@rich-brooks We use our webinars as a membership benefit and as a way to promote our annual conference. We just had a very successful presentation on March 7th that garnered over 200 registrations (normally, the association has about 50-60 people). The result is that we’ve grown our contact database by 100 or so. 

What platforms do you use? WebEx (Had some hiccups with them but seem to be back on track now).

Do you put on webinars for free or charge for them? Our webinars are free for members.

How do you promote webinars to your prospects? We promote through email, our website, social media and sometimes external media partners depending on the topic.

@kc_kreative Great ideas on events! I’m brand building for a new conference I’m putting on (The Agents of Change Digital Marketing Conference) and I didn’t even think of using webinars to build an audience!

Thanks for sharing.

@annfurnivall that’s the beauty of recorded webinars…the fast forward button!

@rich-brooks Give people a nibble of your full event through a webinar. Ours happened to be the results of a study. We invited people from the CPG and Retail sector. Lots of big names registered (JC Penneys, Coke, Pepsi, Macys, JM Smucker, etc.). Hopefully they won’t unsubscribe from our weekly conference eblasts! After the conference, we only have the monthly e-newsletter and Online University eblasts.

Good luck with your event!

@rich-brooks I’ve done lots of webinars, and do like GoToWebinar. However, it has gotten lots more expensive in the past two years.

Right now I am using FreeConferenceCall.com to start, but am also looking at ON24 and InstantTeleseminar.com

I use free webinars also as a “teaser” for a paid webinar and/or in person events. They are great for list building for future paid events as well.

Promote through social media channels, email marketing, and also some Direct mail postcards.

@joanmuschampfagnani I have attended a few webinars where the presenter chats before the actual presentation. It is nice to have the opportunity to ask and answer questions. I think Nate Kievman does this with his LinkedIn events. Glad that you found it useful.

@blairevanball Check out freeconferencecall.com if you are just getting started–but practice a lot before you go live!

@blairevanball FreeConf limits you to 96 participants.  There are lots of good tips, but here are a few of my top ones:

• Deliver some true value in what you share; don’t make this a non-stop sales pitch. Rely on what you know and the audience connection to view your authority
• Make your slide deck interesting–don’t create “Death by PowerPoint”. Use compelling images and a headline and speak to the topic. Instead of reading, your audience is paying more attention to you
• Engage with your audience- use the chat feature to take in questions. By breaking up the rhythm, again you force the audience to pay closer attention
• Record the session–it is valuable content for your website, and can be featured in a campaign in any number of ways
• Plan your Call to Action–what do you want your viewers to do next to engage with you? Is it another free item to download? Or do you have a product to sell? Make sure it’s compelling and you offer something to keep them coming back to your website
• Post event survey- if your tool does not have a built in survey function, make sure you have an email ready to go to attendees that is really designed to elicit feedback so you can improve.

@joanmuschampfagnani Some awesome tips Joan! Thanks for taking the time to outline them out and sharing. All the best.

@aprilwelch

I’m not sure if @mike-stelzner has an article on webinars…Mike?

I think there have been a few options mentioned as far as platforms go. GoToWebinar, the FreeConferenceCall options, and Glance (which may not have been mentioned, but we use for both webinars and WordPress remote training.

You can’t keep the participants from sharing the video, but you can make it more difficult. Here are some tips:

• Ask them not to share. Seems obvious, but explain to them that this is valuable content and out of respect for the other people who have made the commitment to succeed, please don’t share it.
• Don’t let them download it. Although there’s always a black hat way of saving video from the web, the average person doesn’t know how to do it. Make your videos streaming only and it will be more difficult.
• Put it behind a password protected wall w/unique logins. Again, people can always share passwords, but it does make it more difficult.

Maybe you can make it up by having a “friends and family” offer, where they can sign up two “seats” at a discount, so they’ll go out to find another person and you’ll sell another discounted ticket. 

I am starting webinars too and would be grateful for some tips on pricing and services as well.  Right now I am using Telspan and paying $25 for up to 6 people  Any suggestions?

I’m a little late to this party, but I have some ideas to share.

I’ve been using webinars for about 18 months, and started doing them frequently about 8 months back. Before then, I was doing webinars for other organizations. They handled the setup, registration, etc. I just had to show up and talk!

I made a list of the ideal requirements for how I wanted my webinars to work. I’ve attended a lot, so I had a good idea of what was possible. My dream list of features included having a recording available. I found that greatly limited my options in services.I looked at other ways around it (like having someone else record it) and in the end, decided to go with a service that includes recording as an option.

If you want to start doing webinars, start attending a lot of webinars. You will quickly learn what you like and don’t like and collect some great ideas. 

My first webinars would take me days to prepare the slides and content. Then I would practice them 4-5 times until I felt comfortable. I can go from idea to webinar slides ready to present in much less time now, but only because I invested so much time up front learning the craft of webinars. Learning how to create and present information online is a skill set, and it takes practice. Don’t let that stop you, but do make a commitment to do your best job and invest the time necessary to put on a good show.

It took me about 6 times before I felt I had the mechanics (running the show) down while doing the show. And today, my most important job is doing the show. If that means I miss seeing someone ask a question along the way, I’m okay with that. I tell people up front that if I miss their question along the way, I’ll get it at the end, so they don’t feel I’ve ignored them.

Webinars are like every other business skill. Done well, you can really build your business from it. So if you are interested in doing them, jump it! Get started!! You will improve over time, and it will get easier.

I have done Webinars and  Tele-seminars -I’ve used Talk Fusion for video – except if you are doing interviews it only records the presenter. it’s $35./month

Anytimemeetings.com is free – haven’t used it yetJoin.me for screen sharing

For Tele-seminars I use Free Conference calling.. it’s free to set up an account.

Video presentations are pretty difficult to do..I wrote a post about some reviews of 4 or 5 sites..maybe this will help you. http://heartatworkonline.org/reviews/video-reviews/