Webinar tips: 101 things you could or should do when producing webinars

As you will see later in this post, I am a believer in using webinars as content anchors to creating lots of different content assets. One of the best tips in content marketing is to “create once, publish many”. The idea here is that original ideas and raw content are very hard to develop so when you do, then create as much content as possible. The webinar is a great launch point for great ideas and raw content. I am right now on a “content rush” on the topic of webinars. Over the last two weeks, I have done two webinars on webinars (Driving Demand with Digital Events and The Essential Guide to Webinars: Deliver Value to the Right Audience) and wrote a monster blog post on the TOPOhq blog: Webinars: The Ultimate Guide to Creating World Class Online Events. Today’s post will be my second on the topic. I am “creating once and publishing many!)

Webinars are core to an organization’s content marketing and demand generation strategy. Why? They work. Free content is everywhere but people are conditioned to filling out registration forms for webinars they are interested in. When done correctly, they are extremely valuable content. Content and leads what more can you ask for?

This post is a list of all the things that I think you should try/do with your webinar program in cliff notes form. Some are “must-do’s”, some are fun, and others I may or may not have made up. Here we go:

1. Read my definitive post on creating webinars
2. Choose a webinar platform (look at Adobe Connect, Brighttalk, Citrix GoTowebinar, InExpo, On24, ReadyTalk, and WebEx)
3. If you want to do video, try Google Hangouts
4. Make sure you have built buyer personas (deep insight into your target buyers about what they care about and what they do all day.)
5. Map the buying process
6. Assign one person to manage webinars at your company
7. Okay fine, assign one person to manage this event from start of production through sales follow-up
8. Choose a date
9. Try to have the event on Tues-Weds (Thursday works but isn’t as good as the other two)
10. Schedule the event for either 10 or 11 AM PDT
11. Start production for your webinar 45-60 days in advance
12. Better yet, create an annual calendar for webinars and start 365 days in advance
13. Choose a target buyer persona or multiple personas
14. Figure out where in the buying cycle you want to target them
15. Set target registration goals for the event
16. Set target attendance goals for the event (25-50%)
17. Create 3-4 topics to choose from
18. Develop a topic that resonates with your buyer
19. Don’t develop a topic only resonates with you
20. Figure out the format (single speaker, multiple speakers, or panels)
21. Write the initial abstract
22. Decide whether it will be video or slide only.
23. Identify a stack-ranked list of potential moderators and speakers
24. Recruit a moderator
25. Recruit your speakers or multiple speakers
26. Make adjustments to the abstract based on speaker feedback
27. Develop a promotional plan outlining the channels you want to leverage to drive attendance
28. Identify owners for each channel (email marketing person owns email. Was that an obvious example? Okay, well assign people to write blog posts.)
29. Create email templates (this is more about design then copy.)
30. Develop event specific email copy (3 emails)
31. Build the landing page
32. Develop any advertising materials
33. Decide on your lead management strategy now (who will follow up on leads, when, and how)
34. Set up a Google Plus event page
35. Set up a Facebook event page (if your target market is on Facebook)
36. Set up a Lanyrd page (if you like these sorts of things)
37. Send three promotional emails (3 weeks, 1 week, and 1 day)
38. If your house list isn’t big enough or targeted enough, work with third party email vendors
39. Do paid advertising (I have not had luck with this, but others have.)
40. Post offers on the corporate website
41. Create a hashtag for the event
42. Share the event on your preferred social channels
43. Ask speakers, employees, and your friends to share
44. Write 1-2 promotional blog posts
45. Write guest posts on relevant sites preferably with lots of traffic
46. Create a press release (it doesn’t work well, but if you have the PR outlets — why not?)
47. Create video previews using speakers
48. Put the event URL in the intro, conclusion, and in the “lower third” of the video screen
49. Cut the video into a series of videos under three minutes
50. Post the videos on YouTube, Brighttalk, Vimeo, etc
51. Work with sales to promote to their customers
52. Train sales on the event details
53. Provide sales with email templates, social sharing verbiage, links, and scripts.
54. Have a defined plan to promote attendance with registrations
55. Include an ICAL or other calendar widget so people can add to their calendar when they sign up
56. Send email reminders (24 hour, 1-2 hour reminder, 15 minute reminder)
57. Send social reminders
58. Ask speakers to send social reminders (“I’m soooo excited!” said the speaker to the social graph)
59. Have someone managing the corporate social account follow registrants
60. Leave voicemail reminders
61. or: Use automation to send voicemail reminders (I have used Boxpilot for this)
62. Send text reminders
63. Hold a rehearsal with everyone involved (30 minutes) to walk through everything
64. Walk through the event including when people speak
65. Have everyone turn in their decks 4-5 days in advance
66. They will turn in their decks the night before
67. Have everyone show up to the event 15- 30 minutes early
68. Do a sound check (make sure to say  “testing 1-2, 1-2″ if you want to sound cool)
69. Make sure everyone is in a quiet place and can move the slides
70. Decide who will move the slides and when.
71. Start the webinar 1 minute after the hour
72. During the intro, tell the audience where to ask questions
73. Announce the hashtag and produce one slide showcasing the hashtag and only the hashtag
74. Have someone managing the hashtag on Twitter and engaging with viewers
75. Do 1-2 polls. (Don’t do it with less than 75 people attending or you will be in pain.)
76. Have 5-6 questions prepared for q/a
77. Leave 10-15 minutes for q/a.
78. Have the moderator encourage people to ask questions throughout the event
79. Have a 5 minute recap with presenters and moderator after the event.
80. Drink a beer or a single malt scotch, you deserve it – you aren’t done but you deserve it
81. Post the on-demand version asap
82. Have a resource center on your corporate website to host the on-demand webinars
83. Take the video version of your webinar and chop it up into 3 minute segments. (fine you can do 5 minute segments but the general rule for video is under 3 minutes)
84. Post video to YouTube or any other video channel you like
85. If you don’t have your own video resource center make one. I use Vidcaster-  funnelholic tv.
86. Post the on-demand webinar to Brighttalk.
87. Write post-event blog post(s). Just a warning: Recap the event, but don’t call it a recap. (how about that!). Take the great points from the event and just create a great blog post. Not an article on the event itself because no one reads those.
88. Create a blog post with the poll results (new idea and a good one)
89. Crowdsource the raw data into an ebook or whitepaper
90. Create a post event video where the presenter answers un-answered questions from the event.
91. Post your deck to slide share (love this)
92. If your webinar platform isn’t connected to your marketing automation or CRM, load leads into your system
93. If sales if following up, train them on the event, what to say, and how to use the data
94. Get an SLA from sales on how many touches each lead will get
95. If marketing is following up, score the leads and keep nurturing
96. Send a marketing email 5 days later with a related offer like the crowdsourced ebook
97. Do a autopsy of what worked/didn’t work in the process
98. Fix things
99. Slap fives (the fist pound is out of style. Old school high fives are back.)
100. Thank the speakers with a gift
101. Start the next webinar!

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic and a co-founder of Topo. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter