Steve Jobs once said…
“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back towards the technology—not the other way around.”
Great advice for virtual presenters as well, especially as webinars become more and more popular.
Think about it. Have you ever attended a webinar and found yourself multi-tasking to the point you are no longer listening to the webinar?
You are not alone.
We’re busy professionals, used to highly engaging, interactive environments, and the same is true for our webinar audience. With this in mind, we need to remember that one of the greatest challenges we face as virtual presenters is finding ways to effectively engage our audience to compensate for the lack of physical proximity.
In a previous article we shared a few tips to make your virtual presentations more engaging. To help create an even more engaging environment for your next webinar, consider these three additional strategies:
Ask rhetorical questions
They help your audience to think with you.
- It is helpful to step back and ask “Why should we be concerned about this?”
- Given the situation, what we all need to ask ourselves is…
- What this information begs us to ask is…
Incorporate inclusive language
Saying “we” versus “you” and acknowledging individual attendees when possible creates connection and engagement.
- As sales professionals, we know we need to look at…
- This is an important topic to all of us because…
- Jennifer Adams, who is participating in this webinar, had a similar experience…
Encourage action
Action increases retention.
- I invite you to grab a pen to write down some of these studies that I found very insightful.
- I want to share some information that is not on the slides that you might want to reference later.
- Try this exercise. Think about a time when…
Incorporating these strategies into your next webinar can mean the difference between an audience of preoccupied participants or captivated participants who remember your message.
