speaking, there will be elements of Marketing and Executive/Senior Sales management who make up the client side of the webinar production efforts. Each one of them, as well as the production team itself, must believe they are fully invested in the event and that their contributions are needed and valuable.
With the team and client relationships in place, it is time to define the business outcomes which the client desires. Will they measure the event’s success in terms of lead generation, enhanced thought leadership, extended brand awareness, etc.? Regardless of which outcome, or combination thereof, these definitions of desired business outcomes provide the framework for webinar production and the means/methods by which it’s executed. That framework and those means/methods are then rendered into a work plan template.
A typical work plan will include descriptions of stakeholders, their expected contributions, the associated benchmarks and timelines, and all of the necessary activities and dependecies identified which are needed to bring the webinar to full fruition. This work plan should exist as a document, controlled by the producer, and be updated with notes after each planning discussion. You should have this work plan template at the ready to pour all of the details of the aforementioned into and then to enrich as you move toward the “go-live” date of the webinar
I recommend weekly meetings to measure progress against the plan and to adjust priorities. Initially, these meetings can be relatively short as content is conceived and developed, but eventually they must become “table reads”, “dry runs” and “dress rehearsals” as the “go-live” date approaches. These particular meetings can be between 1 and 3 hours depending.
With respect to the overall timeline for webinar production, eight weeks seems to be just the right amount of time to elapse from creating the business objectives to the day of “going live”. Yes, it can be done in a shorter time frame, but too much shorter, and you cause undue stress and produce sub optimal results. Also, you should plan on investing a minimum of one plus hour for every live webinar minute.