Here’s a good thing about hosting a webinar: You don’t have to worry about stage fright. This is especially an advantage if you feel nervous in front of large groups of people and need to resort to the wise advice of pretending that your audience is wearing their underwear to relieve your anxiety.
Conversely, a webinar takes place in a room with no people in it, except perhaps a few helpers, even though you are communicating with hundreds (if not thousands) of participants. This is much easier on the one hand: you don’t have to worry about stress. In another way, it presents more of a challenge. As the presenter, you must have an engaging personality, but you don’t have the luxury of reading the audience’s faces to know when you’re attracting them. And they can’t tell if you’re bombing. This means that it takes a special kind of person to successfully deliver a webinar.
How special? Someone who can break through the glass wall and make the audience love him, or at least believe what he says.
Although successfully delivering a webinar is an art form, following this tip can bring you closer to creating a masterpiece:
Understand the language: Talking about a product or service is as easy as reading a press release, and the audience knows it. This makes it important to get the terminology right. Even if you are an experienced speaker or familiar with the industry, take some time to understand the language.
Imagine a sports broadcaster who has covered football in the UK talking about baseball and saying, “The New York Yankees won the game, three to nothing.” The audience can sense when you don’t understand proper slang, and secondly pick it up, see the presentation as a waste of time and sign off. Don’t let that happen, especially since it’s completely under your control. So be prepared and focus on points that can help them, and maybe even get them to talk later.
Know your audience: The more you know about the people you’re addressing, the easier it will be to communicate with them. Learn a lot about them from their registry data so they don’t go over – or lower – their heads.
Entertain them: Entertaining them does not mean that you should pick a musical tone or crack some joke. Instead, try to understand how they see the topic and attract their feelings through exclamation and humor.
Use humor: Don’t tell funky jokes. Instead, take a lighter approach to explaining some of your topics. It can be as subtle as making fun of the sound of a certain word or even making fun of your own experiences. The audience deals with self-deprecating humor, especially if it is constructive. Everyone loves knowing that others have the same flaws as them, but they keep striving for improvement.
Take a breath and pause: Just because a webinar is on a strict schedule doesn’t mean you have to speak quickly during your presentation. It’s a good idea to take a breath and pause. This gives the audience some time to process the information.
Tell, don’t sell: People don’t want to waste an hour of their lives tuning into your webinar hoping to learn something, only to try to sell them something. They don’t go back by the hour, and that makes them grumpy. Instead, give them important information and advice. You can still drum up business for your product or service after your presentation.
