Hosting an Association Webinar? 3 New Tricks You Should Be Trying

Webinars are such a great tool for associations looking to connect with members through interactive content. But how does your organization host its webinars? Whether you’re a regular to webinars, you’re just starting to offer them, or you’re just in the beginning stages of creating ideas, knowing what works for your association’s members is important in every step of the journey. And if you’re looking to pull more success out of your webinars, you’re in the right place.

Those looking to increase audience engagement, webinar attendance, and overall performance can look no further. We’d like to share a few best practices that your organization can use in order to turn up the quality of its webinars (or to start hosting webinars that make quite the impact).So, if you want to get a better understanding on how to host amazing webinars that members will love and want to attend over and over again, keep reading on!

1. Pay attention to promotion

If you’ve been regularly hosting your association’s webinars for a while now, you may be wondering why things have become stagnant. Well, you may want to look back at the way you promote your webinar content. The energy you put into promoting your webinar will reflect in the engagement and attendance you receive in return.

Therefore, sending out a wide amount of advertisements can really cover all of your bases when trying to reach your members. Think about all of the platforms your association can use to get the word out about your webinar. From email, to social media, newsletters, and anything in between, you have so many paths to reach members that should allow you to spread the word about the information and value your webinars hold. Second, you want to think about sending out frequent reminders to members before you host your webinar. Forgetting about important events and opportunities happens, but if you want to give your members the best chance at attending your webinars, you’ll want to send out reminders. Again, this is where using those important communication platforms come into play.

2. Include incentives to increase watch time

With the human attention span only maxing in at the lowest it's ever been, it can be almost impossible to keep members around to hear your full message.

So, what can you do to make sure they stay aware and engaged throughout your webinar? Well, you can consider offering a little extra incentive for those who stick around until the end. Including a small token of appreciation to those who have given you their time and awareness can not only sweeten the deal, but can pack extra value into your webinar. There are so many different incentives you can choose from depending on the audience you have. From ebooks, informational offers, discount codes, coupons, and the like, there’s always something you can add in to keep your audience locked in.

‍Be sure to let members know about this incentive within the first few moments of your webinar. This way, you’ll be sure to catch their attention when they’re at their most engaged, encouraging them to continue watching the webinar. And who knows- they may thank you in the long run for keeping them focused on such valuable lessons and anecdotes.

3. Ask and receive

Are your webinars answering the questions that members have? They should. For your association, it’s all about making members happy. Therefore, you should be making sure that the information you’re providing is interesting, valuable, and engaging. And in order to do this, you’re going to have to talk to members and get to know what they’re hoping to learn. In order to do this, your association can ask members to share any questions or topics they’d like you to cover within your webinars.
‍Before the time you have scheduled for your webinar, you want to make sure to ask your members what it is they want to get from your webinar. Are they looking to learn more about what your association does? Are they trying to enhance their professional career? Are they looking for more educational opportunities, or do they want to know more about advocacy?

With so many topics you could possibly cover, asking questions is essential. You can also allow for audiences to write in questions during your webinar, allowing you ultimate communication and ability to answer their qualms along the way.

‍Hosting a webinar can be fun and a valuable experience if you use the right practices at the right time. Give our tips a try for better member engagement the next time you host a webinar!