Making a Great Webinar

On Wednesday, Avid produced a great webinar promoting their video and audio editing applications. (Check out the webinar here!) If you’re not familiar with the company, Avid software is basically in every film and recording studio in the world. I’ve always been involved in media creation, but I generally don’t like webinars. They are dry, stale, and someone is always trying to sell me something. But this one was different.

This particular webinar highlighted the use of Avid products by Bad Robot Productions. If you’re not a film aficionado, Bad Robot is J.J. Abrams’ Production company. They are behind such hits as Fringe, LOST, Star Trek, Super 8, and dozens of other film and TV shows. For me this webinar was fantastic because I got to spend an hour learning from the best in the business in film and video production.

So what made this webinar so good? I’ve spent some time thinking over it the past two days, and I think there were three factors:

They told me how people are using their products, not just about the products.
I’ve been involved in webinars that I thought would be useful, but they ended up just wasting my time. The webinar was so focused on sales that it failed to actually provide any real value to me. The people who watch your webinar don’t care about you, they care about them. That sounds harsh, but it’s 100% true. Make sure that you add value to people who watch your webinar, don’t just make it an hour sales pitch. Tell them how your product can actually help them. What pain does your product help alleviate in their business?

They were prepared.
Most people wouldn’t spend just 10 minutes preparing to give a speech, but many companies don’t invest time in their webinars. The production quality for the Avid webinar was excellent. They went live right on time and introduced us immediately to the host. They then showed a pre-made video that highlighted Bad Robot’s use of Avid tools. Finally, they brought out the experts to answer questions in real time. All members of the crew were prepared and the results were outstanding. It was a great webinar to watch.

They brought in experts.
Avid didn’t just bring in their product designers and engineers. By tapping into their client base, they reached out to leaders in the industry who are experts in their field. If you are developing a product, find your raving fans who are experts in their field. Who loves your product enough to participate in your webinar and tell others how your tools have changed the way they do business? Find those people and develop relationships with them. Those are the people who can connect with your customers – because they are your customers.

Props to Avid and Bad Robot for putting on a great webinar. I hope this inspires us to work a little harder to create great content and spend less time just selling our products. Being creative is hard work, but it’s far more profitable in the end.

About the Author
Tyler Brooks
 is a SEO and video production specialist at Proof SEO.

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