"Engagement" isn't the same in every in-person session you go to. And how you may interact in a virtual event or webinar may change based on your goals and the nature of the event. What’s the right level and type of engagement in a webinar?
Recently on #ThoughtLeaderConversations, V2's Head of Strategy Roger Courville joined by fellow webinar industry old timer, Greg Greer, V2's Head of Operations for "5 Critical Variables in Virtual Events for Financial Services" to just have a conversation about what we’ve seen work -- and what we’ve seen not work -- around five key questions or variables.
Here Greg tackles one of those variables: How do you get and keep attendees engaged and participating in your webinar?
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Series: #ThoughtLeaderConversations Sponsor: V2, LLC, expert virtual and hybrid event production, www.VirtualVenues.com Host: Roger Courville, CSP, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerc/
Keywords: #financialservicesevents #finservwebinar #webinartactics #howtoproducegreatwebinars #webinarproduction #financialwebinars
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Unedited transcript
[00:00:00] Roger Courville, CSP: when we go to in person events, part of what we're there for is the content, of course. And yet, also, we know there is something about peer to peer connection, and different platforms handle that in different ways. But to your point, creating an environment where, um, for instance, the nature of that engagement might be, Hey, let's... you know, you can download some drink recipes. Yeah. Could be, could be something that creates a distinction that's in addition to your content. Of course, your content is, is front and center, and that's an important element. But as long as we're talking about engagement, that is a good transition to variable number two.
What is the right level and type of engagement?
[00:00:50] Greg Greer, Head of Operations: I don't think you can lose by giving your audience more ways to participate and just make your presentation more interactive. I mean, again, I touched on it earlier. We always think of the... You know, polls and feedback surveys as the traditional means of allowing more participation.
But again, those days of the one too many webinars are waning. I mean, more and more. Uh, that's where, you know, the attention span starts to shut down. If you're just droning on and on listening to the same speaker for 40 minutes, uh, and then, you know, you just don't. You just don't keep those higher retention rates.
People start to get bored and log off. So, um, and, and again, here, web platforms these days have so many more tools and widgets to make your presentations more interactive. I'm sure if you've been, especially on those on 24 webinars, they're again, higher production value, but they've got those call to action widgets now, which, you know, those are great.
panels that you can add both text and a link to, and you can invite them to register for another webinar, sign up for a consultation or a demo. Um, you know, that's a great, that's a great way to get your audiences more involved. You know, also now most consoles now have the social media links. Uh, so, you know.
Great first touch. They can visit your corporate LinkedIn page or X or Twitter or whatever they're calling it these days or threads, all of them. So just a great, you know, again, way that they can learn more about you, your brand, your company. Um, and you know, a lot of platforms too, they have those resource panels as well.
Again, house those downloadable documents, white papers, product literature, financial statements, you know, you can add links to these panels as well so they can visit your website and link to topic related pages. So, all kinds of new ways, uh, to lead them back to you and your brand.
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