Virtual events such as webinars have been around for a while, but have shot into popularity especially in recent years. 

Hosting an online event can be fun especially when you have a great audience that shows much enthusiasm and participation. However, hosting an online event isn’t as easy as just propping up a webcam and pushing ‘broadcast’. It’s a tedious process that requires meticulous attention from the period of promotion to the day of the event itself. 

There are various ways that an online event could go wrong, and you don’t want all of your hard work to go to waste. 

Whether this is your first time hosting an online event or you’ve already held a few before, we want to talk about things you should avoid doing during the promotion phase as well as the actual day of your virtual event. 

Let’s get right to it!

Not Aligning your Teams

Let’s start with the promotion period. It is all about team effort and aligning your sales and marketing organizations is what it all boils down to in order to be able to fill your pool with the right contacts (invitees). 

You’d want to discuss these with your team first in order to form your account-based webinar marketing strategy:

• Define your target accounts and organizations
• Segmenting your event invitees
• Crafting your event message and positioning

These will be the foundations for your webinar marketing strategy, and if you fail to see to it that this is in place first, the outcome of your promotion campaign is not going to look good.

Unclear Communication and Instructions

This will be the bane of your existence if you get this wrong. While promoting your event, you have to be sure to have every member of every team that’s working with you on board. From your content creators to your marketing and sales team. Have your whole team aligned on the value of your event and the promotion so you’ll be able to develop clear lines of communication. 

Now onto your online event proper. You’ve worked hard to prepare well for the event and the last thing you want is for it to flop. The thing is, you don’t have to worry as long as you avoid making these common mistakes.

Your Event is Not Interactive

Just because your event is online doesn’t mean that you have to give up interacting with your audience. This is a common mistake many presenters make. 

It’s important to go that extra mile and make your event go beyond the normal format and make the experience for your audience as engaging as possible so that they are left with an unforgettable experience.

It’s Too Sales Driven

Ask yourself, would you be able to sit through an entire sales pitch in your free time? Of course not, and your audience doesn’t either. 

If you sound too sales-y, instead of actually driving in sales, you’ll achieve the opposite and drive them out instead. 

Stray away from doing this by directing your focus on providing educational and valuable information. Even better if you can make your tips actionable for your audience. Remember, your event should be about solving your audience’s problems and making that your priority rather than spending the majority of it trying to sell.

Your Presentation is Lackluster

An online event heavily relies on good visuals. So if your visuals aren’t up to par, it’s most likely that your audience will lose interest and abandon your event a little too early. 

It’s not just about presenting your data and some text and bullet points. In order to leave a lasting impact on your audience, try to lean more towards storytelling throughout your presentation. Having your messages told as stories are much more memorable for your audience than plain facts.

No Respect for your Audience’s Time

This is another important point to remember. Not respecting your audience’s time is a mistake that quite a few presenters make. Not only will this annoy your audience and even drive them to click out of your event before it’s over, but it also diminishes your credibility.

Make sure that you start and end your presentation on time. 

Let’s say you planned to have a Q&A session at the end with your audience but you’re running tight on time, it’s wiser to collect their questions and hold a post-webinar Q&A post instead. 

On the other hand, it’s totally okay to have longer events as long as you provide detailed guidance and instruction for your attendees so they won’t be caught off guard.

Conclusion

Don’t feel intimidated by hosting online events whether they may be big or small. As long as you’re mindful not to commit any of these no-nos, you’re on the right track. 

If you have any more questions about what you need to know before marketing your virtual event, Callbox is only one phone call away!