Whether you are new to being a webinar host or have plenty of experience, there are always new developments or approaches for how to run a successful webinar. What will make your webinar successful is dependent on what your purpose and objective is, however we’re going to unpack five key elements that can make a significant impact on the success of your webinar, regardless of whether you offer it for free or for a fee, or both!

Read on to learn how to get the most benefit out of all the effort that goes into running a free or paid webinar or masterclass.

1. Manage expectations from the start

Ever felt unwell and Googled your symptoms?

Ever turned to the internet for advice relating to your business? 

If you have, you may have noticed that any reputable site will have a disclaimer - that is, saying that what is offered is general information only and to consult a professional about your own situation.

The same should be true of your webinar. It is critical to be clear with your participants that what you will share with them is information, not advice. A disclaimer that makes it clear to your users that there is no guarantee (or warranty) about the reliability or accuracy of the information you are presenting. This is important particularly in the case where your webinar is recorded and available on your website into the future. 

Every industry is evolving, some faster than others. What you are sharing is accurate at the time of presentation, however you can not promise that it will continue to be. 

You may wish to state this verbally in your webinar, or show a slide, but it is essential that you include this information in your written webinar terms and conditions. Upon registration, you should have terms and conditions that must be agreed to upon sign up. It’s not enough to only say it, you’ll need it in the webinar terms and conditions so that if anyone ever wants to blame you for the advice not working for example, you’ll have the legal terms to back you up and reinforce this important disclaimer as a condition of access.

Your webinar terms and conditions must be clear on two points. The first, is that you are sharing information, not advice. You can not possibly know the details of each attendee’s situation and whether or not what you are saying is appropriate for them or their business. This is particularly essential if the recording is going to be available for sale or free download into the future.

2. Reduce cancellations and refund requests

If you offer paid webinars, you should minimise the number of people pulling out at short notice, or simply not turning up and requesting a refund. The fact is, with recording technology, webinars are often made able to be viewed for a period of time after they are delivered, or even to be downloaded, so refunds are not necessary and do not need to be offered.

We all know that life is unpredictable and there will be times when your participants may not be able to be present, through no fault of their own. While this is not an issue for free webinars, it is important to have a section of your webinar terms and conditions that will adequately protect you from this potential financial loss in the case of a paid webinar. 

Our webinar template includes a cancellation clause. It states that the webinar registration is non-refundable. And this should be something you include, of course, in your webinar terms and conditions. 

3. Stop copycats in their tracks 

Within Australia, the content of your webinar is automatically protected by copyright. It is prudent however, to ensure that your terms and conditions include a section that addresses this. When I was new to running my business and webinars, I ran a webinar. One of my direct competitors attended, and later delivered her own template related to the content I had presented. 

I learnt a valuable lesson through this experience, in the value of intellectual property (IP). You have worked hard, your webinar is sharing all that great information in your head and is an asset. This is why your terms and conditions must include a clause that makes it clear to anyone who has signed up, that their purchase or participation does not grant them rights to your property. It must also explicitly state that they may not copy or reproduce your work or breach your intellectual property rights in any other way.

4. How to avoid poor behaviour

People are unpredictable, no matter how much preparation to give to your webinar, there will be times when you can not anticipate poor behaviour by an attendee. You may not have experienced any issues with behaviour to date, however you should know that it can arise. Harassing others through the Q & A or chat channels, breaching privacy by sharing information about or from others internally or external to the webinar, even self-promotion are all examples of behaviour that must be anticipated and mitigated with your participant behaviour policy. 

It is a good idea also, to get your participants to promise, through their acceptance of the terms and conditions upon registration, that they own anything they type or upload during the webinar and that they will not only adhere to your behaviour policy, but also any other laws.

For that reason, and to ensure you remain in control of both the webinar and your intellectual property, stating expectations about behaviour should be included in your terms. Be clear about what behaviour will not be tolerated both in the terms and verbally.

In the event poor behaviour does occur, it is an aspect of webinar presentation that can really cause presenters and your other attendees stress. When it occurs, it seemingly comes out of nowhere and takes everyone by surprise. To minimise the risk we have some additional tips…

Particularly if you find yourself with a large number of attendees, it may be of benefit to have a webinar monitor or assistant to help identify issues as they arise. They can also help with some of the practical aspects of your presentation, for example by sending through answers to participant queries. They may also be an extra set of eyes and ears on chats and on participants' behaviour (if screens are being shared) and be able to quickly exit anyone whose behaviour is not in line with the terms and conditions you set upon registration.

5. Avoid implying a guarantee of outcome

Limiting your liability is linked closely with our first tip, which was to be clear you are offering information not advice. To understand how to limit your liability, let’s use an analogy. Let’s say you run a webinar providing information about facebook marketing. If your participants then go and apply what they perceive to be the information provided in your webinar to their business, but it yields no profit or value, they can not then turn around and place the blame with you.

You do not want to leave yourself vulnerable to being held liable for any kind of loss or damage participants incur after applying what they perceive your webinar’s information to be. 

While they are similar and closely linked, they are not the same and adding a section in your webinar terms and conditions that specifically deals with liability is essential.

Lesser known tips that contribute to how to run a successful webinar 

As you know, a webinar is a brilliant way to connect with people, to give them a significant amount of information in a short time, to show your value and start or enhance an existing working relationship by building trust and authority. To protect yourself in the long term and to set yourself up as the boss you are, ensuring your webinar terms and conditions sufficiently cover all of these areas outlined above that we know do arise in Australia, will pay dividends.

You may never come up against some of the potential issues covered above, but if you do, having terms to turn to can cleanly solve any issues and even prevent some from occurring at all.

Our webinar terms and conditions template is one significant step in how to run a successful webinar. Most importantly, it is able to be applied to more than one webinar. So, the once off investment can be used many times over and will give you peace of mind. Once you have yours in place it will save you time and establish clear guidelines and expectations that can only contribute positively to your brand and relationships with those joining your webinars.

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To take charge of these issues and get on with getting the most out of your webinars (free or paid), check out our Webinar Terms and Conditions Template. If you aren’t sure if this template will suit your webinar or business, you are invited to book an obligation free chat with me here.