After my webinar with Bruce Carton on Tuesday (Web 2.0: Leveraging new media to Maximize Your Securities and Compliance Practice), I ran across a three part series on Why Webinars Fail from Larry Kilbourne: Content Failures, Format Failures and, Process Failures. I hope we did not make too many of these mistakes:
- Cramming too much into one slide. The unmoving PowerPoint slide becomes like wallpaper on the monitor. (Larry recommends a slide or two per minute.)
- A presenter simply reading the bullet points. (“Bullet points, if used properly, are the basis for commentary, not the commentary itself.”)
- Animations and streaming video. (Audience members may not have the internet connection bandwidth to handle them.)
- Delivering a monologue. (Use a “Charlie Rose” format.)
- Using the webinar as a sales pitch. (Webinar registrants are prepared to get pitched, but they expect in return to receive information, data, or research that will benefit them.)
- Live product demos. (Inevitably the product crashes – in real time, in front of an audience.)
- Lack of preparation. (Unrehearsed webinars generally look unrehearsed.)
Thanks to Stewart Mader for pointing out these articles: Why Webinars Fail To Sustain Attention & How to Fix Them.
Doug – Thanks for the kind mention of my recent series on webinars. Two additional articles might interest you: “Webinar Follow-up: Why Leads Don’t Become Customers,” and “Bad News for Travel Budgets = Good News for Webinars.” Both can be accessed at http://www.lkphd.com
Larry –
Thanks for stopping by. Compliance professionals are often called on to provide training so I think good presentation skills are important.