Ever had this happen to you? You show up for a mandatory conference and find that the refreshments stink unless you love those chewy hotel candies and prefer water over caffeine-laden drinks. And they seem to crank the air conditioning to high even though it's November with the threat of flurries. But the best is yet to come; your presenter is the company's accountant, a bland man who put together fifty slides with fifty bullets on each of them. But wait, is that clipart? Oh, yes, you would rather hear nails scratching a blackboard by this point. And isn't that kind of Mr. Accountant for reading each and every word on his powerpoint... You pinch yourself to see if you are asleep, but you don't wake up.
A poorly planned webinar will have the same effect on your audience, but with a nice little bonus for your attendee -- they have completely neglected paperwork they can complete while you ramble on blandly.
Hosting a webinar involves keeping your audience engaged. Interested. There are several ways you can accomplish this, but in the interest of simplicity we will address the most important element here (if are a keener and want to learn about other tactics, sign up for Quote Stork's newsletter via the link below).
The most important ingredient to a successful webinar is curiosity. That's right, curiosity will keep your audience interested and engaged. By maintaining their curiosity from slide to slide, their minds will seek out solutions to the presented problems (instead of solutions to get out of the meeting). And the best part is that your audience will find themselves begging for the next slide, anxious to see what comes next.
Examples of how to arouse curiosity in your webinars are abundant. Since you are dealing with a visual media, look at some of the greatest films and how their filmmakers kept their audience attentive (and awake). Darth Vader in Star Wars kept audiences coming back over and over, even after it became public knowledge that Darth was Luke's father! The Prestige - What is the ultimate magic trick? The Usual Suspects - who is Kaiser Soze? You get the point; make your audience curious.
For the webinar presenter, achieving a high curiosity level involves giving the audience problems. Typically, unsuccessful presenters give a million answers instead. If great filmmakers don't give the answers, why should you? After all, a lot has been studied about great managers and it seems these effective folks (Jack Welch comes to mind) provide the questions and allow employees to come up with the answers. Of course, the manager always has an "end" but by allowing the employee to produce the "means" has benefits outside the scope of this article. Use the webinar to empower your staff or clients; letting them make the decision results in greater long-term commitment.
To illustrate, consider a financial advisor who has seen large redemptions and nervous customers over the past two months or so. By hosting a webinar, the advisor can reach a broad audience, but instead of presenting the two hundred reasons for staying invested or investing more today, the wise advisor would present questions that raise curiosity levels. Questions like what do people do when gas prices get too high (they coast on empty, turn off the AC until gas prices come down again). Alternately, what do people do when gas prices drop again (they fill their cars, their lawn mowers, their back-up tanks). And they might ask what celebrity investor Warren Buffett has been up to (buying severely depressed companies with high perceived values and holding onto them just so he can make a quick billion). By now, the advisor's webinar message would become clear and the audience would reach its own conclusions -- it's time to invest more money while asset prices are cheap.
The market leader in the webinar market is Citrix Online with their GoToWebinar solution. Through Quote Stork Solutions, you can try GoToWebinar for Free and enjoy an additional $10 if you decide to stick with the program. The GoToWebinar solution allows you to host unlimited webinars and reach an unlimited amount of employees and clients. Great way to practice raising the audience's curiosity level! - 15246
A poorly planned webinar will have the same effect on your audience, but with a nice little bonus for your attendee -- they have completely neglected paperwork they can complete while you ramble on blandly.
Hosting a webinar involves keeping your audience engaged. Interested. There are several ways you can accomplish this, but in the interest of simplicity we will address the most important element here (if are a keener and want to learn about other tactics, sign up for Quote Stork's newsletter via the link below).
The most important ingredient to a successful webinar is curiosity. That's right, curiosity will keep your audience interested and engaged. By maintaining their curiosity from slide to slide, their minds will seek out solutions to the presented problems (instead of solutions to get out of the meeting). And the best part is that your audience will find themselves begging for the next slide, anxious to see what comes next.
Examples of how to arouse curiosity in your webinars are abundant. Since you are dealing with a visual media, look at some of the greatest films and how their filmmakers kept their audience attentive (and awake). Darth Vader in Star Wars kept audiences coming back over and over, even after it became public knowledge that Darth was Luke's father! The Prestige - What is the ultimate magic trick? The Usual Suspects - who is Kaiser Soze? You get the point; make your audience curious.
For the webinar presenter, achieving a high curiosity level involves giving the audience problems. Typically, unsuccessful presenters give a million answers instead. If great filmmakers don't give the answers, why should you? After all, a lot has been studied about great managers and it seems these effective folks (Jack Welch comes to mind) provide the questions and allow employees to come up with the answers. Of course, the manager always has an "end" but by allowing the employee to produce the "means" has benefits outside the scope of this article. Use the webinar to empower your staff or clients; letting them make the decision results in greater long-term commitment.
To illustrate, consider a financial advisor who has seen large redemptions and nervous customers over the past two months or so. By hosting a webinar, the advisor can reach a broad audience, but instead of presenting the two hundred reasons for staying invested or investing more today, the wise advisor would present questions that raise curiosity levels. Questions like what do people do when gas prices get too high (they coast on empty, turn off the AC until gas prices come down again). Alternately, what do people do when gas prices drop again (they fill their cars, their lawn mowers, their back-up tanks). And they might ask what celebrity investor Warren Buffett has been up to (buying severely depressed companies with high perceived values and holding onto them just so he can make a quick billion). By now, the advisor's webinar message would become clear and the audience would reach its own conclusions -- it's time to invest more money while asset prices are cheap.
The market leader in the webinar market is Citrix Online with their GoToWebinar solution. Through Quote Stork Solutions, you can try GoToWebinar for Free and enjoy an additional $10 if you decide to stick with the program. The GoToWebinar solution allows you to host unlimited webinars and reach an unlimited amount of employees and clients. Great way to practice raising the audience's curiosity level! - 15246
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