Maximize Webcast Attendance

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A: (from Helane, Bruce, & ON24)

One of the key tools Microsoft uses for “getting the word out” about a product or solution is to use a webcast. As a presenter for Microsoft, I’m often engaged by both our corporate office as well as partners in the field to co-host a webcast. Ironically the content is usually the easiest element in coordinating a webcast – one of the bigger challenges is getting people to attend.

Over the years I’ve come up with my own list of suggestions that I offer to a partner who will be hosting a webcast to help drive success:

  • Make sure you define your topic clearly
  • Verify you are talking about ALL of the topics in the invite
  • Short webcasts are good
  • Start presenting logistics at the published start time to be courteous to prompt attendees and follow with the content just a few minutes after the published start time to make sure late arrivals hear the whole message
  • ALWAYS finish on time
  • If you are hosting a webcast series, try to make the day of the month, day of the week, and time repeatable and predictable

I recently received a link from Helane via Bruce to a very valuable resource published by ON24 (https://www.on24.com/) that offers other best practices based on experience. For example that they propose that invites sent more than a week in advance will increase registration by 36% and that the best days to send invites are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I have no idea if these suggestions will work, but I think it’s great that they’ve compiled a list on this topic and SEVERAL others. If you are interested in downloading their white paper on “Driving Webinar Registration Best Practices Guide”, register at https://communication.on24.com/driving-registration-BP-rf.

SDeming Face   Steve