Webinars: the ideal solution for effective internal communication 

It’s a very topical challenge: your organisation has multiple locations, but you can’t hold meetings in real life and it’s absolutely essential to keep all your employees informed about and engaged with the key decisions and developments within your company. You may well be currently using Teams, Meet or Zoom for that purpose. However, there’s a growing demand for a more professional solution, and we have just the answer: webinars.

Online meetings are no longer simply one of the options – they are pretty much the only option we have right now in a world where everything is being done online. But you do have a choice in how you hold your online meetings. It can be tempting to opt for the standard solutions such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or Zoom. After all, you’ve been using them for a while now and they feel familiar and comfortable. But there’s a ‘but’. Are they truly effective in reaching your employees, and are your meetings having the desired impact? Or do you want more?

The 7 advantages of professional webinars

Now that in-person annual company meetings or other internal gatherings aimed at sharing information with employees and strengthening their engagement are no longer possible, a webinar is the best substitute – providing it’s a professionally organised webinar, that is. Here are the top seven benefits.  

1. Webinars offer a better audio-visual experience. You’re assured of good sound and image quality thanks to high-tech equipment and HD broadcasts. 
2. There are no technology issues with webinars, so you don’t have to worry about viewers struggling to log in, plus you are ensured a reliable and secure connection.
3. Webinars reinforce your corporate identity. Rather than seeing a speaker on a laptop in their own living room, viewers see a presenter in a professional studio setting with the look and feel of your own organisation.
4. Good webinars are taken care of from start to finish. You don’t have to do a thing, everything is done for you – right down to the speakers’ make-up, if desired – even if you decide to broadcast the webinar from your own location.
5. Webinars are inspiring. Using Q&As and polls makes your webinar interactive and more enjoyable and keeps viewers attentive and engaged. That’s how you transform a meeting into a memorable experience.  
6. Webinars have extensive reach. And if employees can’t attend the live event, they can watch the on-demand version when it suits them, in HD and on any device. This enables you to reach around 80% of your intended audience.
7. Webinars are valuable. The interactive elements can give you lots of useful feedback and information – and you can use those insights to make informed decisions for your organisation. 

A professional webinar as alternative to real-life meetings and events

Everyone is in agreement that online meetings are the best substitute for real-life meetings, so it’s just a matter of choosing between a standard solution and a custom-developed webinar. Whatever you choose, an added bonus is that online meetings are more sustainable than getting together in person, because attendees don’t have to travel and that means fewer greenhouse gas emissions. 

From a substitute to a new way of working

There’s no denying that a webinar is more costly than organising a meeting using one of the standard platforms. However, it’s still cheaper than hiring a venue with catering. Looking ahead, we can safely assume that the number of large-scale gatherings will never completely return to previous levels. Fewer people will want to attend such meetings, plus companies have now seen that things can – and must – be done more intelligently, more efficiently and more cost-effectively.

Solutions such as Teams, Meet and Zoom all work fine for regular meetings, which is the reason so many of us are using them so extensively. But for bigger meetings that need to have more impact, there is a lot to be said for the strength of professionally organised webinars. They can help you to make an important difference with your next internal communication event. 

Ultimately, it all comes down to which webinar partner you choose, so make sure you opt for certainty, experience and a proven track record. For extra inspiration, read the success stories of DSM and Heineken, two companies that are already using webinars for their internal communication.  

If you are interested in using webinars as part of your own internal communication strategy and you need more help or inspiration, please don’t hesitate to contact us or to download some of our free tools.

Why the 2021 AGM season will be different (And how to prepare)

The AGM season in 2020 faced a series of major challenges as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across Europe. Numerous shareholder meetings were postponed and re-organised, with businesses having to adjust their attendance and voting procedures to take into account restrictions on large gatherings and their own country’s regulatory requirements. 

One of the major disruptions to the AGM season as a result of COVID-19 was the restriction of live voting rights. Companies sought to overcome this hurdle and continue to allow shareholders to submit questions and have their say over proceedings in different ways. Governments across the European markets passed emergency legislation to allow issuers to adapt to the unprecedented conditions and still fulfil their responsibilities to their shareholders without the ability to hold the usual in-person events.  

Across the main European markets, shareholders had their live voting rights restricted, in 79.6% of cases. More than 90% of shareholder meetings in the UK, Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy formulated these restrictions, with just over three-quarters of AGMs in the Netherlands following suit. In contrast, only 2.85% of Spanish AGMs restricted live voting and there were no restrictions at all in Denmark. A Royal Decree in Belgium allowed companies to require shareholders to vote only by proxy or electronically in advance of the AGM, meaning many investors could not take part in live voting.

As the reality of the extended pandemic became obvious, many companies across the globe took advantage of the temporarily relaxed rules and shifted their events either entirely online or to a hybrid format. However, with no fixed date on when large gatherings will be allowed again, it seems like virtual shareholder meetings could continue into 2021. 

Download the full eBook to find out what to expect in 2021, how to prepare and why it might just form the blueprint for the future. 

Webinars: one of the most effective marketing tools

Webinars not only generate new leads, but are also successful in converting them into sales. That makes them one of the most effective tools for B2B marketing. And you don’t have to take our word for it – recent research by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) reaches the same conclusion.

Besides supporting marketing activities such as ‘top of the funnel’ lead generation, webinars have numerous other applications, such as strengthening internal and/or external communication and for helping to achieve training goals. For example, webinars enable KLM to communicate transparently and directly with its employees, and the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA) uses webinars to facilitate knowledge sharing among its members.

In other words, webinars should really be a standard component in every marketing mix. According to CMI’s study, however, only 57% of marketing professionals are currently using them.

Organising a webinar isn’t difficult, but it’s only natural to find it a little daunting if you haven’t done it before. To guide you through the process as quickly and smoothly as possible, we’ve developed a step-by-step guide (see infographic below) for guaranteed webinar success!

Well begun is half done

As the infographic shows, the preparation phase is the most important… and it also takes the most time, so start well in advance. In theory, it’s possible to make the necessary preparations in the space of four weeks, but this is cutting things a little fine and leaves you less time for things like promotion – which is an essential factor in a webinar’s success. Therefore, we recommend that you start preparing six weeks beforehand.

Define the goals and the target group

Think carefully about who the webinar is targeted at and what the objective is. For example, do you want to generate leads? Do you want to communicate an important internal management update to your workforce? Do you want to educate customers or train employees? Specifically defining your target group – using buyer personas to help you if necessary – makes it easier to tailor the webinar content to their specific needs.

Next, set measurable goals. If you want to generate leads, for example, decide how many you want to achieve. How many viewers do you want to attract? Or are you aiming for a certain satisfaction score or a certain level of engagement? Make those goals ‘SMART’ (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) and use them as a guideline throughout the entire process.

Finally, align the content with your target audience. A topic that is relevant and interesting for your target group will increase the number of registrations, the level of viewer engagement and the chance of a high rating afterwards. Just as for the target group and the goals, it is a case of ‘the more specific, the better’ when it comes to the topic too. A good webinar provides an answer to a specific problem. A title like ‘Introducing our new product line’ does not tell a potential viewer how you will solve his or her specific problem. In contrast, a title like ‘How can you achieve better results with Twitter advertising?’ is a lot more concrete and implies that the webinar will offer a solution.

The art of presenting

Presenting a webinar is different from presenting to a group of people. In a ‘normal’ presentation, you can see the faces of the people in the audience and you can easily address the group or focus on a particular person. In a webinar, you are effectively talking to a camera. That can feel strange, especially when it’s your first time; it can seem like you’re talking to yourself. Therefore, our advice is to practice speaking in front of a camera beforehand so that it will feel more natural on the day itself.

The key is to look straight into the camera. Viewers can see your eyes and will notice if you keep looking off to the left or right, perhaps to read an autocue. So keep looking straight into the camera as if you’re talking to the viewer directly. When selecting speakers, preferably choose someone who has experience presenting in front of a camera.

Consider using a webinar host

A webinar host can be a valuable addition to a webinar. By beginning the webinar with a strong and compelling introduction, the host engages the viewers right from the start. Subsequently the host steers the discussion, asking the right questions to keep the conversation going and stimulating interaction with the participants. As a result, a host can add dynamism to a webinar.

Using a host also means that speakers don’t have to multitask during the broadcast. Rather than having to review and handle incoming questions and poll results themselves, they can fully focus on their presentation. This further improves the quality of the webinar.

The power of promotion

The content of a webinar is important, of course, but if no one bothers to watch it then it has all been for nothing. Start your promotional activities well in advance in order to attract as many viewers as possible. Schedule your webinar at the optimal time for your target group. Develop a message that appeals to your target group and promote it as heavily as possible through channels with the right reach.

Get your promotional activities off to an early start and increase the intensity in the final week before the webinar. Don’t worry too much if the number of registrations is lower than expected in the early stages – it’s  not uncommon for a lot of the registrations (often more than half) to be received in the week before the broadcast, and some people don’t sign up until the day before or even on the day itself. That’s one of the advantages of a webinar being an online event – people can decide to attend at the last minute.

Reach the target audience live, but also afterwards

A webinar is the gift that keeps on giving! Webinars can be watched on demand, allowing the reach and impact of your message to continue long after the live broadcast. Well-designed webinars are also SEO-optimised to improve searchability on Google. You could therefore consider a webinar as a one-time investment that you can reap the benefits of for a long time.

For a step-by-step guide to organising a successful webinar, feel free to download the infographic here.