20 tips for hosting a successful webinar TheONE Webinar

Research among successful webinar hosts shows that it's not just about the content but also about the style of presentation. To host a webinar is easy if you know a number of basic principles. It' s not that you have to give away a whole performance. It's about taking a number of factors into account.

Provide a quiet background: In order to listen well, it is important that the listener is able to focus. There are various tricks for this in the communication and use of the camera. The most important tip is that you provide a calm background. It is about you or the subject you want to present.
Use a good microphone: Sound is important when giving a webinar. Your audience wants to hear you well. Therefore, use a good microphone or make sure you sit directly in front of the microphone of your notebook or Smartphone. If you are in a chaotic environment with a lot of background noise, you can use a special directional microphone. These microphones only transmit sound from where they are aimed at.
Don't speak too fast and articulate well: If you speak too fast, your audience doesn't have enough time to process the information you give. Drop a small pause once in a while. Your audience then has time to take notes or ask a question. It is also important to speak loudly (don't start shouting) and to articulate well.
Divide your webinar into several sub-topics: Tell your audience in advance which sub-topics will be discussed and give them time to ask questions after each sub-topic. You can also ask an open-ended question after each sub-topic. For example by asking what your audience has learned or understood from each sub-topic.
Take the time to answer questions: Be clear if and when you take the time to answer questions. For example, after each sub-topic. Answering questions in between can distract others or yourself from your storyline. By the way, you don't have to answer every question and you can safely say that you will come back to something later. Or that the answer to a question will become clear later. You can also answer that you do not have an answer to a question. After all, you can't know everything.
Regularly look into the camera: Make sure you look at your audience by regularly looking into the camera. That doesn't mean you can't look somewhere else every now and then. But nothing is more annoying for an audience if the host never looks at them. Make sure you're not too close to the camera. Just looking at a pair of eyes and a nose is not entertaining.
Don't be afraid to make mistakes: If you speak live you can easily say something you didn't want to. That happens to the best of us. Be honest and just say you meant something else. It's better to admit a mistake than to twist around it.
Keep it to one subject: Don't try to convey everything you know about a subject in a webinar. If you know everything about airplanes, choose a specific part of your knowledge to convey. For example, the origin of airplanes. If, in the same webinar, you also want to tell about the differences between the types of airplanes, then your audience quickly gets too much information. Remember that most of the information you tell is new information for your audience. Give them time to process that information. Additional information is better told during a new webinar. If you don't have inspiration about a subject yet,
you can read all about popular webinar topics in this article.
Ask your audience to say something in front of the camera: Between the different sub-topics or at the end of the webinar you can assign the camera and microphone to someone from your audience. Of course, do ask permission for this and ask a question they can answer. For example, you can ask for feedback on the way you gave the webinar. Your audience will appreciate it if you let others speak as well.
Always be positive and cheerful: No matter how heavy or serious your subject is, you can always show that you are positive and cheerful. For example, by ending your story with what positive life lessons you have learned. Or how something has positively influenced you as a human being. Positivity and cheerfulness can also be conveyed through your voice and facial expression.
Variety of your voice: If you naturally speak very monotonously, it is wise to practice variation in your voice. It is very tiring for your audience to listen to a monotonous speaker. Voice coaches and coaches for speaking in public can help you with this.
Provide proper lighting: Make sure that the subject is adequately and correctly lit. If you are the subject, they want to be able to see you well. Make sure you have at least one or two bright spotlights that will light up your face properly and optionally a softer light source that will light up your head from behind at an angle. If you sit outside, bright sunlight can also be annoying. Because of the overexposure, your audience may also have difficulty seeing you.
Support your story with facts: A good story is nice to listen to, but if you present an opinion or statement, make sure you have substantiated facts. Make sure your audience trusts your statement or opinion by using reliable sources.
Start with an anecdote: You can get the attention of your audience by starting your webinar with an anecdote. This should of course be relevant to the subject of the presentation. This way you can introduce your story and get your audience into your presentation more easily.
Choose the right day: Research shows that Thursday and Friday are the best days to give a webinar. Of course this depends on your subject and your audience. These days are popular because most webinars are about business oriented topics. Employees like to follow a webinar during working hours. Don't forget to promote your webinar.
Use graphical support: You can easily share your screen during a webinar and support your story graphically. If you tell about the huge deforestation in the rainforest, an image can tell more than a thousand words. If your subject is about a specific target group, it may be advisable to show these people.
Tell your own story: Tell your own story so that your emotions and experience are conveyed to the listeners. If you tell someone else's story, you can still convey your emotions and experience about that story. This way the communication remains authentic and you keep the audience interested.

"The story is only true when your emotions are true."
Tell your story yourself: The only contact between you and your audience is your voice and facial expression. That's why you shouldn't, or at least minimally, use videos you want to share or powerpoint slides with written out texts. If one wants to read a text one goes to Google. If they want to see a movie they will go to YouTube. They are there to hear your story, so tell your story yourself.
Don't tell a sales pitch: Nobody comes to a webinar to hear a simple sales talk. They want new and exciting information and something to learn. Therefore, make sure your webinar is informative. If you have taught people something, they will be much more inclined at the end of the webinar to listen to what you have to offer in terms of products or services.
Keep a webinar short, but not too short: The average webinar takes between 30 and 45 minutes. After an hour people lose attention and at less than 30 minutes it is difficult to get a message across and answer questions. If you have more to say than is appropriate within an hour, divide your webinar into two or more parts.

We hope all these tips will help you to maximize your webinar earnings. Still not convinced? In this article you can read about the advantages to host a webinar.

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