This is part two of my responses to unanswered questions for webinar beginners. See part one for a little more background.
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Pauline: Should presentations be sent before or after the session?
Answer: In most presentations designed to inform, entertain, and persuade audiences (such as marketing or thought leadership), I don’t like sending out slides ahead of time. Your audience starts reading forward and gets much more impatient for you to get to something they think will be of interest. Any time your audience is not moving at the same speed you are, you lose effectiveness. In technical presentations or training classes, it can be a great idea to distribute reference information, data, or workbooks that your audience can look at in conjunction with your formal presentation slides. But even then I would hesitate to send out the full presentation itself until after you have presented it.
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Pauline: How do you prevent unauthorized circulation of material to folks who are not registered on the webinar?
Answer: The technical answer is – you can’t. Even a password-protected site is vulnerable to evildoers sending their access information to a colleague. And once they have downloaded a document, you really lose control of it. All you can do is indicate that the information is confidential for the recipient only, and should not be shared. And then be prepared to prosecute if it really matters to you. There are third-party solutions that can let you add security and tracking information directly into a document so you are notified every time the document is opened. But you pay for the utility.
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Pauline: Can you mix voice and chat as conduits for taking audience questions? If you allow voice, do you recommend that we have specific Q&A segments where we wait for them to ask questions?
Answer: Yes. And yes. Keeping open phone lines for ad hoc questions throughout your presentation only works for private, small meetings. Otherwise it is the same as standing on a stage and inviting your audience to shout out anything they think of as you are speaking. Anarchy!
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Natalie: Since it’s easier to decide not to attend a webinar than a physical event where you have made travel commitments, do you have to do something different than you would for a physical event to ensure attendance from your audience?
Answer: I prefer to send three communications to my audience. The first is a confirmation message with login instructions when they register or accept my invitation. The second is a reminder 24 hours before the event. It repeats the access instructions as well as reminding them why they signed up (reiterate the key value proposition). The third is a final reminder three hours before the event, once again hitting a key benefit of attending. You have to remind people how it benefits them… Don’t just tell them “Reminder – You are registered.”
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Ellen: Can you give us some online resources for PowerPoint design tips?
Answer: Some of my favorites include:
Dave Paradi’s PowerPoint Blog - http://pptideas.blogspot.com/ (Book is The Visual Slide Revolution)
Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullet Points - http://www.beyondbulletpoints.com/blog/ (Book of same name)
Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen - http://www.presentationzen.com/ (Book of same name)
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Derek: Is there a need to purchase specific software and equipment to develop good quality webinars?
Answer: You can deliver a webinar using PowerPoint, a computer with a high-speed internet connection, and an audio input device (telephone or computer mike, depending on your software and preferences). But some things can definitely help add to the experience. A high quality headset (whether for telephone or computer) is the most beneficial. I use a Plantronics headset for my telephone and a Logitech headset for my computer and I’m satisfied with both. This doesn’t mean others may not be just as good however! Stay away from wireless headsets and wireless internet… Too many chances for loss of connection or interference. A good photo editing tool can help you clean up images for your slides. I use GIMP, which is a free download, but remarkably non-intuitive and complex. Commercial software like Photoshop usually has a shorter learning curve. If you are going to show live video of the presenter, a high quality camera is imperative, along with good diffuse lighting. When I use a webcam (infrequently!), I use the Logitech Pro 9000, which seems to have a good image and a good “shotgun microphone.” Finally, you should have a way to take snapshots of items on your computer screen. I use Hypersnap-DX, which is relatively cheap and has all the power you could want.
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Arpana: How often is not too often to hold a webinar? Let’s say we’re talking about marketing.
Answer: You can easily exhaust your prospective audience by bombarding them with constant invitations to webinars. Don’t keep sending one-by-one invitations to the same list over and over. But some companies elect to have a regular schedule for webinars and keep announcements on their website that there is always another session coming up soon. You might do one every Thursday at 3pm. Or the second Tuesday of each month. In these cases, frequency is not a problem since you are merely keeping an open invitation to new visitors. If you are offering a series of webinars to the same audience, I advise no more than one a month so they are viewed as something to look forward to rather than something to wearily delete out of the inbox!
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We’re going long again, so I’ll have to spill over to part three. Keep reading!
