Webinars can be a great tool or a huge disaster. I am not negative but I think you need to look at the possibilities of what can go wrong so that you can have a solution available.
I work for an International company and our HQ is in Portugal. I've been involved in a few webinars over the last 5 years - both training and joined projects. I considered one training session a success - the rest did not teach me a thing. I worked on one project that was implemented without problems, the rest .... well lets just say it caused more problems than solutions.
Why did everything not go well?
1. Time differences (Portugal, UK, Canada, USA, France and South Africa)
2. Bad connections - one moment we are all online the next one or more country is
disconnected and we have to stop to get them back.
3. Hosts or presenters / trainers that was not well prepared and bored the living day
lights out of everybody.
4. Language - everything is done in English but sometimes the accent is so bad that it
sounds like a different language.
5. Too much information - it makes your head spin after a while and it either takes
too long or it is rushed and does not have real impact.
Find ways around these problems and you will have great success.
A very good alternative you can consider is a video blog. The advantages of this:
1. You get to fix any slip ups before you post it - so you can make sure it is
perfect and professional.
2. You can ask family or friends to watch it before posting - if they are bored your
audience will probably be bored to and if they like it - so will your audience.
3. You can do a series of blogs - each on it's own topic - short and interesting.
4. Your down line can send in questions before you do your blog and you can be
specific - that way you give them the information they need and not a mountain of
information they know already.
5. They can watch and learn at their own time and pace.
6. You build up a library of valuable tools you can use again and again.
All of this is for training. For marketing and workshops I think it will work better if you concentrate on smaller groups in the same time zone - easier to find a time everybody can attend. (you might have to schedule a few in other parts of the world that will have you doing it in the middle of the night but daytime for your audience)
For marketing it is a good idea to get a group together in one room - like students at a college or university - for example students studying marketing - if you impress their lecturers they might include SFI business as part of their course.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.
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