Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Webinar: Popular Online Education Platforms

John Anderson’s business specializes in providing training in WordPress 3.1 to online business owners that wish to develop, update, and implement widgets and plug-ins on an as needed basis. To increase awareness of John’s business, his marketing assistant recommended that they utilize online education platforms by way of the webinar.


“The idea of training people virtually was a little intimidating” says Anderson, “and I was nervous no one would attend. After all, the majority of our audiences are small business owners and entrepreneurs who would rather spend their free time making money rather than training”.

Anderson and Anderson WordPress World has provided more than 500 educational training webinars over the last five years at $89 an attendee. Webinar training is an important revenue stream to accompany John’s IT consulting and development services.

What has made webinars so successful? Anderson says, “The key to a successful webinar is to bring your audience something of interest, starting with the title”. It boils down to topic, title, speaker and technology.

Kick it off right. Do not be a “cookie-cutter”! Start your webinar with a lead into the main event instead of saying, let’s get started.

Polish it visually. Use a PowerPoint presentation that has vibrant colors and fewer words. You will be surprised how well photos and video support the speaker.

Open the floor. Allow your audience to interact with you and ask questions. Of course, there is a proper time in the presentation to open the floor.

Anderson concludes that it is important you use a user-friendly webinar platform such as WebEx and GoToWebinar. This is because not all online education platforms are created equal.

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