Ready to host your own webinar? A webinar can be a great business tool to connect with your market, share ideas, showcase your expertise, build your brand, increase your leads, and generate more sales.
Deciding to host a webinar is a smart move. The easy part is deciding to do the webinar, then comes the challenge of figuring out what to do next and how to set it up.
Before we get into how to set up a webinar, let’s see what a webinar is:
A webinar is a live interactive seminar or conference that takes place online. A webinar can be hosted in a number of ways and there are several programs available, both paid and free.
Now let’s take a look at some of the tools you might need to host your own webinar:
– Telephone
– Three-way call
– Telephone conference line
– Audio recording software
– Audio editing software (if necessary)
– Camtasia
– Webinar software
How do you choose which setting is best for you?
When planning your webinar, you will want to keep the following points in mind:
– What tools are you comfortable using right now? Microphone? telephone? audio recording software?
– What webinar programs are you familiar with and like?
– What budget can you work with to host webinars?
– How often would you like to host your webinars?
Once you find the answers to these questions, you will want to use them to search for webinar programs for your online event.
This is how I do it when I host a webinar:
1. I have what I want to say arranged in dotted notes in front of me on the desk.
2. I use my laptop to log into the webinar software so I can see what my students are seeing in case of technical issues.
3. I have my conference call number ready, as well as my audio acrobat call number.
4. My Camtasia is set to record screen.
5. My powerpoint presentation (or open office) is open and ready to go.
During the webinar:
1. Dial on the conference line.
2. Dial in audio acrobat and start recording.
3. When I’m ready to start recording Camtastia, I pause and then say “OK, let’s get started” so I can see where to match the audio to the video when editing.
4. Download the audio file and combine it with the video in Camtasia editing software.
5. Notify the roster that the download is ready to begin.
The above process should be modified depending on the software you are using to host your webinar. Some programs organize their event entirely online, which would eliminate the need for a phone line, acrobat audio recordings, and camtasia.
