First, let’s take a step back.  What is the purpose of your webinar?  Education? Marketing?  Informative or Team Building?  This is a critical question that needs to be asked from the outset.  It will determine the direction your entire production will take. 

As you plan your webinar, think of the questions in the above paragraph?  Make sure you know the exact reason you are holding this event.  It is important to know who your audience will be and thus allow you to know what the dialogue should be during the event.  Each webinar has a particular message- making sure you convey that message and answer any hanging questions is critical for your event to be considered a success.  Next, you have to know who will be the voices speaking for your organization: Your own staff?  Industry experts?  Happy clients or customers?  Make sure that everyone knows the message and stays on it.  Scripting will help with this, but will also require the skill of a writer.  If you do proceed without a script, make sure you go through a few dry runs before going live.

Next, you need to make sure that people are actually going to see your broadcast.  Market it! You have to begin marketing your event in advance of its broadcast.  Whether you will just play the webinar live or post it for on-demand re-broadcast, you need to make sure your audience is aware of it.  Send emails to current or potential clients.  Post a notice on your website.  Announce it on your phone calls while people are waiting to speak to someone.  The more people who are aware of it, the greater the success it will be.

Finally, you have to actually produce it for people to watch.  There are several options in this area.  You can purchase a program which allows you to produce your own events in-house, but stills leaves you with a heavy tech burden.  You can have an intern research and attempt to produce on your own (not necessarily recommended).  Or you can hire an outside company to produce and handle post-production/ posting to server so your attendees can view.  Some companies can actually handle all three steps for you; it all depends on your budget and end goal.

We would be happy to discuss how a webinar can help your business.  Contact us with questions you may have or if you need an extra hand in production: 646-519-2451  or sales@wprny.com

1. Envision and plan your video before approaching a production company or before starting on the project. People ask us “how much will a video cost” or “how long will it take to make the video” without any clear idea about what they want. That’s like asking somebody “how much does a house cost” or “how long does it take to build a house.” The answer: It depends. Does the house have one story or two? Does it have a garage? What about a pool? You would never build a house without a blueprint. A corporate marketing video should have a clear plan too, prior to starting.

2. Consider the length of your video. There tends to be an inverse relationship between the size of the video screen and the length of time that people are willing to watch. This is why the best movies are 100-120 minutes long, most TV shows are 30-60 minutes long and the most effective web videos are 3-5 minutes long. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. But I will say this: Plenty of people approach us to make a video that is 15-30 minutes long, 15 minutes can be a long long time to go on and on about your product or service — yawn — when the same message can be said in 3-5 minutes.

3. Customer testimonials self verify. Unlike comments from your CEO or your script, which will rightly be percieved intentionally persuasive or even biased, and unlike written customer testimonials, which people sometimes feel can be faked — video testimonials tend to be self-verifying because people instantly sense if it’s an actor or if it’s a real customer with true feelings about your product or service. Getting real customers on video with real feelings is extremely motivating to other potential customers.

4. Consider audio — ambient room noise, where to place the mic, audio levels. Consider video — white balance, lighting, focus, camera angle, aspect ratio. Consider interview techniques — what the subject wears, where the subject looks, answering in complete sentences. Consider editing, consider location, consider music consider everything, etc., etc. etc. The point is, it’s already difficult to tell you the hundreds of things that you need to do to make a professional video — it’s IMPOSSIBLE to tell you the 10,000 things NOT to do! You are forewarned — mistakes can be made. Make sure you hire professionals if you want professional results.

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