Top 6 webinar mistakes for online course entrepreneurs to avoid

Webinars can be a key part of your marketing strategy, helping you generate many quality leads, and ultimately get more people to sign up for your courses.

What’s better, webinars are a great way of connecting with people, gaining their trust, and building credibility for your brand. Webinars are right up your alley since you can give potential learners a taste of what you are offering, and make them curious to learn more.

That being said, there are some common mistakes that happen all the time when people are just starting out, or don’t have much experience. Here’s what to avoid in order to host awesome webinars:

1. Picking a boring topic

   Here’s the truth about webinars: the average attendance rate is around 46%. Picking a boring topic is the capital sin of most webinars. If you are not sure what potential learners want, try to source ideas from forums such as Reddit, talk to people in the industry, or have a look at what your competitors are doing.

2. Starting a bad partnership

   Recording a webinar together with someone else is a great idea. However, not all partnerships are good partnerships, no matter how much you like the other business or entrepreneur. You need to make sure that you are following your own objectives and that the partnership is a win-win situation.

3. Letting tech issues ruin the webinar

   Even before people appear online on your screen, you need to make sure that the entire experience of signing up and attending is seamless. To prevent technical issues you will have to choose a webinar platform that is responsive, secure, offers quality audio and video and also doesn’t require users to go through many steps to sign in.

4. Choosing the wrong format

   The most common format options for webinars are product demo, Q&A, masterclass, panel, workshop. Generally speaking, there’s no such thing as the “wrong format”, it’s more about picking the right format for your audience. If your potential clients are very busy people who don’t have the patience to listen to a lecture, be sure that they will click the X button halfway through the presentation.

5. Bad timing

   Statistics show that mornings are best for hosting webinars since most people prefer to attend at 10 or 11AM. Tuesdays are also a good time to schedule them as Mondays and Fridays keep them occupied with other tasks. Of course, there is a great alternative for people that still want to participate, but have no time: on-demand webinars.

6. Not promoting it enough

   About 59% of registrations happen less than a week before the webinar. Why? People procrastinate because webinars are a time commitment. So, start promoting it on time, at least 3 to 4 weeks prior to the event and increase your marketing efforts in the week leading to the webinar.

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