Webinars are a powerful tool for your association. They allow you to deliver education in a cost-effective way to reach both members and non-members, so you can meet your charitable objectives in an engaging way. As association management professionals, Fitwise can show you how to make webinars work for your association.
At Fitwise, the team are experienced in facilitating webinars for our association clients. These interactive virtual meetings can take various forms to include seminars, workshops, and networking events, and generally last 1 hour.
Benefits include:
- They are a cost-effective method of communicating,
- You can deliver up-to-date education to a wide-reaching audience (members and non-members),
- You can deliver specific information to specialist groups,
- Webinars can be recorded which means you can make the educational offering available to those who can’t attend,
- Offering sponsorship on your webinars creates additional revenue streams for your organisation and increases industry engagement.
Let’s get into the detail of how webinars work. When running your webinar, there are several considerations. One of which is deciding which format is best.
How does it work?
Clients choose their topic for the webinar and source the relevant presenters. We generally recommend this is done 6 weeks in advance to ensure adequate time for publicity and for the attendees to get the time off to attend.
Fitwise will set up the webinar on Zoom or Teams and advertise by email and social media. The speakers will be contacted ahead of time with details on timings and how the webinar will run – we can offer either to pre-record beforehand or the speakers can present live on the day.
Those who attend at least 75% and complete the post-webinar survey are awarded with a Certificate of Attendance with CPD points. The survey is set up for completion at the end and typically includes questions related to the usefulness of the webinar, how attendees would rate the content of the presentations that took place and an open-ended question where Fitwise can gather feedback for future webinar topics.
Different webinar formats include:
- Live: All speakers present their slides live.
- As Live: A mixture of pre-recorded sessions and live Q&A, usually conducted at the end of the recording.
- Pre-recorded: Everything is pre-recorded and the video played back on the day.
When deciding which format to take, consider how the speakers want to interact with the audience, and how confident your speakers are with technology. Pre-recording the session can help elevate some stress especially for more inexperienced speakers, however, it does reduce the interaction which can take place.
Include interactive elements such as:
- Polls: Host polls during the live elements and the results can be shown in real time on the screen.
- Q&A Questions: The questions are submitted as text and addressed by the Chair / appointed person.
How does a webinar differ from an e-Conference?
Fitwise webinars differ from the services available via Fitwise e-conference, which is better suited for delivering complex, professional virtual conferences and include support from audio-visual technicians.
Can Fitwise run our virtual AGM?
The Fitwise team are also experienced in running AGM’s as virtual webinars, which can help increase AGM attendance and make them more inclusive and accessible, especially for a diverse membership. By offering an educational session as part of your AGM, you can also help boost attendance.
Find out how you could benefit from a Fitwise webinar for your association by getting in touch: info@fitwise.co.uk
