When it comes to planning and creating a webinar, there are two main routes you can go down. The first is the traditional live event you most associate with a webinar. The second is a pre-recorded event known as an evergreen webinar.
But, which one is right for you? What is exactly an evergreen webinar? Is LiveWebinar up to the task?
In this post, I will explain what the traditional live webinar and the increasingly popular recorded webinar are, and the pros and cons of each. You will also get more information about LiveWebinar, so get it started!
Live webinars
Live webinars are exactly what they sound like - live. They are online conferences or presentations that are conducted and delivered in real time to a selection of attendees. A live online webinar is an important video collaboration tool in business and education because it allows real-time communication with potential clients, employees, partners, and students. Moreover, with live webinars, presenters and participants are able to interact seamlessly, so attendees can ask questions and get answers right away. To put it another way, live webinars are those held in real time.
Benefits of live webinars
There are so many advantages of running a live webinar that we could write only about it. But for now, I will mention only the most important ones. Live webinars let you reach your target group live (and afterward too), real time interaction with your target group, answer the questions immediately, and get to know better your audience thanks to live speaking. Also, below you can read more about the benefits of live webinars:
A personal touch
As people join and interact with your live webinar, you have the opportunity to add a personal touch to the delivery by directly communicating with your audience.
Let’s say Sarah from New York just joined your webinar. You can give a shoutout and thank Sarah for joining the webinar. You could also share that anecdote of when you visited New York and how much you liked it. This short but personal acknowledgment can help you establish a foundation for a better business-customer relationship.
Power of live questions and answers
Live questions and answers gives you, the webinar host, an opportunity to answer participants' questions as they come in real time.
On the back of this, you can use the questions to expand on your webinar content. For example, say you are running an e-learning webinar and you get a question. You can use this question to tailor your content on the spot; maybe you need to explain a certain topic a bit better, or maybe you can visualize the concept better.
Being dynamic with your presentation will certainly capture the interest of your audience.
They’re exclusive events
Most of the time, live webinars are one-off events that have a limited number of spaces available.
What this creates is a sense of exclusivity and applies added fear of missing out (FOMO) to potential attendees. You can take advantage of this natural marketing appeal to ultimately increase the value of your webinar.
Downsides of live webinars
While there are many advantages of running live events, there can be some minor hiccups along the way. For example, something may go wrong. If you are live all the time and you are stressed a lot, then you can't stop the recording, just keep the show on. Did you make a mistake when you spoke? Also, you can't undo it. See more examples of the disadvantages of live webinar below:
Delivery can be error prone
Like anything that is shown live, there is always the risk that something could go wrong.
Maybe you’re recording from your home office. What if somebody unexpectedly walks in the room? What if you forgot to turn your phone on silent and it begins to ring? What if your internet connection suddenly dies?
These interruptions can really disrupt your flow and lose the professional delivery you were aiming for. If these imperfections build up, this can lead to a bad user experience that can be difficult to redeem.
Time constraints
When you’re planning a live webinar, you need to think carefully about the timing of it.
Not only do you need to think about the length of your webinar and the best time of day to host the webinar, you also need to consider the timezones of your audience.
It’s no good hosting a webinar at 11am in London if your main target audience is in California because they will most likely be tucked up in bed since it will be 3am where they are.
Host burnout
Depending on the size of the webinar, running a live event can be seriously demanding for the host.
Not only do you have to deliver a high-quality presentation, you also have to engage with your audience by monitoring the live chat feed, deal with any technical issues along the way and remember to stick to the timings to ensure you’re not running off track.
All of this hard work can burn some hosts out. If you’re going to be running a live webinar, make sure you take the time to carefully plan it beforehand.
Evergreen webinars
Now something more about a recorded webinar! Evergreen, or pre-recorded, webinars are events that are prepared in advance and can be delivered time and time again. No matter when and under what circumstances you run them, they are always relevant and interesting for a large number of attendees. During evergreen, recorded webinars, you share knowledge that is always "fresh" and relevant to your audience.
Why "evergreen?" This name derives from the evergreen tree, which keeps its leaves throughout the year. As with the tree, evergreen webinars remain relevant for long, long time.
Benefits of evergreen webinars
These time-resistant webinars unlock a lot of marketing potential that live webinars cannot accommodate. You can, in peace and quiet, record such a webinar and only then make it available to the general public. They are a mine of knowledge for those interested and are a source of current knowledge that is not passed on in real time. Look at other benefits:
Opportunity to polish your presentation
I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m on camera, I make a lot of unnecessary noises and mistakes. Maybe it’s nerves, but the constant ‘erm’ while I’m thinking about what to say surely can’t be nice to hear over and over again.
Since it's a recorded webinar, you have the opportunity to truly polish your video. By giving the videos an edit, you can remove those pesky noises. You can even re-record entire sections of video if you so wish. Or, you could add a few snazzy transitions and video effects.
There are so many possibilities for improving your video presentation before it goes live. So, take the time to make the best presentation possible, as you will only have to do it once!
International friendly
There have been a few times when people from different parts of the world have asked me if I am going to replay a webinar because it wasn’t shown at the best time for them.
Well, with a recorded webinar, you have the power to replay your favorite webinar at different times of the week and times of the day. Simply record your live webinar and adjust your evergreen schedule. That’s it.
Perfect selling opportunities
A major bonus of recorded webinar is that you have the power to place the perfect call to action (CTA). That CTA could be a prompt to purchase a piece of software you created or an online course that relates to your webinar content.
Whatever the CTA, you will never miss out this opportunity with evergreen webinars.
Downsides of evergreen webinars
Despite the many attractions of evergreen webinars to online marketers, they do have some downsides that you should be aware of. However, a recorded webinar is not a perfect solution, but let's be honest, does such a solution exist? Now, take a look at the specific disadvantages of this solution because yes, we have a couple:
Lack of audience engagement
Unlike live webinars, which have the advantage of instant audience engagement, there are less opportunities to interact with your audience in a pre-recorded setting.
For example, you will not be able to adjust your delivery based on audience feedback. This can leave some members of the audience with unanswered questions.
No urgency
As mentioned above, live webinars are unique events that have a natural FOMO attached to them. But, in a pre-recorded setting where the same webinar is shown every week, this sense of urgency is lost.
This means you will have to put more effort into your marketing to generate the same pulling power as a live event.
Can fool attendees
A surprisingly common issue evergreen webinars have is that they are often mistaken for live webinars.
Why this is generally not a bad thing, some attendees can feel tricked if they presume the webinar is live but later find out the event was recorded.
A simple way to avoid this is to make it very clear upfront that the event is pre-recorded. It is always better to be honest with your audience, rather than potentially misleading them.
Live and evergreen webinars: the best of both worlds
Now you understand what live and evergreen webinars are and the difference between them, which one will you go for?
Selecting the best webinar format will ultimately depend on your aims. If audience engagement is key, then go with a live event. If you want to deliver a polished presentation, think about using recorded webinar.
But, why pick between them when you can have the best of both worlds?
Plan and deliver an awesome live event whilst recording it. You can then use this recording for your timeless evergreen content. LiveWebinar has many features that will benefit you in your online meetings. In addition, they will try to eliminate the disadvantages of a live webinar and a recorded webinar. You can have two birds with one stone!
Ready to get begin?
LiveWebinar is an advanced webinar platform that can be used to deliver HD live and evergreen webinars within your web browser - no additional software is required!
Make recorded webinars a regular part of your marketing strategy. If you lack the creative ideas to make something from scratch, these will come in handy every time. You develop your expert position by having ready answers to questions your customers ask. Therefore, if you do not have any evergreen webinars in your portfolio, get started on the first one right now! In addition, LiveWebinar can power up your evergreen events and reach your audience even more effectively.
See what LiveWebinar can do for you with a 14-day completely free trial.