No matter how diligently you prepare an online presentation, you can realistically expect it to leave viewers with questions you had insufficient time to address during the running time.
This situation helps to explain the appeal of holding a webinar, which Search Engine Journal succinctly defines as “an online seminar”. Listed below are several advantages you can gain from incorporating a Q&A session into a webinar.
Increased audience engagement
One problem with a presentation is that, as it is a one-way flow of information, people who are on the receiving end can too easily become bored with it.
You can, however, spark fresh excitement in these people by giving them an opportunity to speak through their device’s mic and consequently take a break from simply looking at a computer screen.
The chance to elaborate on points made earlier
It is possible that, during the Q&A, at least one person will ask you something that was already covered during the presentation.
However, this would give you the chance to not only reiterate the original point but also extend it — since time constraints could have reined you in the first time around.
A more human touch
A key part of the enjoyment of holding a webinar is that you can do so live. However, people who actually watch you speaking could forget that it is all happening live.
Through giving allowing people to interact with you in real time, you can help yourself to come across as less robotic, resulting in a more humanized event.
Being able to demonstrate your expertise
Anyone can simply memorize and then regurgitate lots of detailed information sourced from the internet, but what really distinguishes an expert is their ability to provide confident, in-depth answers to questions on the fly.
It’s great, then, that the spontaneous nature of a Q&A session would let you do exactly that.
Opportunities for you to subtly promote yourself
A LinkedIn article acknowledges: “You want to be careful about promoting during your webinar, but you can easily promote during your answers to questions.”
Nonetheless, you should tread carefully with how you go about this. If you get asked a question that a product or service of yours can answer, you could mention it, but should probably do so somewhat briefly.
Improved prestige for your brand
Think about it: if you hold the Q&A session in a way that shows impressive expertise and professionalism on your part, this can help in enhancing perceptions of your brand.
However, be warned that the quality of the session itself can be heavily influenced by the quality of the webinar software used for delivering it. Hence, you might want to source that software from a big-brand provider like ON24.
Ideas for how to improve future presentations
If certain subjects come up unsurprisingly often during the Q&A, you could treat this as your cue to include more information on these subjects in future presentations for which you are responsible. After all, you want to create content that genuinely piques people’s interest.