5 creative ideas to propel your webinars

5 Creative Ideas to

PROPEL YOUR WEBINARS

25 CREATIVE IDEAS TO PROPEL YOUR WEBINARS

A great webinar drives leads, engages an audience

and positions your company as a thought leader. But

too often marketers fall into old habits, delivering dull

webinars where the presenter just talks and the attendees

just listen. When there’s nothing to a webinar but dry

slides and a tired voice, there’s not much chance for

audience engagement. It’s a restrictive format that lulls

presenters into going over the same themes again and

again — or, even worse, into pitching products at their

attendees. And no one likes that.

We asked over 1,000 webinar attendees how they feel

about their webinars. Shockingly, only 7 percent felt that

they gave great webinars:

MOST MARKETERS THINK THAT THEIR WEBINARS COULD USE A LITTLE WORK. BUT WHERE TO BEGIN?

Spicing up your webinar program is a lot like spicing up a

tired relationship. You need to break out of your routines,

try new things and be a little adventurous. Some of these

ideas may sound crazy, but sometimes crazy is just what

you need to shake up the status quo.

CREATURES OF HABIT

Source: Data from ON24 webinar polling, 2014 (total votes: 1,044)

THEY TOTALLY ROCK!

I THINK OUR AUDIENCE MIGHT NEED RESUSCITATION

WE DON’T CURRENTLY DELIVER WEBINARS

A BIT DRY BUT NOT BAD

7%

55%

17%

21%


CHANGE THE FORMAT

THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE• SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS WHO CAN’T

CARRY LONG PRESENTATIONS

• WEBINARS THAT FEEL TOO STIFF

• OVERLY FORMAL WEBINAR TONE • PRESENTERS WHO AREN’T CONNECTING

WITH THE AUDIENCE

1We see it again and again: marketers relying on the same

you-talk-they-listen webinars every single time. There’s

nothing wrong with audio and slides, but why not mix

it up once in a while? Less formal formats are a fun way

to engage your audience in a conversation, and they’re

especially great for leveraging third-party speakers and

taking the pressure off subject matter experts who are less

comfortable behind a microphone.

Here are a few formats you should try:

1:1 INTERVIEWPair your big-brained subject-matter expert (internal or

external) with a dynamic, engaging host. That way the expert

can focus on the information, not on managing the flow of

the conversation.

PANEL DISCUSSIONBring subject-matter experts, third-party speakers or analysts

together for a round-table discussion on a pre-defined set

of subjects. Assign a host who can keep the conversation

moving and on-topic. These webinars can be audio-only,

but they really pop on video. If your guests aren’t all in the

same place, it’s easy to run a panel discussion over webcam.

COFFEE TALKA chat format puts an informal spin on any topic. Passionate

subject matter experts talking about their areas of expertise

and giving practical advice makes for a really fun discussion.

LIVE CASE STUDYInvite a customer or three into your webinar and let them

talk about your product from the client perspective. You

can even integrate videos that highlight your customer

relationships and then discuss them with your guests as a

part of the conversation.

While interviews and group discussions are pretty forgiving

when you have a stiff or uncomfortable speaker, a great

host really is the key to a successful conversation-based

webinar. Find the people in your organization who are the

most comfortable with public speaking — even if they’re

not the deepest subject experts — and let them guide

the conversation.


THE SHORT-FORM WEBINAR

Equinox On Demand Webinar Hub

THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE• BRIEF CONTENT

• LACK OF SPEAKERS

• NEED FOR ON-DEMAND CONTENT

• NEED FOR MORE MIDDLE-AND BOTTOM-FUNNEL WEBINARS2Sometimes you just don’t have enough content to put

together a full 60-minute webinar. That doesn’t mean you

have to put your webinar program on hold. It just means

that it’s time to mix up your run times.

Try these simple short-form webinars:

BEST PRACTICESRun a short, pre-recorded video demonstrating a best

practice, then have a subject matter expert deliver a

10-minute follow-up or commentary.

QUICK TIPSRecord five-minute segments of subject matter experts

giving quick tips or best practices, then edit them together

and have a host introduce each section. This is great for

creating on-demand content.

SYNDICATED RERUNSBreak your most successful hour-long webinars into short,

single-topic chapters, and then publish them to your on-

demand portal, YouTube or SlideShare.

A 20- to 30-minute webinar can be a refreshing way to

deliver a quick message, but the shorter format really

shines as curated content. Add your quick-hit webinars to

an on-demand channel or virtual portal on your website,

then syndicate them to YouTube, Vimeo, partner sites or

other web sites. That way your audience can access them

as needed.


THE CROWD-SOURCED WEBINAR

THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE• TROUBLE COMING UP WITH

CONTENT IDEAS

• WEBINARS THAT AREN’T CONNECTING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

• QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT MATTERS TO YOUR AUDIENCE

• ISSUES QUALIFYING LEADS

3“We need more content!” It’s one of the constant

refrains of marketers everywhere. Why not turn to your

customers? They know what they want and expect;

all you have to do is ask. And if you do ask, it’s easy to

crowdsource content themes, some webinar content or

even all the content for an entire webinar.

Here are some tricks for crowdsourcing webinar content:

PRE-REGISTRATION SURVEYSAsk your audience what they want to learn from your

webinar on the registration form or confirmation page.

Maybe you’ve created a general theme for your webinar,

but this will tell you what the audience expects before

you build all the content. Then you can customize to

make sure you address precisely the things your audience

cares about most.

SOCIAL MEDIAYou have social followers and contacts. Why not ask them

what their interests are? Lean on social networks to source

content ideas and requests. Facebook lets you run polls to

gauge interest in content or themes. And you can always

survey your customer and prospect databases.

POST-WEBINAR SURVEYSAt the end of every webinar, ask attendees what topics they

would like to see in the future. Make sure to use at least one

open text field to get as much insight as you can.

THE AUDIENCE-DRIVEN WEBINARLose the presentation, collect a panel of experts and use

Q&A and polling to drive conversation for an entire webinar.

You can have pre-set topic areas, but let the audience

guide the direction of the discussion. Create slides on each

topic area to provide visual cues for where you are in the

conversation.

It’s amazing how much your audience would like to tell

you, if only you would ask. And when they say, “This is

the content I want,” what they’re actually saying is, “Here

are my interests, here are my pain points, here’s what I’m

really interested in knowing…” All you have to do is listen

and respond.


GAME ON4Gamification is the hot new buzz word. But can

you actually integrate gamification into the webinar

experience? You can, and it’s happening now.

Adventurous presenters are running highly successful

webinars that turn existing content into interactive games,

engaging their audience in ways that a typical webinar

never could. It’s cool, it’s fun and it’s easy to do.

Engage your audience with these gamification tactics:

QUIZ SHOWPolls can turn your dry data into an interactive quiz show.

Before you share a piece of information, use a poll to ask

your audience what they expect the result to be. When you

reveal the actual answer, they will either be surprised at new

information or delighted at their accuracy. Either way, they

will be more engaged with your data and probably learn

something in the process.

TRIVIAPose open-ended trivia questions and then use Q&A or chat

to collect answers. The first attendee to chime in with the

right answer gets the thrill of public recognition — or maybe

an additional prize shipped after the event.

LONG GAMEKeep the fun rolling by extending the game to social media.

Run your webinar polls on Facebook to see how your

followers stack up against your webinar attendees. Or prime

the webinar audience before the event with sample polls

and trivia questions on their favorite social networks.

With gamification, you can take a lot of very complicated

data and break it into digestible pieces. Your audience will

enjoy the chance to test their knowledge, plus they get to

learn how their peers are voting, as well. And everyone loves

to see what their peers are thinking.

THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE• STAGNANT WEBINARS

• SHORT VIEWING DURATIONS

• CONTENT THAT COULD BE CONSIDERED BORING

• LOW AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT


GET OUT OF THE HOUSE

THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE• SCARCITY OF WEBINAR CONTENT IDEAS

• WEBINARS THAT COULD USE A LITTLE SPICE

• NO BUDGET FOR EXPENSIVE VIDEO PRODUCTION

• PARTNERS/CUSTOMERS YOU WANT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR WEBINARS

• GREAT OFF-SITE PRESENTATIONS THAT YOU WANT TO CAPTURE5When you keep giving the same webinars in the same

way, you end up covering a lot of the same ground —

literally. If you want to shake up your old routines,

maybe what you need is a change of scenery. These

days, it’s not that hard to use video to capture all kinds

of external presentations and events that would make

great webinar content.

Here are some options for adding video to your webinars:

OFF-SITE SESSIONSAre you already presenting at trade shows and

conferences? Don’t let that content go to waste. Capture

your off-site presentations and training sessions with an

inexpensive handheld HD camera to create a series of

mini-webinars on demand.

REMOTE REPORTINGA simple video camera lets you interview customers,

sales people and product experts from any location,

anytime. Video clips from the field provide you with ready-

made content that can be dropped into any webinar

to expand the conversation and provide a multimedia

audience experience.

STREAMING VIDEOYou are constantly supporting live physical events

like seminars, trade shows, customer briefing center

presentations and more. Why not stream these events as

a live webinar or use the footage to create on-demand

webinars? Streaming physical events as live or on-demand

webinars expands both the reach of the content and the

value of the presentation.

Webinars don’t always have to happen in a single room.

Think about all the great content you’re already creating

outside of the office. Turn those into webinars, and you’ll

find yourself with a captivated audience.

ON24’s Mark Borenstein Remote Reporting


SPICE UP YOUR WEBINARSThere’s no limit to how creative you can get with your

webinars. As marketers, we want to deliver on the

expectation that we’re going to give a great presentation.

We’re asking people to sit still and stare at a fixed spot for up

to an hour. Sure, that audience is going to get some valuable

information, but why not make it fun?

By mixing up your webinar formats, crowdsourcing material,

leveraging gamification and using video in creative ways,

you can create new content, spice up old content and get

more value from your experts. Best of all, you’ll have more

fun with your webinars and your audiences will, too.

© 2015 ON24, Inc. For more information on the benefits of the ON24 virtual environment, contact us at 877-202-9599 or visit www.on24.com.

ON24, INC.

201 THIRD STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103

877.202.9599 ON24.COM

ABOUT ON24, INC.

ON24 is the leading webinar marketing platform for demand generation, lead

qualification and customer engagement. Its award-winning, patented, cloud-

based platform enables companies of all sizes to deliver engaging live and on-

demand webinars. Providing industry-leading analytics that can be integrated with

all leading marketing automation and CRM platforms, ON24 enables marketers

to optimize demand generation, enhance lead qualification and accelerate sales

pipeline opportunities.

Additional applications for the ON24 product portfolio include virtual training,

talent development and town hall meetings. More than 1,000 enterprises rely on

ON24, including IBM, CA Technologies, Merck, JPMorgan Chase, Deloitte, Credit

Suisse and SAP. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices

throughout the world. For more information, visit ON24.com.

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