Professionals conducting training webinars always try to deliver virtual training in the easiest and most convenient way possible. However, you shouldn’t be fooled by the high sense of professionalism and exceptional techniques used by these professionals. Conducting a successful webinar is not just about understand and knowing the content. It involves a lot of multitasking while managing the webinar.
In addition to this, since technology is involved, you may even encounter some glitches. The last thing you want to experience in the middle of a webinar is to feel insecure and ill prepared. It is very important to focus on some tasks and considered the best practices associated with training webinars. In this post, we’ve discussed some of these practices to help you successfully conduct a webinar for training purposes.
Training Webinars – Best Practices
Know Your Webinar Software
It is extremely important to make use of any sort of instructions offered by the webinar software you’re currently using. There are many service providers which offer video tutorials, group training and various user guides. You can even hire a professional to know everything about your webinar software. Once you completely understand the webinar software you’re using, you need to practice regularly. You may invite a colleague or friend to play around with some options. It is also important to test the audio.
Practice Makes Perfect
Like every other thing in life, conducting high quality webinars also depends on how much you practice. It is always better to perform at least one trial with all the people involved in the webinar staff, including the host, guest speakers and other professionals. Here are some tips:
● You should instruct the webinar staff members to join this dry run from the specific computers they will be using when the event goes live. If possible, they should also participate from the same location. One common mistake committed by most people is practicing from a different computer or location, and presenting the webinar from another. This could lead to some embarrassing surprises, like unfamiliar computer desktops, disruptive background noise or faulty audio.
● It is much better to record the dry run. It’s quite easy to get completely absorbed in managing different aspects of the dry run. Thus, if you watch the recording later, it can give you a chance to properly review everything and make necessary adjustments.
Go Slow During the Demo
While conducting training webinars, it is important to go slow. When you’re giving a demo or simply showing software, you should try not to move the screen too quickly. Similarly, you should scroll down or up a web page slowly. Most of the time, a refresh take a few seconds to complete on the basis of the user’s bandwidth. Therefore, it is important to take about 5 seconds every time you make any changes on the screen. This will allow everyone to see the change.
Optimize your computer
As mentioned above, when you’re conducting a seminar, there is always potential for some members of the audience to experience a little bit of lag time in screen sharing. The primary reasons are internet bandwidth and computer performance. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to control such things on the attendee’s side. However, you can still optimize your own computer’s performance for best results.
It is always better to run through this optimization in the practice session. Some tips to optimize your computer have been discussed below :
● Plug in, and use the LAN cable instead of using a wireless connection
● Close all kinds of heavy applications to relieve any load from the server. You don’t want your system crashing in the middle of a webinar.
● In case you’re recording, you should join the audio over a standard phone instead of using Voice over Internet Protocol.
● If you’re joining the audio via land line phone, it is important to keep your mobile phone turned off or quite away from your phone.
Close Unnecessary Applications
It is extremely important to close all kinds of unnecessary applications, especially Instant Messenger, Outlook, Gmail, Facebook Chat and so on. You don’t want your confidential or personal information to be displayed in the middle of a webinar. Similarly, you don’t want any interruptions in the webinar with unnecessary notifications popping up on the screen.
Conduct Product Demonstrations Wherever Relevant
While conducting training webinars, it is important to provide extensive information about various products and services. Wherever relevant, you should conduct product demonstrations. In fact, this is the most important stage of a webinar associated with training. While focusing on other aspects of the webinar, you should not miss on product descriptions. They are extremely important for the success of your webinar. Thus, you should keep them to the point, concise and simple.
Leave Time for Questions & Answers
Before we conclude the seminar, it is important to conduct a special session for questions and answers. It is important to make sure everyone has understood every aspect of the training. No one should miss out anything during the webinar. Most importantly, a Questions & Answers session will also give you a chance to know successful was your approach. A Questions & Answers sessions should not be more than 15 minutes long. It should be straightforward and casual. You need to consider the fact that everyone just participated in a webinar, and people would love to go back to something they love.
Conduct Post-Event Surveys
Last but not the least, conducting post even surveys is one of the most important aspects of training webinars. It is extremely important to gather feedback from the members who attended your seminar. Like in everything else, feedback will help you understand your mistakes, and the reasons for your success. It is important to know where you went wrong, and rectify your mistakes in the long run. Feedback also makes sure you don’t skip any important steps the next time.
These were some of the best practices you need to consider while conducting webinars. With some key steps in your mind, conducting a successful webinar is not very difficult. You just need to focus on the tips mentioned in this post. With some practice and knowledge, you will be able to conduct excellent training webinars to meet desired goals.
