I always talk about ways you can improve your webinar and how to ensure you’re getting the right audience. However, what are the steps that go into planning a webinar?
When planning a webinar, it’s best to give your team a specific timeline that is reasonable with your overall webinar marketing plan.
8 Steps For Planning A Webinar
Below will outline how to plan a successful webinar in just 8 weeks.
Week 1-2: Block Out The “Who”
Start delegating roles and responsibilities in the initial planning stage with your webinar team.
Once you know your topic, you can start to figure out who is responsible for what.
- Who is going to ensure tasks and implementation?
- Who is creating your landing page?
- Who is executing it?
Do you have a big team? Ensure you are correctly selecting the right people for the right tasks. Too many stakeholders could make it difficult to coordinate.
Delegate The Following Tasks:
- The Webinar Presenter(s)
Who’s presenting your webinar? Are you? Or are you planning to have guest speakers? This is the time to look at the larger picture. Start coordinating your internal or external webinar speakers. Ensure they are available for your event.
Pro tip: Expect the unexpected. Always have back-up webinar speakers, especially if you’re planning on inviting guest speakers.
- Graphics and Creative
Who’s creating your slides, your social promotions, and your email creative? Find someone who shares the same vision. Alternatively, choose a graphic designer who can bring your ideas to life.
- Marketing and Promotions
How are you marketing your webinar? Ensure your team includes members who can handle:
- Paid and organic advertising.
- Social media promotions.
- Email copy and automations.
- Registration pages.
- CRM maintenance.
By implementing each of these factors together, you can solidify a stronger webinar promotional strategy.
- Event Execution
Check to see if your audiovisual equipment is working as expected. Do a couple of dry-runs before your event to catch any mishaps before going live. Ensure your lighting and physical set are properly positioned. Avoid using your meeting or board rooms for your webinar event. They are not built for webinar production as opposed to using a professional studio.
- Overall Communication Strategy
Have someone in charge of the overall communication. This includes social media management, assistance with email copy and answering questions that may come through as you promote your webinar.
Week 3: Solidify Your Webinar
By week 3, everyone should understand their roles. Confirm scheduling for your webinar event to ensure everything runs smoothly.
This is also the time to finish your creative. Aim to have your landing pages and promotional pieces should be ready to go by the end of week 4.
Week 4-6: Execute Your Promotional Plan
You have your creative, your promotional assets, and your registration forms set up. Now it’s time to start promoting your webinar.
Create a promotional calendar that outlines when your emails and social media posts will go out. Ensure your webinar slide deck is ready as well. Present a clear and concise message that will appear on all of your promotional material.
Week 7: Understand Your Webinar Software
With your webinar around the corner, this is when you’re going to see the biggest increase in registrations. Now’s the time to understand the program you’re using to present your webinar.
Look into engagement webinar features such as,
- Polling questions.
- Live Q&A options.
- Social media widgets.
- A resources section.
Feel free to reach out to our webinar team at any time to learn how to leverage the engagement features on the ELITE Webinar Platform.
Week 8: Lights, Camera, Action!
Today is the day. You’ve taken care of planning your webinar, and you’re ready to get started.
As mentioned above, always make sure you’ve done a dry-run of your live event to ensure everything is running as expected.
Let’s Recap
Webinar planning can be daunting. Use our 8-week planning guide to execute a successful webinar program:
- Week 1-2: Block Out The “Who”: Who are the stakeholders on your team and what are they responsible for?
- Week 3: Solidify Your Webinar: Now that everyone knows their roles, start to tighten up your promotional materials.
- Week 4-6: Execute Your Promotional Plan: Create a promotional calendar to help schedule your promotional strategy.
- Week 7: Understand Your Webinar Software: Are you using your webinar platform to its fullest extent?
- Week 8: Lights, Camera, Action!: Ensure you’ve completed at least one dry-run of your webinar to find and correct any issues before the live event.
Have any questions about planning your webinar? Our expert webinar team is always available to help out. Reach out to our team today.
