Are You Making the Right Webinar Choice?

Deciding whether your skills (and that of your staff) are fitted to conducting your own Webinars is one thing (see the previous entry on Weave Your Own Webinars)  but the time and financing of producing your own Webinars is another key factor.

As soon as we have a team of presenters on board, we can produce and offer a Webinar in as little as four weeks (less than that jeopardizes effective marketing). Preparing the panel (assuming they have not presented in a Webinar before) can take a little more time than preparing a panel for a live event, but not much. Overall, preparing a Webinar takes significantly less time than developing a longer live event, such as a two-day seminar or workshop.

And here’s the kicker: the potential payback (especially when you do not have a production company’s fee to cover) is often significantly higher than some live events. While we project a revenue balance in terms of “hundreds” for our shorter live events (obviously our national conference is another matter), we can project a revenue balance in the thousands for our Webinars.

Let’s think about that a second.

Should we devote our limited time and energy to the live events that result in marginal revenue returns, or should we spend that time and effort on the online events that generate higher revenues and have a longer shelf life when recorded and offered after the live event has closed?

So think hard about where you’re investing your energies and where you’re placing trust in third party vendors. Is your attention on the right things? Assuming you have content that’s best matched to the Webinar format (see “When a Webinar is a Bad Idea”) don’t overlook the opportunity you have to produce your own Webinars, keep more of the revenue, and learn a few more things about online learning in the process.

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