Modern webinars have evolved beyond the capacity of “old school” meeting software platforms
We’ve all been on bad webinars. Even with the best presenters, webinars can be derailed because of the limitations of technology. Stop reading if none of these have ever happened to you:
- The audio of a presenter is choppy or goes in and out
- The video of the presenter’s slides lags behind the presenter
- You waited a week (or more) to get the presentation recording to share with your team
- You missed the start time, clicked the link to access the webinar and were met with an error screen
- You were asked to download an app to view the webinar on your mobile device
The list goes on and on.
The reason so many webinars are bad is simple. We’re trying to use small group meeting software to present to the masses. This is like trying to watch Netflix or Disney+ on your mobile device with your entire family. Can it be done? Sure. But the user experience is not remotely as intended.
What causes bad webinars?
Typically the goal of a webinar is to reach a broad audience. Meeting software like Webex, Zoom and GoToMeeting are great for what it is built for … collaborating and sharing with small groups. However, there are some technical limitations of these platforms that create problems when you try to scale them up for larger presentations to groups of 10 or more.
These limitations include (but are not limited to):
- Meeting software is not built to sustain a large viewing audience by default. This can create bandwidth issues that cause choppy audio or lagging video.
- Attending a webinar via a mobile device using small meeting software can have barriers like having to download an app. Employees at businesses are obligated to download the zoom app when they have to join a meeting for work. Prospective students looking to access your content may not be as patient with that step of the process.
- Additionally, meeting software does not have built-in live technical support to help if localized internet bandwidth issues create unforeseen problems. You don’t know if your audio is bad until someone complains in the Q&A box and by that point a good portion of your audience has likely already given up and logged off.
How do we fix bad webinars?
There are a number of things Conduit does to help make the webinar experience better for you and your audience.
Software that scales
The first thing to do to ensure you are hosting a good webinar is to use the right platform. Conduit is built for webcasting; from small, focused presentations (like targeted portions of your admit pool) to large-scale broadcasts (like your inquiry pool). Built with the audience in mind, Conduit ensures that no matter what device or platform your audience is using (desktop, mobile, and even on streaming to social media) they can access the presentation with the click or a tap of a link (delivered via email and global SMS texting) without having to register on a platform or download an app.
Driving the best production quality and outcomes
Additionally, Conduit’s managed production and marketing services ensure that your program is not only of the best quality but also effectively marketed to your prospective student audience using its integrated email and SMS marketing tools.
Making the content immediately accessible on-demand
One of the biggest challenges with reaching prospective students is making content available on their time. A live presentation is great … but what about the high achieving student who just got out of soccer practice and missed your live event? Conduit allows your content to be immediately available on-demand to your audience or re-played numerous times as a live presentation with an accompanying live chat (we call it Simulive) throughout the cycle for fresh prospects who may have not had the opportunity to engage with the content when it was originally presented. These two features enable you to save time on content production while also ensuring every student has the opportunity to engage with you.
Ready to get started?
Contact us to see how you can utilize webinar presentations and leverage live chat data with the Conduit platform to maximize student engagement and yield today.