How to Create and Manage an Effective Webinar

Turn your presentations into conversations with webinars.

What is a webinar?

A webinar is an online seminar that turns a presentation into a real-time conversation from anywhere in the world. Webinars allow large groups of participants to engage in online discussions or training events and share audio, documents or slides – even when they’re not in the same place as the meeting host or in the same room where the event or presentation is taking place.

Engaging online discussions

Used effectively, webinars help you better understand your audience, their pain points and the topics most relevant to them.

Actionable content

Effective webinars often pick up where traditional slide presentations leave off, adding screen sharing, presenter video and audio and downloadable materials.

How do effective webinars work?

An effective and engaging webinar starts with three roles: an organizer, at least one presenter and attendees. A few quick steps can help you reach your target audience and spread your message to people online.

Set a clear objective

You’ll be more successful if you have a clear goal in mind. What are you trying to accomplish?

Understand your audience

What are your attendees’ pain points? What topics might resonate with them? Use those insights to create a compelling webinar title.

Schedule your webinar

Research shows 10am on a Tuesday or Wednesday are the best days and times to host a webinar.

Promote your webinar

Use email, social channels and your own network to get the word out.

Build out your presentation

“How-to” content tends to perform best. Give your audience bite-size learnings they can apply.

Rehearse!

Make sure you practice your delivery as well as test your technical setup before the big day.

Advantages and uses of a webinar software

Increased participation is just the beginning. Check out these webinar benefits for your business.

Train employees & customers

GoTo Webinar lets you interact effectively with a widely dispersed workforce in real time. Provide pre-recorded or live workshops to audiences of up to 2,000 people.

Build rapport

Whether you use it to inform customers or educate employees, GoTo Webinar helps you engage authentically. This leads to improved customer satisfaction and increased employee engagement.

Generate leads & awareness

GoTo Webinar helps you better know your customers. Harness data and questions to develop a more accurate customer profile. The result: better customer targeting.

Improve sales

Focus on high-quality leads for your sales team. With GoTo Webinar, you spend more time with the leads most likely to pay off.

Tips for creating effective webinars

60 minutes or less

Keep your webinar to under an hour; if the webinar is too long, participation may drop.

Promote participation

Use polls, ask thought-provoking questions and provide actionable content. The advantage of webinars over standard webcasts is that webinars encourage discussion, so be sure to take steps to keep your attendees thinking, asking questions and commenting.

Quality is key

Keep your webinar to under an hour; if the webinar is too long, participation may drop.

Don’t rush

When participants feel that something is being hurried, they unconsciously try to help move it along, which means participation dries up. Instead, plan wisely so that you'll have enough time to get through what you need to, while still leaving space for Q&A.

How to create a webinar

Creating a webinar with GoTo Webinar takes just a few steps.

1. Sign in to GoTo Webinar

2. Schedule Your Webinar

3. Select Your Session Type

4. Update Your Settings

5. Change Email Settings

6. Ready to Go

GoTo Webinar reviews

GoTo Webinar is easy to use. Creating a webinar is just a few steps away.

"The GoTo suite not only saves travel costs for me, but allows me to train and collaborate with my coworkers who are working remote, which is awesome."

Sales Representative, Small Business Financial Services Company

"When you use a communication tool for remote meetings, you want to think as little as possible about the communication tool itself. The tool ought to “just work”. What I like best about GoTo is that my colleagues and I never have to endlessly ask the question “I can’t hear you, can you hear me?” or say “Your screen share is frozen”. I would recommend GoTo because of its reliability."

Sameer Pradhan, Cloud Architect, 4INFO, Inc.

Extend your reach

Tailored to your business

The world is getting smaller. Individuals can now connect with one another at any time, from almost anywhere via the internet. Mobile smart devices, HD live streaming and near-universal Wi-Fi accessibility are pushing the limits of telecommunication.

Start for free

Webinars can help you accomplish your business goals and boost your bottom line. See our plans and pricing or sign up for a free trial.

Get answers to all of your webinar questions

What are the benefits of a webinar?

Does a webinar have to be live?

What is the purpose of a webinar?

Are webinars effective?

How do you make webinars interactive?

What is the difference between a webinar and webcast?

Have questions? Want to see a live demo? We'll be in touch within 24 hours.

Support

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