By 2025 the global webinars and virtual events market is expected to reach a cool $4.44 billion and with businesses averaging more than one webinar every month, the pressure to stand out is real.

From uninspired online versions of the traditional seminar to immersive experiences that rival in-person events, webinars have evolved into a productive marketing channel for companies of every shape and size.

But with tall competition and short attention spans, how can you keep your webinars fresh?

We asked a panel of experts for their top webinar tips to level-up the experience and drive registrations, attendance, and revenue.

• Why webinars have staying power (despite the crowded market)
• 17 webinar tips to improve attendance and revenue
• How to ensure you hit goals with your next webinar

Webinars are the virtual event choice for nearly 95% of B2B marketers. But we won’t bury the lead: Hosting a webinar is only worthwhile if you’re going to do it well.

If your plan is to sit back, fire up the old powerpoint and have a one-way conversation with a semi-engaged audience, you won’t see the kind of results you’re looking for.

But if you’re ready to put in the work, webinars can drive engagement with key accounts, generate more pipeline, and increase revenue.

‍So how do you raise the webinar bar? And what are the latest best practices to help you along the way?

“One of the biggest mistakes B2B event marketers make is assuming that their webinars are just like any other kind of sales pitch. They're not.”

Matt Benton, CEO at Trenchless Information Center, believes webinars hold a key playing card—your prospects have actually chosen to be there. More often than not, that means they’re already interested in how you can help them. No hard pitch required.

Alexis Taylor, Associate Marketing Consultant at Clicksuasion Labs agrees. The way Alexis sees it, “If attendees feel your webinar is just one large ploy to sell them something, even if they are in the market for your services, they will turn their attention elsewhere.”

To deliver real value, experts like Agora.io’s Creative Design and Production Manager, Claudia Oliva suggest adopting an account-based mindset and involving other stakeholders to better understand what your prospects want to see.

For Claudia, live webinars are a great way to deliver valuable content to prospects across multiple time zones—but only if the content is truly of ‘can’t-miss’ status. 

Claudia’s advice? Stop falling back on the “traditional, boring slide decks like in the past.”

With the right event platform and engagement features, it’s easy to provide engaging content via video, live interactive polling, and more.

Okay, so you definitely want to keep your sales pitches out of your core content. However, there is a time and place for them. At Goldcast, our research has found that 73% of respondents like visiting exhibitor booths at in-person events.

This means your webinar attendees want you to showcase your product—just in an environment that doesn’t feel forced. Try saving your demos for the end of the webinar, or inviting attendees to raise their hand during the event so you can follow up and schedule a personalized demo at a time that works for them.

Your content might be ground-breaking, earth-shattering stuff. But if your delivery is poor, no one will remember it.

And that’s a shame. Because keeping virtual events engaging should (and can) be the easy part.

Remember, your webinars are not sit-back-and-watch tutorials—they’re interactive experiences. Here’s how Michael Sorrentino, Founder and Principal at Sorrentino Media sees it.

So what should you focus on specifically? The next tips cover the core areas of webinar engagement.

“To keep webinars fresh and engaging, B2B event marketers should…start incorporating live video, hosting Q&A sessions, and collaborating with industry experts,” says Shawn Stack, CEO at Hallmark Timmins.

And the data is there to back this up, with 44% of attendees stating that a Q&A panel is a key capability for a virtual event.

For a truly interactive webinar, Logan Mallory, VP of Marketing at Motivosity, suggests utilizing “Q&A throughout the webinar rather than saving it for the end. This allows you to address people’s questions in real-time, which keeps them more engaged during the presentation.”

If your webinar platform allows it, liven up your Q&A by taking questions via video. With the right video Q&A feature, you can even invite attendees ‘on stage’ to ask questions face-to-face with your speakers, panelists, and experts.

For 39% of attendees, polls are a great way to connect with the audience in real-time and shape the direction speakers and panelists take their sessions. Which, for Senior Demand Gen Manager at Testbox Hiba Amin, also “makes the webinar feel less like a lecture and more like a conversation.”

Got a hot-button topic you’re looking to address? Launch a quick poll then instantly share the results on-screen to get the conversation fired up. You can even reopen your polls to do a before and after check-in with the audience.

Webinar chats are a given—in fact, 76% of webinars keep one open. But how much value does your chat actually deliver?

The vast majority of attendees join webinars for the virtual networking opportunities—90% according to our findings. Your webinar has to maintain that functionality at all costs, but that doesn’t mean host-to-attendee chat is the only way to do it.

Other webinar networking options that ranked well with attendees include:

• Group live chat functionality
• Direct peer-to-peer communication

By assigning specific sessions for networking and enabling the ability for attendees to chat 1:1, you can help deliver on the one thing attendees really want from your webinar — connection.

Templated webinars won’t work in today’s wild world of live events. Companies like Drift, Smartling and Alyce are driving increased pipeline by thinking outside the box with their webinar formats.

Instead of back-to-back seminars, try mixing things up with a live gift unboxing hour, rockin’ band set, ongoing webinar series, or even a just-for-fine wine tasting.

Remember, your webinar is an experience, not just an event.

“The virtual space lends itself to a more engaging format,” explains Claudia Oliva of Agora.io. “Open the floor to discussions with the audience, prepare polls, invite people to the stage to join in the conversation or post questions in the chat, break up the presentation by introducing other media (videos, images, even music), keep them engaged.”

For 65% of business attendees, it’s the speakers that make a virtual event experience excellent. When getting your webinar message across, it’s all in the delivery.

Look for speakers and panelists who offer a creative and authentic approach to their webinar presentations, then work with them to make sure they have all the tools and features they need to execute with maximum impact.

In the modern era of event marketing, authenticity matters. Take Michael’s advice and encourage speakers to drop the script in exchange for a few powerful bullet points supported by interactive audience engagement features.

In a noisy landscape. You’ve got to nail your subject matter.

Which is why Matt Benton of Trenchless Information Center believes modern event marketers need to “know their target audience and tailor their messaging accordingly.”

“A webinar is a great opportunity for brands to connect with their customers in person and get them excited about new products or services. That's why it's so important for event marketers to understand who they're talking to and what matters most to them before getting on stage.‍‍‍”

Experts like Padmaja Santhanam, Growth Manager at FirstPrinciples agree. The way they see it, delivering the right webinar content to the right people comes down to a clear and well-optimized funnel.

“To make your webinar more engaging, ensure you narrow down your topic, drill down into sub-topic clusters, and prepare a landing page for your webinar with a call to action of registration. It will help attendees get more clarity on what they can expect from your webinar, and when you choose a specific topic, it makes your webinar more informative to your audience.”

By combining deeply targeted webinar topics with a clear breakdown of what’s covered and how to register, you’re setting yourself up for increased registrations from attendees who actually want to be there and are more likely to convert.

With close to 70% of attendees signing up to webinars to learn something, actionable takeaways are the way to go.

And that’s why Senior Marketing Manager at The Influencer Marketing Factory Emily Brook believes, “Businesses should continue to keep the structure of their webinars ‘how-to’ related with relevant, actionable lists for audiences to execute on their own.”

Your webinar attendees should be able to walk away with something they can use, even if they don’t decide to sign up for a demo.

For example, at Salesloft webinars, Director of Global Event Marketing Jennifer Cumming encourages her presenters to take the approach, “Here's some content that we think you can take and use right now, even if you don't use Salesloft.”

The average viewing time for webinars of 60 minutes or less comes in at around 30 minutes.

But if you want to increase that number, 84% of attendees say on-demand content is the way to go. In fact, 96% of participants expect event content to be available after the event.

“What's really cool about webinars is that they can be anything you want them to be. You can have a live audience watching the speaker on a big screen while they give their speech in real time, or you can have the speaker deliver the speech remotely and record it so people can watch at their own convenience,” says Matt Benton.

With this increased flexibility comes with an incredible opportunity to use, reuse, and repurpose recorded event content in your broader content marketing. The right webinar content can provide great material for your social media, podcast, and even boost your SEO strategy.

If you do nothing else with your on-demand content, always take the time to add access to your follow-up email post-webinar to give attendees what they want and avoid the endless stream of “Where can I find the recording?” questions.

Sometimes the only thing keeping us from skipping an event is the thought of the fabulous freebies we might be missing out on.

Virtual events are no different. Attendees expect to come away with more than just knowledge.

Think about offering a virtual swag bag to your webinar attendees. And keep in mind, it doesn’t have to be fancy (or pricey). Natalia Tomchyshyn, Marketing Director at Relokia, has seen firsthand that “providing participants with tangible takeaways like worksheets, eBooks, and virtual swag bags can help create a lasting impression and encourage further engagement with the brand.”

Leaving with more than you came with is a great way to keep attendees coming back. 😉

The average webinar attendance rate sits at around 51%.

But there are ways to optimize your registration process for live attendance and combat those no-show blues. If it’s been a while since you audited your registration process, there’s never been a better time.

Look for opportunities to:

• Highlight your speakers, panelists, and topics front-and-center
• Use automated calendar holds for registered attendees
• Use magic link technology to make event entry seamless
• Add the event login link to each of your reminder emails
• Make it easy for recipients to share the event on Linked in and other social media

If your registration form has more than five fields, consider ways you can reduce that to two or three.

“All event marketers need is a company name and email to follow up with a potential lead. The client should be encouraged to provide more information or register on a company website, but it should not be required,” says Roy Morejon, President and Co-Founder at Enventys Partners.

Remember, your webinar prospects are busy. Simplify your registration process at every stage to boost your attendee show rate by making it easier for them to log in.

“One of the major issues with webinars is that they are often not accessible to the largest minority of 1.85 billion disabled people, including me,” explains B2B accessibility consultant Svetlana Kouznetsova.

Speaking from personal experience, Svetlana goes on to say, “I cannot participate in webinars. Some cannot even sign up for webinars because platforms to sign up are not accessible. It's a very critical issue that event marketers need to consider.”

While there is still a long way to go in ensuring webinars are accessible to all, technological advancements like multi-language speech-to text captions and subtitles are quickly becoming a best practice.

Make sure your webinar is as accessible as possible by enabling these helpful features or working with an expert like Svetlana to uncover more ways to launch an inclusive event.

As digital events skyrocket in popularity, attendees expect more and more out of their experience—including professional-grade production.

Work with your webinar host and moderator on an end-to-end dry run well ahead of time and adjust your digital event production toolkit to include:

• Customizable event branding, including logos, colors, fonts, virtual backgrounds, banners and more.
• Multiple speaker layout variations to give attendees access to up to 30 panelists and participants who can be present ‘on stage’ at any time.
• Easy AV checks , including mics, webcams, wifi, presentations, and more.

A poor internet connection is no excuse for a poor event experience. You’ve put a lot of work into curating an engaging webinar—don’t blow it at the last minute with a totally avoidable production problem.

As a bonus, high-quality production also means you’ll have plenty of great webinar clips to repurpose for your blog, email, and social media channels after your webinar.

Getting all of the above right might seem a little daunting at first but with the right platform partner, most of this can be done in a few simple clicks.

Look for a webinar platform that offers:

• An intuitive user interface
• Modern engagement features
• White label customization
• Deep data insights

And while features are great, the feeling of having someone in your corner is priceless.

“I had heard how quickly Goldcast responded to customer feedback and we've already seen our input being put into the product. That was a challenge with previous platforms,” says Salesloft’s Jennifer Cumming.

No matter which platform you use to host your webinars, consider the level of support you’ll need to deliver a truly memorable experience for your attendees. Then look for a partner who will be there when you need them.

While legacy platforms like Zoom and GoToWebinar have a role to play, future webinar best practices are closely tied to your ability to stand out with a truly memorable experience.

While it’s not always easy to produce a successful webinar, the right partner can help make it business as usual. At Goldcast, we know event marketers have come a long way since the days of ‘sit back and watch’. We’re here to make sure you have everything you need to succeed with your webinar strategy.

https://www.goldcast.io/lp/attendee-sentiment-report