With the rise of online learning in the past decade, more people are deciding to forget in-person classes in favor of webinars. Webinars are virtual, in-person classes that provide the same in-depth experience as traditional ones, but come with the added benefits of being digital. They are also an affordable way to get the education you want without having to travel.
Creating a webinar is a process that consists of numerous steps. It usually starts with planning the webinar contents and the delivery method of these contents. This can be done before or after gathering prospective speakers. You'll also want to confirm the date, time, and location for the event, as well as prepare some promotion and advertising materials. The day before the webinar, you'll need to create an agenda with topics to cover in order to provide potential attendees with an overview of what the event will entail.
So, as you can see, there’s quite a lot to cover. In this article, though, we want to draw your attention to one important step in the creation of online webinars in particular - webinar slides. If you’re curious to know how to make your webinar slides stand out, keep reading!
Why should you pay attention to your webinar slides?
Before we start, let’s think about why you should care about your webinar slides in the first place. There are a few reasons actually - some more and some less important.
According to one of the articles published by the Digital Marketing Institute:
"Anyone that puts together a webinar or presentation, should put just as much thought into the presentation slide design as the content itself. An attractive design can be just as persuasive as the content. "
If you pay attention to your webinar slides then, they will attract more potential customers and make your presentation easier to understand. Moreover, having a well prepared presentation with solid slides will automatically make your brand look more authentic and professional in the eyes of your webinar participants.
In addition to this, webinar slides are the perfect place for you to further strengthen your brand recognition and embed your company name in the minds of your attendees, as you can fully brand them and add things like logos and so on.
Last but not least, webinar slides are also there to help you (!) during a webinar to some extent, as you can always look at them during the webinar to make sure you’ve covered everything that needs to be covered. For this reason, your goal should be to make them as good and effective as possible.
The best webinar slides ever - the perfect recipe for success
Now that you’re aware of the high importance of great webinar slides, let’s focus on the most important things - how to make people gasp at the sight of your webinar slides! In total, there are 7 tips that we have, so let’s begin:
Choose an interesting template
Number one on our list is choosing some interesting webinar slides template software for your presentation.
It's probably no secret to you that slides have been a vital part of presentations for a long time. Slides have the ability to keep people engaged in a presentation and help visualize ideas. Making sure that your webinar slides are clear, easy to follow, and visually interesting is important. Custom-designed templates can help you create an attractive webinar that will hold your audience's attention, with a huge benefit being that templates are usually also inexpensive.
Webinar presentation templates, like those from Slides Carnival for example, will give you a head start on preparing your slides and can even turn your work into a template for other presentations. This way, you have a better idea of what the slides will look like during the webinar and you don't have to worry about making them from scratch.
Don’t add too many slides
The next thing we recommend you take into account is finding the best practice in terms of the number of slides that you’re going to include in your presentation.
There is this huge misconception going on that having a lot of slides will make your webinar more interesting. In fact, it can be the complete opposite. If you're presenting too many slides at once, then it's difficult for people to remember any of them. While the number of slides you should include will heavily depend on factors like the topic and length of your webinar, we suggest that you dedicate some time into thinking about the best way to tackle this issue and come up with a solution that will benefit your company, ensuring a great quality and engaging webinar as a result.
To sum up, try to learn how to avoid overwhelming your audience with too many slides when preparing your webinar's slides!
Don’t forget to say hello and goodbye
Along with figuring out the best number of slides to include in your webinar presentation, make sure you don’t forget to have those absolutely essential welcome and goodbye slides.
A lot of the time, your participants will remember the beginning and the ending of your webinar very well. For this reason, you can’t forget to properly welcome your audience and introduce yourself, as well as appropriately thank them for their time and wave a goodbye.
Webinars are a popular and effective way to share your message with a live audience and engage and motivate them, you know this already. For many attendees, webinars can be their first contact with you and your business. A handshake, however, is a great way to start and close a webinar. Welcome and goodbye slides not only help to introduce the webinar, but also create a call to action which can lead to more conversions as well as engagement for you as a presenter.
Use bullet points
Moving on, it’s time to show some appreciation for bullet points and how effective they can be.
Using bullet points in your webinar slides will help give a concise and visual overview of your topic. They help you break down the important aspects of your presentation for your audience and can be used as a cheat sheet for yourself. Additionally, punctuation and fonts can vary and represent the specific content that will be covered.
Webinar presentation slides can also be formatted with bullet points for readers to skim through and find the information that interests them. For example, if you had a list of ten items and you wanted to create a bullet point for each one, then each bullet point would begin with an asterisk and a letter of the alphabet, followed by a period of two spaces, and then the text of the bullet point.
Use images and videos
Together with highly functional and practical bullet points, you can’t forget to add videos and images!
A webinar is a digitally recorded lecture or training session. As such, it's important for those delivering the content to use various visual aids to help engage and entertain their audience. Examples include videos and images, which can be placed throughout the presentation as supplemental information.
We, people, are visual learners and sometimes it’s much better for us to see something rather than just read some plain text describing it. It’ll also be very helpful for you if you plan on launching a product during a webinar, or if you’d like to show your offer for currently available physical goods - the more videos and pictures, the better!
Have a summary at the beginning to drive interest
Webinars are a great way to keep in touch with customers and potential clients, you surely know that already.
But the success of your video webinar depends on the quality of the presentation – like in NBI case. In order to make sure your message is well received, you need to make sure the audience is engaged from the start. If you give an engaging intro, it will motivate your listeners to pay attention and they will be more likely to take in your message.
The beginning of your presentation, right after you’ve properly introduced yourself and welcomed everyone aboard, will be the best place to throw in a short overview in the form of a summary of what the participants can expect to see.
Also, try to make that overview as interesting as possible. Think of interesting, catchy titles and we can guarantee that people will want to stay until the end of your online event!
Include your logo and contact info
Last but not least, try to remember that essentially, your webinar should be all about your brand. Webinar slides are an important piece of marketing material that can be utilized for various purposes including the promotion of your company. Organizations often include their logo and contact information on webinar slides for various reasons including the use of the presenters' names and company name.
Webinar presentations are an excellent opportunity to promote your organization's business branding, especially if you're hosting the event. Adding your logo and contact information to the slide is one of the simplest ways to create an impression of professionalism. People will better remember your event if they have your organization's logo in their memory.
Therefore, do make sure you display your logo and contact info on your presentation slides to:
- Make it easier for people to remember your company well - it helps with brand recognition and recall.
- Let people find you much easier and quicker - in case of any potential future deals, for example.
- Make your brand more recognizable and professional.
Online webinars made easier with LiveWebinar
Online webinars are a powerful tool for engaging customers and teaching them about your company’s solutions. It’s also a great way to increase profits and to promote education for a variety of businesses. If done right, for example with the right webinar slides, agenda and promotion in place, they can really boost your business and take it to a whole new level.
We hope you thoroughly enjoyed this article, in which we tried to stress the importance of paying close attention to the way you structure and present your webinar slides. If you enjoyed it, you’re also invited to check out our other, similar publications here. And if you’re looking for a reliable webinar platform to present your webinar slides on, do check LiveWebinar out!
LiveWebinar is a powerful online meeting software offering an affordable and easy-to-use platform for those looking to lead a webinar from the comfort of their own home - literally and metaphorically. This easy-to-use webinar scheduling system can help those with a limited budget to be able to offer webinars as a service.
Other than that, thanks for your attention today and we wish you a lot of fun designing and perfectioning your webinar presentation slides!