Mastering Webinar Presentations

Presentation Excellence has hosted dozens of Webinars on a wide variety of presentation, sales, marketing, management and communication topics for over six years. We’ve been privileged to work with such distinguished providers as Citrix, Intercall, Raindance Communications, WebEx and Live Meeting. It encouraged us to develop virtual investor presentation services which public companies can use to reach investors and analysts.

Over the years, audience questions have evolved from basic issues, such as "how do I present effectively when I can't see the audience?" to "how do I integrate the webinar technology into my marketing-sales system to increase its efficiency and effectiveness?" We thought we’d address a few questions in this month’s newsletter, and will continue answering more in the future.

Are Webinars more appropriate for marketing or sales?
Webinars are a marketing technique and should be considered a critical component of a complete marketing-sales program when the marketing strategy is to reach out to a large audience and educate them about the features and benefits of your service or product. This allows sales people to focus on closing. As in all marketing-sales approaches, it’s important to be comprehensive: invite a pre-qualified audience, develop a compelling story, deliver it powerfully, follow-up with serious buyers, and hand-off to the sales people.

How do Webinars overcome the disadvantage of not being face-to-face presentations?
In any presentation, it's important that the audience knows you are talking to them, and not at them. In a normal conversation, you use feedback to make sure you’re on-target and maintain interest. Most Webinar providers allow you to poll your audience. Do so at the beginning to demonstrate your concern and get their input; if the presentation is longer than 20-25 minutes you can consider doing so during the presentation, too. Second, keep the presentation graphically attractive - lots of pictures and images and not long sentences - to engage the viewer. Move through it at a quick pace, so boredom doesn’t set in. If you’re building to a climax, consider animation sequences to reach the point.

What can I do to keep people's attention, since they are likely to be distracted in their offices?
Recognizing that your audience will be distracted is the first step. You need to harness all the skills you use effectively when speaking for a long time on the phone: speak clearly, loudly and at a fast pace; modulate your voice and use inflections; and inject humor when appropriate. It’s a conversation and the strategy is to encourage the audience to want to hear the next part!

Should I take questions in the middle or at the end?
If you’ve done a good job of anticipating the information your audience wants, then they will be able to sit through a complete 20-25 minute presentation. Indeed, they’ll appreciate the job you’ve done to package all the information neatly together. At that point, taking questions allows you to address fine points that individuals may have. If you take questions in the middle of a short presentation, you risk losing its "flow" and impact.

Send any questions to questions@presentationexcellence.com or call 646-827-0009.

Brilliant Image, which turns favorite photos into perfect paintings, was featured in Boomer Life & Senior Times, Fred Fishkin's Bootcamp (on Bloomberg Radio); and www.livedigitally.com; It also announced a "photo-of-the-month drawing" with Celebration Magazine. For more information see: www.celebrationsmag.com. .

ICSC, the International Council of Shopping Centers, launched its third cycle of the SuperMentoring Program in February; it is coordinated by Dr. Jerry Cahn of Presentation Excellence.