21 Webinar Best Practices for an Engaging Event

We’ve all caught up with our emails or covertly scrolled through Slack messages during a boring webinar. So we know firsthand how generic, dry content fails to engage viewers or drive sales.

But when webinars are engaging and tailored to the right audience, they're a powerful tool to generate qualified leads and secure conversions.

So how do you turn your webinar from a simple lead gen idea into a purpose-driven sales machine with maximum engagement?

We’ve created a guide to 21 webinar best practices you can steal to convert your audience and boost ROI—all by mastering attendee engagement before, during, and after the event.

What makes a fantastic webinar?

When you want to host a webinar that knocks viewers' socks off and turns prospects into customers, you have to do more than simply test your webcam and microphone, start speaking, and hope for the best.

Let's face it. Your audience receives more webinar invitations than ever. If you don't deliver unique content and an engaging experience, you may find it increasingly difficult to get the registration numbers you want.

That’s why it’s crucial to start engaging your audience before the event with strategic decision-making and marketing, during the event with a killer end-to-end engagement platform and engagement features, and after the event with media sharing and outreach strategies.

21 webinar best practices to bring in the big numbers

During the three stages of your virtual event (before, during, and after), focus on how you can continually engage your audience to make them drop everything and tune in to experience your content.

Here are 21 best practices to host successful webinars:

1. Define your target audience
2. Choose a topic that captures your audience's attention
3. Invite guest speakers who add value
4. Get the rest of the company on board
5. Prepare a strong presentation
6. Use the best webinar platform to host virtual events
7. Check the technical specs
8. Consider the timing carefully
9. Create custom webinar registration pages
10. Set up webinar automations
11. Promote your webinar
12. Make the event interactive
13. Be mindful of body language
14. Use humor during webinar moderation
15. Launch polls and surveys during your presentation
16. Share media and whiteboards during your webinar
17. Include a call-to-action
18. Send follow-up emails to webinar registrants
19. Send the recording when the webinar ends
20. Track your webinar analytics
21. Don't just create webinars as one-off events

What should you do before the webinar?

It takes more than choosing the best webinar hardware to successfully engage your audience.

You’ll also have to consider who they are and what matters most to them for maximum relevance and resonance.

This means you want to define your target audience, create a topic that adds value to that audience, invite relevant speakers, and choose the best webinar platform for engagement.

1. Define your target audience

Use tools like your CRM, Google Analytics, and social media analytics to get to know your target personas based on their demographics, the pages they visit, and their buyer’s journey. Look at your best-performing content to help gauge interest and potential webinar topics.

It’s also important to dive deeper into potential challenges your target audience is facing and what they might be interested in learning more about.

• What products do your visitors care about?
• What are they looking for in said products?
• What problem does your product solve?
• Why is it important and what makes it exciting?

Use your insights to make hyper-relevant connections between your product and audience and decide on webinar topics that are likely to drive higher interest and engagement.

2. Choose a topic that captures your audience's attention

Once you’ve analyzed your audience and determined what persona you're targeting in your next webinar, you’ll have a few topics to pick from. Make sure any webinar ideas you consider answer your audience's most pressing questions. The more focused your topic is and the more value it offers, the more likely your audience will be to engage.

3. Invite guest speakers who add value

The right speakers can delight and engage your audience with their expertise and influence. But having a knowledgeable speaker doesn’t help with engaging your audience if they’re monotonous and making boring webinar mistakes.

Your own skill, expertise, and network can only take you so far. The best way to produce a webinar that really sings is to lean on the experience of others.

It’s also perhaps the most reliable promotional tactic out there. When you team up with another brand, you have the chance to speak directly to their audience.

You worry about promoting the webinar to your network, and they do the same for theirs. In the end, you’ve massively increased your own reach without searching desperately for anyone new.

For Sara Davis, VP of Growth at CanIRank, this is a surefire way to increase your orbit. “I love co-branded webinars! If there is a partnering service, product, tool, or other business in your niche that is not a direct competitor of yours with a similar audience, a co-branded webinar can align the two audiences and be highly beneficial for both businesses!”

Sandra Chung, Head of Content & Partnerships at Mention, agrees. “Co-marketing! This includes collaborating with thought leaders, influencers, and experts from top companies in the marketing industry. We’re able to piggyback off our partners' audience to reach new potential customers.”

So what should you look for? Start with “a complementary product” says Nils Herrmann of Geckoboard. “For example, you run a live chat software and you partner up with an e-commerce software.”

And it doesn’t have to be limited to products. Kristen McCabe, Senior Content Marketing Specialist at G2, says that “cross promotional opportunities with educational institutes, such as the Local Marketing Institute, are the best way we've gotten the word out when it comes to B2B reviews.”

“Companies outside of the tech industry learn about the tools available to them, and then we can guide them through the process of immediately setting up their free profile as soon as the webinar finishes.”

4. Get the rest of the company on board

For a lot of us, webinars are strictly a marketing exercise. These are tips from marketing experts, after all.

But Tim Whitehead, Head of Content at Spendesk, says you shouldn’t limit yourself in this way. “We do use webinars for marketing, and they’re a great way to find and talk to leads. But Spendesk also uses them in the sales cycle, and as part of the onboarding process for our customer success team.”

“They’re a great way for sales, especially, to interact with a large group of prospects without having to call them one-by-one. One salesperson can talk to 20+ potential buyers at once, show them how Spendesk works, and come away with a good handful of opportunities.”

If you are a marketer, this is still a big win for you. For one, these might be leads from all your hard work. If they can convert to customers, that makes you look good.

But it’s also a way to establish sales and support teams as strong advocates for your brand. The more you can get their names out there and prove how clever they are, the better the business will look. Aside from finding leads, that’s got to be one of your chief responsibilities.

5. Prepare a strong presentation

It seems obvious, but a good webinar requires a strong presentation. Which means that, as a presenter, you need to plan and prepare a compelling, engaging, and informative address.

ContentKing uses webinars for thought leadership—to deliver ideas and prove that it knows what it’s talking about. And to ensure that these webinars are top quality, VP of Community Steven van Vessum says there are no shortcuts:

“Prepare well before the webinar. Know what you're going to say. Write it down; literally word for word. And make sure your slides are prepared well in advance. Treat it like a speaking engagement.”

Even if you know the subject inside-out, it’s your ability to communicate clearly and confidently that will make the difference.

6. Use the best webinar platform to host virtual events

You can choose from many different solutions for hosting virtual events. So, how do you find the best webinar platform?

Look for an all-on-one solution that offers live events, on-demand content, and automated webinars. Prioritize platforms with built-in tools for audience interaction during the event and follow-ups afterward. Most importantly, opt for software that integrates with the tech you already use for marketing and sales.

Livestorm is an all-in-one video engagement platform that supports live streaming, restreaming, and on-demand content as well as a complete set of interactive tools. Plus, Livestorm integrations make it easy to connect our webinar platform to 1,000+ tools and apps.

7. Check the technical specs

There’s one surefire, guaranteed way to ensure that your webinar is a disaster - if people can’t actually see or hear you. It sounds silly, but too many presentations fall down before they even get started because the host doesn’t know how to work the technology.

“Want a ‘what not to do?’” asks Sara Davis, of CanIRank. “Don't forget to test your webinar platform extensively before going live. Nothing is more awkward than sitting on a live webinar with technology issues!”

Thankfully, most good webinar tools are easy to use. Just check that there’s nothing you need to install first, and of course that your camera and microphone work as they should. Run the session with a few colleagues as audience members to be sure.

You also need to think about the reading experience if you want to share slides. “Not everyone can view your webinar on a desktop computer. It’s essential to optimize your webinar for mobile,” says Irina Weber of SE Ranking.

“Make sure to increase the text size and visuals in your annotations and slides. Provide a comfortable level of viewability through small displays in mobile devices.”

As a general rule, a great webinar has fewer words and more visuals. The less people read and the more they listen to you, the better.

Stephen Jeske of MarketMuse encountered one particularly tricky situation. “While conducting an interview with a notable person in our industry, our presenter encountered technical issues and was kicked off as presenter (we weren't using Livestorm). Our back-up presenter had audio issues so she couldn't help.”

“Fortunately we had someone third in line (that was me) to keep the presentation moving along. Otherwise our monthly hour-long webinar would have been a 20-minute disaster!”

8. Consider the timing carefully

Ideally, you want as many viewers as possible to join your live webcasts. To maximize attendance, make sure you're hosting webinars at the right time for your target audience.

For example, lunch hours often work well for attracting viewers. However, scheduling events during commute times or in after-hours time slots may not lead to the attendance figures you want.

Consider the day of the week carefully, too. As our webinar statistics show, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the most popular days for hosting webinars.

9. Create custom webinar registration pages

Make it as easy as possible for attendees to join your webinar and save the date on their calendar. Create webinar registration pages to collect the information you need from participants.

With Livestorm, setting up custom registration pages is easy. Our forms automatically display the date, time, speakers, and topic for your webinar. You can add your choice of fields to prompt attendees to provide their country, company, phone number, and other data.

10. Set up webinar automations

Automated webinars are perfect when you're looking to put your presentations on autopilot. Whether you'd like to host a fully or partially automated event, they help you save time while still working toward lead generation goals.

With automated webinars, you can record presentations in advance and set them to start at certain times. Then, you can automatically direct viewers to a landing page at the end of the event.

11. Promote your webinar

You'll need to have a clear promotion plan in place for your webinar. Because unfortunately, people just aren’t going to find your session by accident.

There are so many webinars happening every day, especially on hot topics like digital marketing and sales strategy, that you have to find a smart way to reach registrants.

So what do our experts do to promote webinars?

“There's no one trick that works every time like a charm,” says digital marketing and lead conversion expert Lilach Bullock. “rather, it's important to develop complex promotional strategies, using several channels in order to reach your target audience.”

“First, develop a target persona: who exactly are you targeting for this webinar? Be as specific as possible, as that will help you find the ideal channels to reach these people.

Then, start developing a promotional strategy based on your target persona: a beautiful landing page that demonstrates the value of attending your webinar; a social media promotional strategy, including advertising; an email marketing/marketing automation campaign to promote it to your list and so on.”

For digital strategist & brand and influencer consultant Shane Barker, it’s about a clear pitch to the contacts you already have. “There’s nothing better than reaching out to your existing customers and subscribers. After all, these people are already interested in my niche and like my content, so they should be the first ones to contact for attending webinars.”

“I send out emails or newsletters, informing my subscribers about my upcoming webinars. This one tactic gets me more attendees than any other technique aimed at bringing in new viewers.”

And promotion doesn’t end the moment viewers fill in the form. You need to make sure they actually show up and pay attention.

“I recommend setting up an email sequence where registrants receive regular reminders to attend the webinar,” says Lilach. “After all, it's easy to say ‘yes, I'll attend this webinar,’ but it's a lot more effort to actually attend the webinar at that specific date and time.”

The best webinar platforms will even automate this email cadence for you. For instance, Livestorm has pre-prepared emails ready to send to users on the day of the webinar, an hour before, and when the session starts, to make sure you have the best attendance rate possible.

What should you do during your webinar?

During the webinar, it’s important to keep the ball rolling and build on all your engagement efforts so far. Encourage the audience to use engagement features in your chosen webinar platform, like polls and surveys during the webinar.

So choose your webinar background tool, check your hair, and start streaming.

12. Make the event interactive

Good webinars are full of interesting information. Great webinars leave a lasting impression, and make the attendees want to share what they’ve learned.

To take it a step further and really connect, find ways to interact with your audience. “We’ve all sat through those webinars where the speaker seemed to drone on endlessly, leaving little room for audience feedback,” says Artiiseo founder Leighton Burley.

“This is exactly the opposite of the atmosphere you want to create. We’ve found that the best webinars are highly interactive, to the point where the audience actually feels like they are in the same room together.”

So how can you achieve this feeling? “Create an interactive learning experience by asking for feedback, sharing personal experiences, asking questions, taking polls, and even adding in some humor where needed. This will go a long way to creating a better group ‘vibe’, engaging the audience, and improving learning outcomes.”

This is important whatever the purpose of your webinar. Clearly, if it’s an external presentation with potential customers or to generate leads, you need to make a great first impression.

But Artiiseo uses webinars mainly to train its own agency staff. And since they want people to really pay attention, they make sure that these sessions are fun and engaging.

At the very least, a bit of audience interaction helps to break up your presentation. “It lets the presenter change pace by getting some questions and feedback from the attendees,” says Zamir Javer, CEO of Jumpfactor.

Video engagement features like live chat, Q&A, media sharing, whiteboards, virtual backgrounds, and emoji reactions, can create an unforgettable webinar experience. You'll find these features available in all Livestorm plans.

13. Be mindful of body language

Body language is a powerful form of outward expression that can directly affect how you communicate with your audience. There’s nothing less engaging than a speaker slouched in their chair, seemingly just trying to get through the webinar.

Align your body language with what you're communicating verbally. Make sure it matches your tone, topic, and energy.

14. Use humor during webinar moderation

Use an appropriate ice breaker to start things off on a positive note or weave humor into your webinar to leave a lasting impression on your audience. It’s a great way of humanizing your brand and putting attendees at ease.

15. Share media and whiteboards during your webinar

Prepare videos, presentations, and visual media in advance. Then, share them during the event to provide added context. Our platform makes it easy to share whiteboards and other media during your webinar to interact with attendees and share more in-depth information.

16. Launch polls and surveys during your presentation

Use polls to engage viewers during your presentation. For example, ask which topic they'd like speakers to touch on next.

At the end, use surveys to ask attendees how the event went. Gather useful feedback and insights to learn how to better engage participants for future events.

If you’re using Livestorm, you can easily create webinar polls and surveys to get to know your attendees better, forge meaningful relationships, and create more useful content.

Then, ask attendees how the event went at the end of your webinar with surveys. Gather useful feedback and insights to learn how to better engage participants for future events.

17. Include a call-to-action

Marketers know the importance of a good call-to-action. The moment your webinar ends, viewers need to know the next step you expect them to take.

If you’ve created a series, this could be to sign up for the next session. It could also be to download a particular ebook or visit the company website.

Whatever the case, it’s all about timing.

“Including the link to set up their free account in the follow-up email is a great way to get results,” says Kristen McCabe of G2. “People are excited about the information they've been given, and making the next steps quick and easy increases long-term engagement.”

So whether it’s a free trial, your next webinar event, or just a blog post you’d like them to read, make sure it’s in the follow-up email.

If you’re using an end-to-end video engagement platform like Livestorm, you can launch CTAs at crucial moments during your webinar. You can direct attendees to a point of purchase, your calendar to book a demo, or a discounted offer.

What should you do after your webinar?

Engagement doesn’t stop after the event. Next, you want to connect with attendees directly, have them share what they enjoyed, and lead them toward completing a conversion. This means sending follow-up emails and sharing the recording with everyone who registered.

18. Send follow up emails to webinar registrants

After the event, it's time to keep your brand and webinar top of mind by sending follow-up emails with things like key takeaways, promotional offers, poll results gathered during the webinar, and webinar replays. With Livestorm, you can customize and automate emails to reach your audience at key moments pre- or post-webinar for heightened engagement and conversion.

19. Send the recording when the webinar ends

Send the replay to registrants who couldn’t make the event to spark interest. Then, use the recording to keep your pipeline growing by creating on-demand videos of your webinar.

Turn your top-performing events into evergreen webinars. Then, use them to generate leads long after the event.

Livestorm makes webinar replays simple. Record your event with our platform, and save it as an on-demand event or an automated webinar.

20. Track your webinar analytics

When your webinar is over, measure how well it performed. Head to your analytics dashboard to check who attended, how many people watched the replay, and the results of your polls.

Use this data to improve your next webinar. If you notice attendance began to drop at one point in the webinar, you can make sure not to cover that topic in your next presentation.

Pro tip: Use Livestorm to manage webinars with Salesforce or HubSpot for powerfully accurate contact, lead, and sales data all in one place.

21. Don't just create webinars as one-off events

Finally, use the data you've collected to develop a more successful webinar strategy.

Anton Shulke, Head of Video Content at Semrush, produces a lot of webinars, planning the companies schedule months in advance.

Anton likes to plan webinars in batches, with each session complementing the next. “You build a series of webinars, both thematically and technically. So when you promote one episode you can promote all of them. Plus, the audience can go back and check out previous episodes if they’re interested.”

Anton also recommends you experiment with webinar formats. It doesn’t always have to be one speaker for 45 minutes, or two people discussing the same topic.

Semrush prioritizes webinars that include one host (an expert on the subject) and one speaker who gives a short, 15-minute presentation. Then they bring on two more guest experts and hold a panel discussion, to go deeper into what the presenter brought up.

This is a great way to present different voices and points of view to the same audience. Plus, when all of those parties promote the webinar, the reach can be truly impressive.

And Ecommerce Tech has a similar approach. “We run monthly virtual summits, which are a series of 8-14 webinar-like sessions,” says Chief Ecommerce Technologist Derric Haynie. “After running many webinars, I found they weren't delivering enough value, both to the audience, and to my company and partner.”

“In my opinion, larger virtual summits take about the same amount of time as 4 webinars to put together, and yield 20x results. We’re able to pull multiple partners audiences, hold the audience attention for a longer period, exposing them to a lot of valuable content and tools, and then key partners are allowed to follow up with the audience after.”

Livestorm to host engaging webinars and drive sales

Webinars are an effective way of reaching your audience, generating reusable content, and building up your pipeline with qualified leads. Use a video engagement platform like Livestorm to plan your event from start to finish, automate outreach, personalize registration, and foster an interactive experience for maximum results.

Frequently asked questions about webinar best practices

How do you structure a good webinar?

A good webinar structure contains the following elements:

• A warm and convincing introduction
• The main topics or points that will be addressed
• Guest speaker(s)
• Questions and answers
• A compelling close
• A call to action

How do I get my webinars to engage more?

To boost webinar engagement, try the following tips:

• Define your target audience
• Create a topic that captures your audience
• Invite guest speakers who add value
• Use the best webinar end-to-end platform for marketing and registration
• Get the audience using fun engagement features
• Be mindful of body language
• Use humor
• Launch polls and surveys
• Share media
• Include call-to-action buttons
• Send follow-up emails
• Send the recording of the event

How long should a webinar last?

A webinar’s length depends on the topic, the number of guest speakers, and the overall goal – but it should be anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to ensure attendee engagement and sustained interest.

How do I start a webinar presentation?

You should start a webinar presentation by introducing yourself and any guest speakers. Then, introduce the topic or main points that will be addressed during the webinar to maximize engagement and spark interest.

What makes a good webinar presentation?

A good webinar presentation educates, convinces, and engages the audience by giving them detailed product information, expert insights, or answers to questions. For an excellent webinar presentation, use a video engagement platform like Livestorm to make it easy to market and host your event, while tracking event success all from one place.