How to Create and Manage an Effective Webinar

Turn your presentations into conversations with webinars.

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What is a webinar?

A webinar is an online seminar that turns a presentation into a real-time conversation from anywhere in the world. Webinars allow large groups of participants to engage in online discussions or training events and share audio, documents or slides – even when they’re not in the same place as the meeting host or in the same room where the event or presentation is taking place.

Engaging online discussions

Used effectively, webinars help you better understand your audience, their pain points and the topics most relevant to them.

Actionable content

Effective webinars often pick up where traditional slide presentations leave off, adding screen sharing, presenter video and audio and downloadable materials.

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How do effective webinars work?

An effective and engaging webinar starts with three roles: an organizer, at least one presenter and attendees. A few quick steps can help you reach your target audience and spread your message to people online.

  • Set a clear objective

    You’ll be more successful if you have a clear goal in mind. What are you trying to accomplish?

  • Understand your audience

    What are your attendees’ pain points? What topics might resonate with them? Use those insights to create a compelling webinar title.

  • Schedule your webinar

    Research shows 10am on a Tuesday or Wednesday are the best days and times to host a webinar.

  • Promote your webinar

    Use email, social channels and your own network to get the word out.

  • Build out your presentation

    “How-to” content tends to perform best. Give your audience bite-size learnings they can apply.

  • Rehearse!

    Make sure you practice your delivery as well as test your technical setup before the big day.

Advantages and uses of a webinar software

Increased participation is just the beginning. Check out these webinar benefits for your business.

  • Train employees & customers

    • GoTo Webinar lets you interact effectively with a widely dispersed workforce in real time. Provide pre-recorded or live workshops to audiences of up to 2,000 people.

  • Build rapport

    • Whether you use it to inform customers or educate employees, GoTo Webinar helps you engage authentically. This leads to improved customer satisfaction and increased employee engagement.

  • Generate leads & awareness

    • GoTo Webinar helps you better know your customers. Harness data and questions to develop a more accurate customer profile. The result: better customer targeting.

  • Improve sales

    • Focus on high-quality leads for your sales team. With GoTo Webinar, you spend more time with the leads most likely to pay off.

Tips for creating effective webinars

  • 60 minutes or less

    • Keep your webinar to under an hour; if the webinar is too long, participation may drop.

  • Promote participation

    • Use polls, ask thought-provoking questions and provide actionable content. The advantage of webinars over standard webcasts is that webinars encourage discussion, so be sure to take steps to keep your attendees thinking, asking questions and commenting.

  • Quality is key

    • Keep your webinar to under an hour; if the webinar is too long, participation may drop.

  • Don’t rush

    • When participants feel that something is being hurried, they unconsciously try to help move it along, which means participation dries up. Instead, plan wisely so that you'll have enough time to get through what you need to, while still leaving space for Q&A.

How to create a webinar

Click Schedule a Webinar and create a title and description for your webinar.
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Select a session type, starting date and time, as well as a language the webinar will take place in.
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Customize your webinar by adjusting audio and video settings, creating polls, questions or adding staff.
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Set up automatic emails to remind your attendees about your webinar.
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Click Start and your webinar is ready to go.
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GoTo Webinar reviews

GoTo Webinar is easy to use. Creating a webinar is just a few steps away.

"The GoTo suite not only saves travel costs for me, but allows me to train and collaborate with my coworkers who are working remote, which is awesome."
Sales Representative, Small Business Financial Services Company
"Connecting multiple departments (including off-site), working with customers and prospects for training, support and scheduled webinars. We’ve been using GoTo at Integrity Data for many years and can say that it is the number one preferred solution by our Customer Care and Sales teams."
Lindy Belley, Marketing Manager, Integrity Data
"When you use a communication tool for remote meetings, you want to think as little as possible about the communication tool itself. The tool ought to “just work”. What I like best about GoTo is that my colleagues and I never have to endlessly ask the question “I can’t hear you, can you hear me?” or say “Your screen share is frozen”. I would recommend GoTo because of its reliability."
Sameer Pradhan, Cloud Architect, 4INFO, Inc.
"I prefer the GoTo Collaboration Suite over competitive solutions that require working with multiple vendors."
Anonymous

Extend your reach

  • Tailored to your business

    The world is getting smaller. Individuals can now connect with one another at any time, from almost anywhere via the internet. Mobile smart devices, HD live streaming and near-universal Wi-Fi accessibility are pushing the limits of telecommunication.

  • Start for free

    Webinars can help you accomplish your business goals and boost your bottom line. See our plans and pricing or sign up for a free trial.

Get answers to all of your webinar questions

Since webinars are easily accessible online, they allow you to connect with more people. Webinars enable attendees to participate in your presentation from anywhere in the world, so long as they have access to the internet. Without the challenges of travel and room space, you can reach and engage a broad audience quickly and efficiently. Additionally, webinars can be recorded and made available for interested people to view even after the live event has ended. On-demand webinars can become part of your company’s valuable ongoing content offering.
While webinars are often most effective when they are held live, they do not have to take place in real time. Many companies opt to run live webinars, but then record them to make them available on -demand. In addition, some webinars may never even have a live audience. They are instead pre-recorded then uploaded to the internet for others to watch as if it were a live event.
The main purpose of a webinar is to provide expert advice, training, demonstration, or direction. The best webinars are captivating conversations that provide knowledge or present skills that are immediately applicable. Some companies or individuals use webinars to promote their products by illustrating features, giving demos, and answering questions. These types of webinars are used to engage potential customers., Webinars are most effective for a broad audience when they tackle a common problem that attendees face. In these cases, the problem and solution are the main focus (and possibly the title) of the webinar, while the product or brand is simply the sponsor
Webinars are effective as long as they are used strategically. The most effective webinars build trust and provide as much value as possible to current and potential customers. Webinars can be one of the most effective ways to expand your reach, engage your target market and attract new customers.
5 quick ways to make webinars interactive
  • Spark a discussion
  • Ask questions
  • Launch surveys
  • Challenge your audience
  • Provide exclusive information or offers to only attendees
A webinar is typically a live interactive event that attendees join on their desktop or mobile device over the internet. A webcast, on the other hand, is just like a webinar except that attendees can join right from their web browser, no download required. These events are often larger in scope with thousands of attendees at at time.

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