How to Host Your First Webinar

Posted by Ellie Mirman, Hubspot On March 28, 2011

Webinars are one of the best ways to offer unique and differentiating content that attracts your best leads and customers to your business. In HubSpot's history, webinars have been absolutely key in growing our reach as a company, educating our audience about a new market - inbound marketing - and generating low-cost organic leads for our sales team.

You do not need to be a rocket scientist to host a webinar. All you need is a webinar checklist - and here we are to provide it. To unveil all the steps and tips and tricks we've learned along the way hosting hundreds of marketing webinars over the last 4 years. First we'll start with the basics of how to host your first webinar.

How to Host Your First Webinar - Part 1: Before the Webinar

Stage 1: Prepare

8 weeks before the webinar

• Choose a Topic – Think about your customers’ problems and questions. These are the same ideas you may brainstorm for blog posts.
• Choose a Speaker – Choose a presenter who can be a face of the company, someone with expertise and experience presenting (or make sure they practice). Consider also acting as a moderator to handle Q&A and make the webinar more interesting for listeners.
•  Choose a Date – No one date/time works for every company. Think about your target audience’s time zones and choose a time you think will work for them. For example, for webinars for US attendees choose afternoon eastern time / morning pacific time.
• Choose a Webinar System - For a typical webinar, you likely won't find a better value than GotoWebinar. It's inexpensive and easy-to-use and they even have a 30-day free trial so you can test it out for free for your first webinar. "

"Also, there is another company called comf5 that provides unlimited webacsts and webinar services for $40/month.  With this system the host or speaker can schedule the webinars at will.  The comf5 system provides the ability to use a powerpoint presentation during the broadcasts, screen sharing, show videos from YouTube and bring in a co-host during the live presentation.  For More Information on this complete system Click Here" - this part not included in original article

How to Host Your First Webinar - Part 2: Day of the Webinar

Stage 3: Execute

1 hour before the webinar

• Remind Your Registrants - It's that time again, time to remind your registrants that it's almost time for your wonderful webinar! Again, this email can be scheduled ahead of time using a system like GotoWebinar.
• Setup Your Webinar Room - Use the Webinar Room Requirements List below to get everything - and everyone - in your reserved room.
• Log into the Webinar - Your presenter should be logged in and sharing his/her screen. Make sure your presenter closes any unnecessary and distracting applications like email and instant messenger. You also should turn off or remove any cell phones as they can cause interference. The moderator should be logged in and able to moderate the Q&A. And, finally, use your mock attendee computer to log in as a normal attendee would and use the headphones to hear the audio from the event. The mock attendee computer will help you catch any issues as soon as they happen.

Webinar Room Requirements List

1. Presenter's computer plugged into a/c power and Internet (wired is better than wireless).
2. Moderator's computer plugged into a/c power and Internet (wired is better than wireless).
3. Mock attendee's computer plugged into a/c power and Internet, with headphones.
4. Phone (not a cell phone) to deliver speaker audio.
5. Water or other drinks for speakers - you'll get thirsty!
6. "Webinar in Progress" sign for the door - not only will you feel official, but people will be less likely to interrupt your live event.

2 minutes after webinar start time

• Start the Webinar - You typically don't want to start right on the dot of your start time. That's because many people will try to arrive right at that time and you don't want a majority of your audience to come in mid-introductions.
• Review Housekeeping Items - No, I don't mean how to fold the corners of your bed sheets. Housekeeping items for a webinar include how the audience can interact with you (Are you doing Q&A? Will you answer questions live or via chat?) and if attendees will get the slides and/or video recording after the event is over.
• Record - If you're planning on recording your presentation (most webinar systems let you do this), remember to hit that record button!
• Present - Present your wonderful content and cap off the presentation with some live Q&A and thanks to the audience.

1 minute after the webinar

• End the Webinar - Log out of the webinar and end the event for the attendees. Make sure you've hung up the phone before you start talking about how the presentation went!
• Pat Yourself on the Back - You just completed your first webinar! Congratulations!

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/8442/How-to-Host-Your-First-Webinar.aspx#ixzz1HxUOY2Lk