Would You Watch Your Own Company's Webinar?

Here's a question worth asking before you send out your next webinar invitation.

If you didn't work for your company, would you actually want to watch it?

Not because you've spent weeks planning it. Not because you know the presenters or helped put the slides together.

Imagine you're seeing the event advertised for the first time, with absolutely no connection to the organisation hosting it.

Would you register?

And if you did, would you stick around?

It's an interesting question because when you're involved in planning an event, it's surprisingly easy to forget what it looks like from the other side of the screen.

You know why the webinar matters. Does everyone else?

When you're working on an event internally, you already understand why it's happening.

You know the subject, the people involved, the discussions that led to it and what the organisation hopes to achieve.

The audience doesn't have any of that context.

They see a title, a short description and perhaps a photograph of the speakers.

That's it.

And based on those few details, they're deciding whether your webinar deserves a place in their calendar.

Financial Services organisations have plenty of worthwhile subjects to discuss. Market developments, investment outlooks, pensions, client education, industry changes.

But a worthwhile subject doesn't automatically make an interesting invitation.

There's a difference between telling someone what you're going to talk about and giving them a reason to want to hear it.

Take a title like Quarterly Investment Market Update.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with it. For an existing investor who wants a regular update, it might be exactly what they're looking for.

But for someone who doesn't already know why the event matters to them, it doesn't reveal much.

What will they learn? What questions will the speakers explore? Why is this particular discussion worth attending?

Sometimes a little more context is all that's needed.

Let's talk about the first five minutes

We've all attended webinars where the actual content takes a while to begin.

First, there's the welcome.

Then the housekeeping.

Then an introduction to the organisation.

Then an introduction to the speakers.

Then perhaps a few slides about the organisation, just in case anyone missed the introduction.

And eventually, we get to the reason everyone registered.

Of course, some introductions are necessary. Audiences need to know who's speaking, and certain events have important information to communicate before the presentation begins.

But it's worth considering how much of that opening is genuinely useful to the person watching.

Imagine you've registered for a webinar because you want to hear an expert discuss a particular market development.

Would you rather spend the first ten minutes learning about the organisation's history, or get into the discussion you came for?

There's probably a balance to be found.

And it doesn't require skipping the important information. It just means being thoughtful about how you introduce it.

Are you watching a presentation or reading one?

Here's another familiar experience.

A slide appears on screen containing several paragraphs of text.

The presenter begins reading.

Word for word.

Then the next slide appears, and the same thing happens again.

It's not necessarily that the information is uninteresting. In fact, it might be genuinely useful.

But if the audience can read everything themselves, what is the presenter adding?

For Financial Services events, slides often contain important figures, charts, disclosures or technical information. They can be essential to helping people understand what's being discussed.

Nobody's suggesting we get rid of them.

But a presentation is an opportunity to do more than display information.

The presenter can provide context, explain what matters, share their perspective or help the audience understand something that isn't immediately obvious from the slide.

That's the part people have turned up to hear.

Would you stay for the Q&A?

There's something slightly frustrating about being told there'll be time for questions, only to reach the end of the webinar and hear:

"Unfortunately, we've run out of time."

It happens. Sometimes a discussion runs longer than expected, and not every question can be answered during a live event.

But if questions are one of the reasons people have registered, they deserve a proper place in the plan.

This is particularly relevant to Financial Services events, where audiences may be attending because they want clarification on a particular subject.

A Q&A doesn't always need to happen at the end, either.

For some sessions, bringing questions into the discussion as they arise can feel more natural.

For others, a dedicated moderated section makes more sense, particularly when questions need reviewing before they're answered.

The format can vary.

What's important is that audience participation doesn't feel like an afterthought.

Sometimes the webinar is exactly what it needs to be

Now, before we sound too critical of traditional webinars, there's something worth acknowledging.

Not every event needs a clever title, a lively panel discussion or an unexpected format.

If you're an investor waiting for a particular financial update, you probably want accurate information, a knowledgeable presenter and a clear explanation of what's happening.

You might not want a conversational podcast-style discussion.

And that's absolutely fine.

A webinar doesn't have to be entertaining to be valuable.

Sometimes its job is to communicate important information clearly and professionally.

The question isn't whether every webinar should be more exciting.

It's whether the format, content and experience make sense for the people you're inviting.

Because there's a difference between an event being deliberately formal and an event feeling formal simply because that's how the organisation has always done it.

It's worth experiencing your own events as an audience member

At WorkCast, we spend a lot of time thinking about webinars from the production side.

The technology, the presenters, the running order, the audience experience and all the things that need to come together for a successful broadcast.

But there's value in occasionally forgetting all of that and simply watching an event.

Not as the organiser.

Not as the person checking whether everything is working.

Just as someone who's given up part of their day to attend.

Would the introduction hold your attention?

Would the content deliver what the invitation promised?

Would you feel comfortable asking a question?

Would you recommend the session to a colleague?

You don't necessarily need complicated audience research to start thinking about these things. Sometimes watching your own event with fresh eyes can highlight details you've stopped noticing.

And if you work on the same webinar programme regularly, that fresh perspective can be particularly useful.

The best test might be the simplest one

There are plenty of ways to measure how a webinar performs.

Registrations, attendance, viewing time and audience feedback can all help organisations understand what happened.

But before any of those numbers exist, there's a much simpler question.

Would I choose to spend my time watching this?

It's not a perfect test. You might not be the intended audience, and your personal preferences won't necessarily reflect everyone else's.

But it does encourage you to think beyond the planning process and consider the experience you're creating.

For Financial Services organisations, where webinars can serve everyone from existing investors to prospective clients and internal teams, that perspective matters.

The most successful format won't always be the most elaborate one.

Sometimes it'll be a straightforward presentation. Sometimes it'll be a conversation between experts. Sometimes it'll be a short, focused session that answers one specific question.

What matters is that the audience has a reason to be there.

And that the event gives them a reason to stay.

Planning your next Financial Services webinar?

At WorkCast, we help organisations deliver webinars and webcasts in a range of formats, from traditional presentations to interviews, panel discussions and fully managed online events.

Explore WorkCast for Financial Services