Hosting an event offline and hosting one online is different. While you don’t need to book a venue or hire catering or planning, hosting a webinar online is still easier said than done. But it is also necessary, as most businesses are switching to online and work from the home environment due to the current pandemic situation.
So online webinars are now an essential part of businesses, and webinar software is crucial for conducting successful webinars.
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Types of webinars
Let’s see what the types of webinars are there mainly,
Live webinars
Classic webinars are basically of this type: You set a time, and then you meet your audience live at the scheduled time.
The audience gets to interact with you as a host in realtime. This way, you can make out most of the two-way communication and get the webinar’s full benefit. It also allows you to receive instant feedback from the audience and make sure that they understand everything clearly.
Ideal use cases of live webinars are:
- Onboarding and training purposes, you can interact with the new trainees and see how good they are absorbing your inputs.
- Sales and product demos allow the audience to see the product or service in use in realtime, and this can influence your buyers to make purchasing decisions in the end.
While live webinars have a lot of benefits, they also have multiple downsides. The problem most managers face sometimes is that not all the participants show up at the live event. It does not matter how good quality your content is, but in today’s crazy fast world, lack of time is often the issue that everyone faces, and that impacts the online webinar events.
On-demand
This option gives the much-needed freedom that most audiences aspire. In this type of event, you can pre-record your video and later share it with your clients, students, or employees so they can watch it anywhere they want.
This way, you are letting yourself go from being present at each webinar as a host and record it the way you want from the comfort of your home. It also allows your audience to sit and watch the presentation wherever they want. It’ s a win-win situation for both you and your audience.
On-demand webinars are an excellent choice for preparing a series of lectures for your students or tutorials for trainees. Releasing on-demand webinars also generate interest in the customers and adds to their anticipation. It also saves a lot of time that you intend to spend on hosting numerous live events.
Automated Webinars
We are all busy, running around the clock in taking care of our business. Automated webinars take the weight of repetitive and mundane tasks off of your shoulders.
Unlike live events, an automated webinar can be scheduled for a specific day and hour. Just like on-demand webinars, you have to record your webinar first, and then with some editing, you can upload it. In automated webinars, you can add features such as Tap to speak and Call-To-Action button so that the audience can reach you in case they need it.
The automated webinar does the rest of the job for you. If you are a trainee, you can upload your multiple lectures online; then, your audience can gather and attend the automated webinar without being present in the room.
What features a webinar can have?
Text Chats
You can engage with your audience in multiple ways, and one of the most popular options is using the text chat feature.
This enables your audience to connect with you and ask relevant questions while they are attending the webinar. It sometimes becomes difficult to communicate with the speaker without being present in the room, but the text chat tool makes it possible. Answering that question raised by your audience builds trust and authority.
Slide Decks
An engaging webinar is something like finding water in the middle of the desert. It can be difficult making your webinars engaging for the audience, thus having a slide deck handy as you present your webinar to the audience is right.
The slide deck also provides you with a clear plan about the webinar, encourages participation from the audience, and give them something to walk away with.
Recording
Most webinars happen online, and they get better engagement from the audience side. But the recorded webinars can also be considered somewhat engaging. The information shared in the webinar can later be discussed by those who missed it. Then in a live webinar, all those queries can be adequately addressed. Most of the open-source webinar tools come preloaded with this feature.
Screen sharing
If you are making a webinar based on a topic that requires demonstration, then screen sharing feature in a webinar software can help. Your audience will be able to see what actions you are taking and the path that you follow so that they can also support you if needed.
Screen sharing can also be used to showcase a video you are watching and want to show to the audience. This way, the audience can see what you are showing them.
Also, if your demo includes showcasing more that one tool, then screen sharing is the best and more effective way to go rather than using screenshots.
Whiteboard
A whiteboard can help you if you conduct a live webinar and have to explain a complex process or topic. It enables you and the host to take notes, illustrate ideas with drawings, and to use arrows to explain a complicated process.
The whiteboard feature that webinar software provides makes the audience feel like they are already there and gives them a clearer idea about the subject.
Survey and polls
If the audience in your webinar is broad in scale, then using a Q and A in text form may take longer. Therefore most webinar softwares comes ready with polls that you can provide to your audience during the webinar. It gives the viewer an easy way to engage with you and keep the results organized.
