Ways Webinars Fail
Wednesday, January 7, 2009 at 6:00AM Can Webinars Be More Effective Marketing Tools?
By Larry Kilbourne
Today begins a series of blogs, running over the next three weeks, on webinars. Webinars have tremendous potential as marketing tools. But in my experience, more often than not they fail to deliver on their promise.
There are many ways a webinar can fail: through poor presentation techniques or a technical failure, by not attracting sufficient attendees, or due to poor follow-up that doesn’t translate into higher sales or greater membership or whatever the goal.
In this discussion I'm going to turn a critical eye on a number of poor presentation techniques whose consequence is the failure of many webinars to sustain audience attention for their duration. Some of these will be familiar but bear repeating; others I hope may engender lively conversation.
This failure almost always exhibits itself in audience drop off as a webinar progresses. While statistics abound as to how many registrants you can expect (depending on how many invitations you issue) or what percentage of these is likely to attend, the most important number in my opinion is how many attendees remain for the webinar’s duration (typically an hour).
This is the real measure of a webinar’s success. Because if we can hold someone’s attention for an hour, then I think we've established that some level of interest exists, and we've probably built sufficient good will to get a warmer (and higher) response to follow-up calls or emails – as well as to invitations to attend future webinars.
So let’s look at ways in which webinars commonly fail to sustain audience interest and attention.
How Webinars Fail
In this three-part series I'm going to focus on three categories of presentation failure:
- Content
- Format
- Process
We'll begin by looking at typical content failures.
A former colleague and wag once observed that “Power corrupts and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.” There is more than a little truth to his observation.
Many PowerPoint decks used in webinars are either graphically deficient (nothing but bullet points) or so overwhelmed by graphics and complicated animation schemes (more on that in Part 3) that it’s impossible to discern what’s being conveyed. Here's an example of a series of PowerPoint slides that might just as well be a book:
The best-produced webinars have figured out how to incorporate and balance succinct bullet points with eye-catching graphics that accentuate them.
A second content failure relates to how much information is being presented on each slide. Frequently presenters cram too many bullet points on a single slide, with the consequence that the message being conveyed is fuzzy or even confusing. (The above is a shining example).
I believe a good rule of thumb is, “one slide, one message.”
Finally, a third type of content failure results when the webinar becomes an unrelenting sales pitch – all about me, my organization, my fabulous product or service. I think we'd agree that most webinar registrants are prepared to get pitched, but they expect in return to receive information, data, or research that will benefit them.
Unlike in-person seminars, where it may be embarrassing to get up and leave in the middle of a lackluster presentation, it is very easy to click out of a webinar we are fed up with.
What ties these three common types of content failure together? They reflect a kind of tunnel vision. We're so focused on our message that we forget about our audience and how engaging (or not) our message is.
Indeed, having sat through scores of webinars, I'm convinced that ninety-percent of the effort typically goes into message creation, while considerations of the audience and what may hold their attention are an afterthought - if even that.
Next time we'll look at a second type of failure that is not so much commented on: The standard format of presentations. I'm going to argue that the monologue-driven format of most webinars is almost always a recipe for disaster.
Copyright © 2009 by Larry Kilbourne, Ph.D. Dr. Kilbourne is an independent marketing consultant. He may be reached at lkphd@yahoo.com
Reader Comments (6)
Larry - what I would appreciate knowing is -- what IS a webinar? - Dennis
Dennis,
Good question. Webinars are generally defined as interactive web-based meetings or presentations, typically involving audio (via telephone or VoIP) and a visual slide presentation (PowerPoint more often than not). The term is a construction of "web-based" and "seminar." I would also stress the interactive character of webinars to distinguish them from webcasts, which typically are one-way web-based communications.
Right on the money...couldn't agree more. I've done and seen many presentations, but have only a few memorable experiences; on both sides of the platform. I have had to endure slide shows/webinars with slide shows that were far more demanding than an eye test. There was so much information on a single slide it would make your hair hurt!
Your message of being short and clear is so important. Additonally, thought it's also tough to endure a webinar viewing the same clearly done slide for 5 minutes straight while listening to the presentor; whether on-topic or not.
Please try to blend this into your future posts, as I'm interested in hearing your views.
A thought to ponder related to webinars is how we must remember how hectic the business environment is today, and how that is affecting the attention span of the average viewer.
Great info...thanks....more please....
Gary,
Excellent point about today's hectic business environment. I think audiences come to webinars with a much more demanding attitude than with live seminars, where if all else is fruitless, you may at least meet someone interesting. With a webinar if you cannot hold someone's attention, they will most likely click out of it rather than allow their valuable time to be wasted.
Stay tuned for the next installment this coming Wednesday when I look at how typical formats can lead to audience drop off.
Hi Larry,
Thanks for the interesting post. I'm curious if you have any numbers you monitor for the dropoff rate. I imagine there is a standard dropoff rate (people have something come up--urgent phone call, customer issue, topic isn't what they expected etc.) but do you see a tipping point number? For instance, you might expect 5 out of 100 to drop off but over that you aren't sticky enough. Any insights/key indicators you have would be great.
Thanks,
Maryann
Maryann - Based on my own experience, I've always felt that if you could keep 75% or more of your attendees logged on for the duration (and I'm talking about a one-hour webinar here), then you're doing pretty well. The best I've achieved is 95%.
Much depends, however, on the audience, topic, purpose (is this informational or a marketing vehicle?) - lots of intangibles. If you are conducting a webinar for customers, you should be well north of 75%. If, on the other hand, it's aimed at prospects you've invited where you have no prior relationship, then 75% - 80% is a success in my view.
But, to end where I started, this is strictly based on my experience. I've done a fair amount of research, and while statistics abound as to what percentage of registrants actually show up, I can't find anything as to average attendance for the duration. I suspect this is because neither the conference platform providers nor users are chomping at the bit to share the statistics.