With the spread of working from home, it has become mainstream for companies to hold
webinars
online, where they can easily participate from a PC screen, rather than offline and visiting the venue. Seminars held online are called webinars, and the advantage is that they can be held and participated from anywhere in the country, regardless of the location of your office.
Webinars have benefits for both companies and participants, but face-to-face communication is difficult, so some effort is required to maintain attendance and satisfaction.
This time, we will introduce practical methods for conducting webinars to increase attendance rates and satisfaction. Click here for related information regarding the webinar.
How to increase attendance
In order to make your webinar participants satisfied, it is important to get them to participate in the webinar first. Here are some tips to increase attendance.
①Application page
・Accept questions
By accepting questions in advance on the application form, participants will be more motivated to participate because they want to know the answers, and at the same time, organizers will be able to prepare answers in advance.
・Issuance of participation URL The
key to issuing a participation URL after applying for a webinar is to minimize the effort of participants. It is best to avoid re-registering with the webinar tool in order to issue the webinar URL.
If the participation URL is included in the application completion email, participants will not have to worry about it. However, since there is a risk of competitors participating, it would be a good idea to check the participant list and send the participation URL at a later date.
②Application completion email
When we receive an application for a webinar, we will send you an application completion email.
Some webinar applicants may feel unsure if their application has been submitted properly if they do not receive an email notifying them that their application has been completed. The application completion email dispels those concerns and lets applicants feel positive by letting them know that they are welcome to participate in the webinar.
If the form function of your SFA or CRM tool has settings to send email, an email will be automatically sent when the application is completed, which is convenient and hassle-free, so make sure to use it proactively. Even if you don’t have an email function, some webinar tools have an email function, so you may want to consider using it.
We also recommend that you include the URL for the day’s participation in the application completion email. If you wait another time to check the participation URL, you run the risk of lowering your attendance rate by overlooking the email or decreasing your desire to participate.
However, if you want to avoid the participation of competitors, or if there are restrictions such as requirements for participation by those with a certain position or above, we will state that we will provide separate information.
③Reminder email
We will send a reminder email at a certain timing before the webinar date. As a guideline, this will be held twice, once the day before the webinar and once on the day. On the day of the event, a good time would be in the morning when you check your email, or one hour before the event.
The content will include information about the webinar title, date and time, overview, participation URL, and contact information to remind you that there is a webinar.
Emails, including application completion emails, may not arrive for various reasons, such as the registered email address being incorrect or being sorted as spam. In order to respond smoothly in such cases, it is important to share information about the webinar within the company and to keep in touch with any inquiries.
How to achieve interactive communication
In webinars, two-way communication is difficult, and many sessions end with the speaker speaking one-sidedly. Two-way communication is important to increase participant satisfaction.
① Set up a Q&A session
There will be Q&A time during the webinar to answer questions. By having speakers respond to participants’ questions, you can increase participant satisfaction.
There are three ways to receive questions.
- Accepted at time of application
By accepting questions in advance on the application form, participants will be more motivated to participate because they want to know the answers, and at the same time, organizers will be able to prepare answers in advance.
- Ask for a show of hands during the webinar
ZOOM webinars and google meets have a raise-your-hands function. If you have a question, you raise your hand, ask the question on the spot, and the speaker answers it.
If the webinar is held in a workshop format with a small number of participants, other participants can ask further questions in response to those questions, creating a live-feeling communication experience. If there are a certain number of people in the meeting and the format is such that people do not show their faces or voices, it is unlikely that a Q&A with a show of hands will be expected.
- Ask them to fill out the webinar Q&A items
ZOOM’s webinar feature has a Q&A section. From there, participants can enter their questions in text. In response to the questions entered, the speaker can choose to answer live or in plain text.
② Conduct an instant survey
Some of the webinar features include the ability to take surveys in real time. In ZOOM, this corresponds to the “voting” function.
For example, by taking a survey at the beginning of a webinar, you can understand what issues most participants have. It is also a good idea to prepare this in your program in advance, as it also serves as an icebreaker.
How to make sure your survey gets answered
Even if you are able to conduct a highly satisfying webinar, it is meaningless if you cannot achieve the desired results. To do this, you will need to have attendees complete a survey about the webinar.
① Conduct a survey after the webinar ends
The more time passes after the webinar ends, the less impressed you are with it and the harder it is to complete the survey. Gather attendees’ honest feedback about your webinar by asking them to complete a survey immediately after the webinar ends.
ZOOM webinars have a survey function, and if you set up a survey in advance, you can automatically transition to the survey screen when you exit the webinar screen. Before the webinar starts or just before the end, inform participants how to respond to the survey to make them aware of the existence of the survey and how to respond.
② Add survey benefits
It is also effective to offer benefits to encourage survey responses. Webinar presentation materials and useful materials related to the theme are easy to set up. It’s also a good idea to offer benefits that aren’t normally offered, such as a free trial or a month of free service.
After the event, lead toss to sales leading to business negotiations
① Cooperation with sales staff
To make the most of the webinar’s effectiveness, share information with inside sales and field sales immediately after the webinar. On the day of the event, we will compile a list of participants and survey results and share them with the sales team in charge.
We will also work with sales to approach participants the day after the event. If necessary, it’s a good idea to schedule sales in advance.
② Email to participants
We will send a thank you email to participants and a special gift to survey respondents on the day of the webinar. In the email, we will provide you with the URL where you have uploaded the recorded webinar to the video site as
an archive
.
If the webinar has a high level of satisfaction, participants will review it again or share it within the company, and when it becomes a business negotiation later on, it can be expected that the internal approval process will proceed smoothly.
summary
- The key to increasing your webinar attendance rate is to solicit questions in advance at the time of application, and use application completion emails and reminder emails.
- The key to achieving interactive communication during webinars is to conduct Q&A and impromptu surveys.
- The key to ensuring that participants respond to the survey is to conduct the survey immediately after the webinar and provide survey benefits.
- To maximize the effectiveness of webinars, promptly share information with inside sales and field sales after the webinar is held.