How To Avoid The 7 Biggest Webinar Mistakes

As this is your first time giving a webinar, you obviously want to make sure nothing goes wrong.

You suddenly experience a wave of unease. There's no reason to freak out. You can still learn from other people's mistakes even when you don't yet have first-hand experience.

Today, we'll go through seven of the most common webinar blunders and how to avoid them, so you can relax knowing your webinar will run as smoothly as possible.

Ready? Let's jump right to the errors.

What are the most common webinar errors, and how can you prevent them?-h5

Mistake#1. Your webinar isn’t interactive

Presenters frequently make the error of not making their webinar interaction dynamic enough, which can lead to abandoned webinars and lost revenue.

The format of a webinar is interactive, yes, but it's crucial to go above and beyond that to maximize how engaging your guests' experience can be.

After all, you want to differentiate yourself from the competition, and engaging with your audience is a powerful method to do so. In fact, 88% of marketers assert that their ability to stand out from the competition through interactive content.

Make sure your webinar has plenty of opportunities for audience members to participate and interact with each other! This could mean having an open Q&A session at the end, or a chat room where participants can discuss what you're saying.

Using the group chat tool on your platform is a fantastic method to accomplish this. You are able to pose questions to your audience, and they are able to respond and converse with one another.

Currently, 42% of clients select live chat as their digital contact mode of choice. Within of a webinar as much as outside of it, live chat marketing is quite effective (if not more so, since you have a bigger audience to play to).

Just be sure to notify your attendees there’s a chance to ask questions if they stay until the conclusion. In addition to encouraging people to stay for the entire webinar, this will also satisfy the need of 92% of your viewers for a live Q&A session at the conclusion.

The last piece of advice for producing an interactive webinar is to communicate clearly and with humor. When the webinar host is enthusiastic and passionate, 32% of participants report feeling the most engaged.

The exception to it is that you must pay attention to what you are enthusiastic and passionate about.

Mistake#2 Your webinar is too salesy

Whether you're hosting a webinar to promote your product or service or to generate leads, it's important that you don't make it feel like an infomercial. While you should definitely highlight the benefits of your product or service, don't make it all about how great your company is (and how much money they can save by working with you).

Instead, focus on the pain points and challenges faced by your audience members—and then explain how your product or service will help them overcome those challenges.

A great way to avoid this mistake is by using video testimonials from real customers and featuring them in your webinar. Your customers are the ones who know best what they're getting into when they purchase your product or service, so they can also be powerful advocates for your brand.

Making your audience's concerns a priority over spending excessive time pitching your product or service is important since excellent business is all about fixing your audience's difficulties.

But that doesn't mean you can't make a sale during your webinar. It simply means that your initial goal should be to give your audience useful solutions. Attendees will respond more favorably to your material, and sales will follow.

Unsurprisingly, our following error also refers to how your audience will process your presentation.

Mistake #3 Your presentation isn't interesting

Webinar hosts frequently make the error of lacking a compelling presentation that draws in the audience. People may leave the webinar early, forget the presentation, and eventually decide not to take advantage of the offer as a result.

Not a pleasant consequence, but also not one that can't be avoided.

In fact, the answer is simple:

Use lots of graphics and little text on your slides, and avoid utilizing your slide deck as a teleprompter above everything else.

The presentation won't be nearly as memorable if something happens. If you combine both oral and visual content in your webinar, your audience will recall 65% of the information, compared to only 10% if you use simply oral content.

A successful storytelling session causes your brain to do four things:

• Neural coupling - It allows listeners to turn the story into their own ideas and experiences
• Mirroring - Listeners experience similar brain activity to each other and the presenter
• Dopamine release - Emotionally-charged experiences increase dopamine levels, making them easier to remember
• Cortex activity - Increased processing in the cortex leads to greater memory.

The key lesson here is to make your presentation engaging for your audience by incorporating audio, visual, and storytelling aspects.

Mistake #4. Your webinar is scheduled at the wrong time

It's important to consider when your audience is most likely to be available and then schedule your webinar accordingly. If you run a business that caters to people working in the financial sector, for example, you'd want to schedule a webinar on the topic of investing during their lunch breaks so that they can watch it while they eat.

But if you run a business that caters to stay-at-home moms, you might want to schedule your webinar for early in the morning or late at night when they're more likely to have time to take care of their children before or after work.

Every audience is unique, after all. Golden guidelines are a terrific place to start, but they should only be considered a starting point.

Respecting the time of your audience is the sole absolute rule for when to begin or end a presentation. You are on the correct track as long as you continue to do it.

On the other side, if you're not, you might be our next error.

Mistake #5: You didn't respect your audience's time

While it may be tempting to fill up every single minute of your webinar with information, this is not only insulting to your potential customers, but it's also a huge waste of their time.

If you don't have something important or valuable to say, then don't say it at all.

If you have an hour-long webinar, make sure that you've got enough content for 60 minutes—don't try to squeeze in more than you need just because you think it will seem like more value for attendees.

Here are some tips to make sure you don't disrespect your audience:

1. Keep it short and sweet. Don't try to cram too much information into one webinar. Your audience will be more engaged if they have time to digest what you're saying instead of trying to keep up with all the information coming at them at once.

2. Make sure you have a clear call-to-action at the end of each slide so they know what they should do next (like register for a free trial or buy something). It'll also help reinforce what has been said in previous slides so they don't forget where they are in the presentation when moving on to new topics later on in the presentation.

Mistake #6: You didn’t promote your webinar enough

It’s easy to put on a webinar and think, “Oh, people will just find out about it somehow.” But you have to be intentional about promoting your event—and that starts with planning for it way in advance.

If you don’t promote your webinar enough, you’re missing out on potential customers. A lot of people forget that the best way to get people in the door is by building up excitement before they even register.

You need to make sure that your audience knows about your webinar. You can do this by using social media platforms, email marketing, and other methods of communication. This will help you build momentum early on and get more people interested in signing up for your event.

You can promote your webinar in many ways (we’ve included some tips below), but one of the most effective is to create a landing page for your event and use social media ads to promote it.

• Include an “add to calendar” tool and send reminders
• Highlight your webinar on your homepage
• Blog about your webinar
• Create an informative landing page
• Announce it on social media
• Email your subscriber list

Mistake #7: You Didn't Give Your Audience a Gift

Another major error that webinar hosts commit is failing to provide registrants with a worthwhile freebie.

Offering your attendees a free present, similar to a lead magnet, is very beneficial for individuals who are unfamiliar with your business. It gives newcomers a chance to learn more about your company and evaluate the caliber of your goods or services.

If you're going to be talking about ways they can save money or make more money or make their lives better, then offering them something that helps them do just that is a great way to show your audience how much you care about them, and how much you want them to succeed.

Here are some ideas:

1. A downloadable PDF with tips and tricks from the webinar

2. A list of resources that your audience can use when they get back home

3. A coupon for 25% off their next purchase

4. A free trial of one of your products (if it’s not too expensive)

Recap

Launching a webinar doesn't have to be a nerve-wracking event, even if it's your first time hosting.

There have been many presenters before you, and their experiences have brought about mistakes that you can benefit from.

Let me summarize it for you:

• Presenters frequently fail to engage their audience sufficiently through either their presentation or topic.
• Avoid being overly forceful throughout your presentation to lower the likelihood that you won't close any deals.
• Some blunders that might result in low attendance and a negative attendee experience include scheduling your webinar at the wrong time and failing to respect the time of your audience.
• Another error made by hosts is under-promoting their webinars, which similarly lowers the number of people that sign up and attend.
• Another significant blunder to avoid is leaving your registrants empty-handed and without a complimentary gift.

Although mistakes are inevitable, as long as you avoid these seven traps, your webinar is guaranteed to start off strong.

So go out there and spread the word about your webinar while having fun. If you seek more knowledge on how to make your webinar a success order our webinar services here.