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Photo: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There are many factors to consider when planning a webinar:

• Will you charge people for attending?
• If so, how much?
• When will you host it?
• How long will it be?
• How will you market it?

Sometimes the more pressing question is this: “Is it worth it?” We’re in a day and age of constant information from computers and mobile devices. Information is coming at us so quickly, that many individuals consider the news to be a mere 140-character tweet.

The bottom line is that when you host a learning event online, the percentage of your audience that will disengage or even ignore your event altogether can be quite high. Hosting an in-person event can be much more effective because you have a direct connection to the audience; plus attendees left their desks or homes to attend so they already made an investment beyond any payment. And you can help promote your business brand to your local area. Which is really important if you’re a local or regional company.

However, there are the obvious pros to hosting a webinar.

• First, they’re cheaper.
• Second, you can put them together fast.
• Third, you can record them and provide the recording as a resell offer or follow-up material to attendees. Yes, you can record live events too, but that requires a videographer, which takes us back to bullet point number one.

There are many reasons why people attend live events and may ignore the online session. But the online learning session – despite the chance you take of people doing other things, like answering emails during your presentation – shouldn’t be ignored. For those not checking email and actually paying attention, they’re just as engaged as they would be at a live event.

For those email checkers out there, here are some tips for keeping your attendees engaged during your webinar:

• Have them take control (this is ideal for a one-on-one training session).
• Call people out by name to answer specific questions if the group is small enough (again, ideal for more of learning session where you know the attendees as clients or fellow association members, etc.).
• Provide online polls throughout the webinar that attendees can respond to.
• Divide the webinar into sections that allow attendees to ask questions at different times during the webinar.
• Have more than one presenter for each session. An active conversation between two people helps listeners feel more engaged, as though they’re part of the conversation.

I hope the tips above will help overcome the natural challenges online learning can bring.

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