After hours upon hours of researching, planning, writing, rehearsing and trying to figure out how to get your webcam to work, you did it. Your webinar went off without a hitch. It was meticulously structured, comprehensively informative and, most importantly, not boring.
Great! Easy part’s over. Now comes the challenge of converting those attendees into honest-to-goodness clients. It’s one thing to have an out-of-this-world webinar that surprises and delights your audience, but in order to bring it all home and win their business, it’s what comes after the webinar that’s crucial.
Even with a giant rock band, “thank you and goodnight” just isn’t enough. People want an encore. In the case of your webinar, people will have questions that need your answers. This is a good thing, mind you. Think of it as you held the audience’s interest and attention enough that it sparked their curiosity and left them wanting more. Don’t treat it as if you didn’t deliver the information in a thorough and concise enough manner (unless you did do that, which you can discover in a later step).
When preparing for your webinar, make sure you slot some time afterward for a Q&A session. This is a must when wanting to have a positive interaction with your attendees. They’ll be more likely to keep you in their mind if you don’t leave them hanging. Be thorough, cordial and make sure they’re satisfied with your answer before moving on. But it doesn’t stop there. If there are questions that are a little off-topic or require a longer answer than the time allotted, make sure you acknowledge the question asker and offer to answer the question either by an email, phone call or through social media. This shows them your willingness to help doesn’t stop at the bare minimum and further solidifies their trust in you and your brand. Also, check to see if anyone else would like the answer to that particular question and include them in the correspondence.
What a wonderful webinar you put on! The attendees were hanging onto every word. You delivered the information in a concise, digestible manner. Your visual aids dazzled as well as supported all of your points. AND ALL YOUR JOKES LANDED! You really smashed this one out of the park!
...or did you?
You can leave your presentation feeling that you accomplished everything you wanted to, but you’ll never really know unless you get the feedback from your audience. To do this, send a quick survey to your attendees within two hours after your presentation to get feedback from them while the experience is still fresh in their minds. Include questions about their satisfaction with the webinar like “how would you rate the presentation overall?” or “how confident did you feel the presenter was with the subject material?”
Also, don’t be afraid to open yourself up to constructive criticism by including open-ended questions like “what could have been done differently that would have enhanced the webinar experience?” A post-webinar feedback survey is vital for two reasons. First, obviously, critical feedback helps us learn more about our performance and gives us necessary insights about what to do better for the next time. Second, it gives you these potential clients another level of engagement, another chance to interact and another opportunity to garner their business.
Between 24 to 48 hours after your webinar, it’s important to send another follow-up email, thanking them for attending the webinar and providing a link of the recorded event/slides for future reference and/or to show to others. At this point, after answering their questions and asking them to provide feedback on your presentation, it may seem a little clingy to want to get back in touch, but not at all. This shows potential clients that you go above and beyond to ensure that your knowledge is their knowledge.
But it doesn’t stop there. Not only will you send a follow-up email to the webinar attendees, you’ll also send a, differently worded, one to invitees who didn’t attend. In this email, still provide links to the recording/slides, and tell them you’re sorry they couldn’t make it. This shows reluctant clients that you’re willing to go out of your way to educate and provide services for them. If they weren’t interested the last time, they will be the next.
As the world steadily adopts this newer remote way to deliver presentations, it may seem like a big digital wall has been built between you and your future clients. But like any live interaction, open lines of communication are key. If you show them you’re knowledgeable, courteous and open to feedback, it shouldn’t matter if you’re speaking with them face-to-face or 1,000 miles away.
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