Last month, I was delivering a thought leadership webinar for the Content Marketing Institute and Adobe Connect, and an attendee asked me a very interesting question that she seemed to be struggling with: How should she handle B2B topics that felt to her to be boring?  

As I was waiting for her to finish asking her question, my mind flashed by hundreds of webinars we’ve produced and then I confidently replied, that there’s really no such thing as a boring topic, just uninspired content that prevents a speaker from sharing their excitement for the topic. Yes, I said excitement.

Regardless if we use the term market, industry or sector, by definition all of these are made up by a group of people with varying skill sets, job roles, titles and common interests.  These people share a human connection to the other folks in their sector.  As a result there are always people who are proud of what they do and can talk about their accomplishments with great  pride.  Their passion generates excitement that the audience feels and causes them to feel a connection with the speaker and topic.

As I stated in my earlier blog post this year Creating Winning Webinars – 5 Lessons Learned in 2014, content that is timely and relevant is a must for creating a successful webinar experience, as is tapping into and helping your speakers find their passion.

A well-produced and delivered webinar goes beyond sound bites and breathes life into ordinary static content.  It tells a story about lessons learned, how they achieved better outcomes from using a new solution or process, or how they eliminated a pain point in running their business.

We’ve produced webinars on a wide range of topics from diverse markets such as Automotive through Satellite Systems Navigation.  Here’s a few examples that really gave the audience an informative and inspiring experience as well as returning positive benefits back to the sponsor’s of the webinar.

My first example is an innovative software provider that enables automobile dealerships to increase new car sales while leading to more profitable and hassle free customer interactions.  They sponsored a webinar to share a case study delivered by one of its customers, the CEO of a Toyota dealership, who had a very impressive success story to articulate about using this software solution.

Dealer executives heard his story of how he increased new vehicle gross profits and sales and how this solution helped him achieve these goals.  It was quite engaging and well received, as it helped to stimulate attendees interest to want to learn more from the sponsor about how their software solution could do the same for their dealership.

One of our engineering clients, had an expert panel of academicians discuss how Biosurfactants, which are used in cleaning agents, paints, personal-hygiene & cosmetics are being challenged by the rising prices of petroleum.  They learned about considerations when integrating Biosurfactants into their products, and how they can be more competitive by providing sustainable product options.

My last example is of a publishing client, who focuses on Global Navigation Satellite System, had experts take a deeper dive into discussing critical success factors in using precise point positioning aka PPP, etc.  The panelists not only shared their thought leadership, but provided insights into the extension of PPP techniques to high accuracy GNSS receivers in the years to come.  This was delivered over 90 minutes where 95% of the audience was still online 15 minutes before the webinar was adjourned.

OK, maybe these aren’t great conversation starter for your next cocktail party, but from a webinar perspective,  they all shared great relevant content that was delivered by true experts who inspired and educated the audience to stay on the webinar well into the Q/A, which typically starts 45 minutes into the webinar.

These are just a few examples, but back to my original question, please share your perspective if you agree with me that there are no such things as boring topics, just speakers who sound bored because they have uninspired content?

Mike