When Webinars Go Wrong: How to Avoid the Pitfalls

First let’s outline the reasons for doing a webinar. Well, you might want to increase your brand awareness and attract the attention of your prospects. Or perhaps you want to generate business leads through educating your consumer-base. Or maybe a bit of both! Either way, webinars are a great content marketing method that can deliver tangible results.

Building your audience is no mean feat – a good webinar needs to engage your audience; inspiring them to learn more about your product or service. Being inspirational isn’t always easy so make sure you don’t fall into the following pitfalls, otherwise you risk alienating the very people you are trying to attract.

Offers nothing new

Make sure your webinar has something to add – a unique selling point. If there are hundreds of webinars out there on your service then find a new angle! Webinar content needs to be relevant and valuable to your viewers, rather than offering more of the same old messaging.

Too self-absorbed

There’s nothing worse than being preached at or sold to before you’ve even got a handle on what the webinar is about. A good webinar educates an audience by focusing on their needs and objectives. Remember it’s not all about you – by all means add some stats to back up your points, but avoid long-winded case studies or self-absorbed commentary.

Slides boring

A set of slides that resemble something from the mid-nineties can turn your audience right off. Equally, text-heavy slides can prove too much to digest and distract your audience from your core messages. Keep slides simple and include helpful infographics or images where appropriate. Why not try a bit of humour or controversy – after all this isn’t the classroom, you’re here to inspire and provoke discussion.

Avoid these mistakes and you are more likely to generate a return on your investment and become a thought-leader. Webinars are a fantastic tool for content marketers and have the potential to help build strong, lasting relationships with your audience. So don’t squander the opportunity, have a clear plan of action and don’t forget to think about your consumers every step of the way.