5 Creative Ideas for Compelling Webinars

Just 7 percent of companies think that their webinars are instant classics. That’s the kind of figure that we find disappointing here at ON24, because we know exactly how rewarding great marketing webinars can be — both for the companies that deliver them and the audiences who attend them. We can’t help but wonder — what’s keeping people from delivering webinars they want to rave about? We suspect the answer is that they don’t know where to begin.

If you’re like most companies, your webinars consist of one speaker, maybe two, talking over a presentation for 45 minutes to an hour. Slides-and-audio presentations can be compelling, especially the ones with stylish PowerPoints and energetic speakers, but sometimes that format can feel limiting for both the presenter and the audience. Once you’ve explored the limits of what a conventional webinar has to offer, why not see what you could do with an unconventional webinar?

Shaking up the status quo is a great way to breathe new life into your webinar programs. Here are a few things you might want to try:

1. Presenter formats — Play with more informal webinars like expert panels and chat shows. Unscripted, guided group discussions can lead to conversations that your audience won’t be able to find anywhere else.
2. Short-form webinars — Create and syndicate quick-hit webinars when you don’t have the content, time or resources for a full-length webinar. An on-demand channel or portal with a mixture of long and short webinars gives your audience more options for interacting with your brand.
3. Crowdsourcing — Put the audience in the driver’s seat for your next webinar. You can open up small portions of your run time to Q&A or bring in a moderator to run an entirely audience-driven webinar. Your prospects and customers will appreciate the chance to be a bigger part of the conversation.
4. Gamification — Make complex data digestible and fun with quick polls and trivia questions. For bonus points, give your entire webinar a quiz-show format and let your audience match wits with in-studio experts.
5. Video — Add a little action to your webinars with short video segments from off-site events or full-time on-camera presenters. Audiences love the opportunity to see the experts they’ve come to trust. In fact, video is so compelling that it increases audience engagement and content retention.

Great webinars are limited only by our imaginations. Hopefully these tips have sparked your creativity. The next time someone asks how you feel about your webinars, you can confidently respond, “Our webinars? They rock!”

To get more information on how to implement these tips, download the ON24 white paper, “5 Creative Ideas to Propel Your Webinars.”