These days I am delivering more and more Webinars. My guru is Tom Drews the Fripp Associate who is one of the country’s leading experts in Public Speaking using Webinars. One of Tom’s unique ideas is to use visuals to communicate information before the Webinar starts. An excellent and little utilized technique called “looping” can help prepare your participants for the webinar. “Choose a series of ten slides that automatically ‘loop’ while people are logging in. Provide colleagues with start times, direction for downloading resources, speaker information, upcoming meeting dates and other relevant content. The loop will keep everyone on target and engaged, regardless of when they log in.”
To prepare for your next webinar ask yourself these four questions.
1. “What is my key message?” Start by creating one sentence or premise that sums up your entire forty-five minute presentation. This will help you clarify your objective.
2. “Why would an audience care about this content?” Feeding audience facts and figures won’t make them any more interested in what you have to say. Be sure you explain why the content will be important to them.
3. “What is essential to my presentation? It’s better to say less and have people grasp your information than have them listen all day and hope their eyes aren’t glazing over. Webinars usually run no longer than an hour.
4. “What elements can I incorporate that will entertain, as well as inform?” Use pictures, stories and slides that are educational, informational and fun.
Great post. Very useful information.