Why Hybrid Webinars are the Best thing Since Sliced Bread
Earlier this year, our team set out to reimagine the entire webinar experience.
We wanted to come up with a creative way that transformed your ordinary powerpoint-style webinars, into an entertaining, highly engaging experience that participants wanna stick around for.
So, we started experimenting…
We played with green screens, storytelling, pre-recorded video and a bunch of other prototypes, most of which were sloppy and not what we wanted.
However, after months of playing around, we finally GOT IT.
We created the most unique webinar we could possibly dream up. Our retention was in the 90%’s for the two live experiences we led.
Today, I’m pumped to tell you exactly what we did.
Imagine this.
Treating your webinar as though it were a play with three acts, rather than a formulaic, robotic presentation made for the obvious purpose of selling your product.
Now imagine this.
Delivering a highly creative, engaging, dynamic webinar on your topic, that captivates your audience for the entire hour, leaving them wanting more from you…
In fact, they love your eLearning experience so much that they stick around for the entire Q & A and then purchase the next step of your transformational process.
This is what we recently did. Here’s what a few people said about our delivery:
“This was the longest I have ever stayed engaged and interested. I feel sold in the first 15 min. Very impressed!” – Kimberley
“Watching your webinar revived my favourite times in University when I found a way to combine creativity with intellect.” – Fiona
“Well done and love what you are sharing for everyone to be able to design visual, animated and engaging courses – lord knows, we need them.” – Kelly
“The passion for what you guys do shines. Best webinar I’ve ever attended, and I’ve attended A LOT of webinars!” – Lara
So how did we get these awesome testimonials from our webinar participants?
What I’m about to lay out for you is what we’re calling a, “Hybrid Webinars.”
These types of webinar presentations will allow you far more creative freedom in your presentation.
More Creativity = More Retention
So what is a Hybrid Webinar?
It is a webinar that is one part prerecorded, and two parts live.
There are A LOT of benefits and freedom you can gleam from doing it this way, which we’re going to dive into.
First, lets go back to the analogy of treating your webinar presentation like it’s a play with three acts.
ACT I: Foreshadowing
You know when you go to a play and the director comes out on stage and welcomes everyone. Usually they’ll tell a short story about the journey of making the play or perhaps the origins of the play.
The purpose of this is to set the stage (no pun intended) for the audience.
This is exactly what you’ll do in Act I of your webinar. Let your audience know what’s coming and why they are there.
Don’t take a lot of time here though, because everyone came for the feature presentation.
ACT II: Feature Presentation
This is when you magically press play on your pre-recorded presentation and stream it to your audience.
Your feature presentation is where you deliver the goods (as in lesson and value).
The reason for pre-recording it is: CREATIVE FREEDOM!
We’ll get to that in a moment.
ACT III: Q & A
Now your presentation is over, your audience is stoked and now they have some questions.
This is your time to shine in the live Q & A portion.
So, why is it better to do a Hybrid Webinar (Part Live, Part Prerecorded)?
1. Creative Freedom Galore!
Lets face it, most webinars are boring. The slides are unimaginative and the majority of people sign off long before the webinar’s are over. Our question was, how do we get more creative with our delivery, to keep people excited to stick around until the end?
Prerecording your presentation gives you a lot more creative freedom to add:
- special effects,
- music or music videos,
- creativity with your slides,
- storytelling,
- mini-skits to demonstrate your lessons,
- interviews,
- animated videos
- and so much more…
For us, we turned our old “Art of eCourse Creation” powerpoint presentation into an exciting journey through space, where our participants joined us aboard The eCourse Frontier Starship for an elite training that would prepare them for the new world of Online Learning.
We filmed the whole thing on green screen, which allowed us to do so much more than we could’ve if we would’ve done the “normal webinars” we were used to.
Pre-recording gives you unlimited creative freedom.
2. Interact with your Audience More!
Because you’re not focused on delivering your presentation, you can pour all that extra energy and presence into interacting with your audience in the live chatroom. Them knowing they’re having a real conversation with the real you LIVE will surely inspire them to stick around longer. Our chatroom was going off like never before!
3. Good-Bye Tech Glitches!
How freaking annoying is it when you go to a webinar and the sound is crappy or the video is all glitchy. Well, when you pre-record your webinar, you get to do it in the highest quality possible. The other bonus is that the video streams through Youtube during your webinar, so you keep all the quality.
One downer about the tech, is at the moment Webinar Jam is the only company that lets you stream videos live (as far as we know). However, Crowdcast (which we prefer and use for group coaching webinars) will soon have the ability to stream videos. That’s when we’ll make the switch fully.
4. Never Fear Nervous Nelly!
For those of you who get super nervous and have a fear of “screwing up your presentation,” you’ll find ease in knowing you can do as many takes as it takes to record your Feature Presentation.
Then, on webinar day all you have to do is a short intro, press play on the video and chat with your audience.
How much better does that sound to you?
5. Quality, quality, QUALITY!
If your presentation is of a crappy quality, then people will naturally assume that your paid offering is crappy too.
Record with your best gear. Edit out all your ums, awes and screw ups in post production.
Give your audience the coolest learning experience you possibly can.
There are so many limitations to doing your presentation live as a powerpoint. Whereas pre-recording it gives you total freedom and quality control.
What questions do you still have about Hybrid Webinars?
Wanna experience the one we created that’s turning heads and getting people fired up about what’s possible in the world of online learning? Sign up below.
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