Even if you have a wonderful presentation, are using the best software and are prepared to deliver without any mistakes, common webinar problems can happen. There are many pieces that create a wonderful webinar experience for the attendees and any of these pieces can break or malfunction before, during and after the presentation. But don’t worry, you just need to identify any possible problem and prepare in case it breaks down.
Before identifying any possible problems that can happen in your first webinar, let’s take a look at some important webinar best practices.
Webinar Best Practices
There are definitely some best practices regarding tech troubles and other webinar problems which may arise before, after and during your webinar.
One best practice is to open your webinar 15 minutes before you begin your introduction.
This gives your audience time to get signed up and not to get left out, since many webinar software platforms limit the number of attendees. It also provides you with enough time to open the software, get ready, prepare your slideshow presentation, videos and or script, and see that the software is working properly.
Common Webinar Problems and How to Fix Them
The following tips will help you handle any technical or other common webinar problems like a pro.
1. Don’t Panic, Stay Calm, and Put a Smile on Your Face
Believe it or not, a smile can be “seen” or sensed online, even if your face is not on video. There is no need to panic. Stay calm. A lot of times, a marketer who makes it through a troublesome webinar is seen as more of a real person to the audience.
People have problems in their lives all the time. They can relate to you when you make the best of a bad situation. Sometimes things happen with computers and software, and if you lose your mind and start stressing out, it will only make a bad thing worse.
2. Enlist the Aid of a Techno-Genius
I know what you’re thinking. You’re a small businessperson. You don’t have enough money to pay some technologically gifted individual to work as an assistant on your webinar. If this is the case, offer a percentage of the sales generated by your webinar, give that individual a free product or service that you offer, or otherwise incentivize their involvement.
You are good at what you do. Someone who understands the webinar process and how some of the best software and tools for running a webinar is good at what they do. Paying someone for their talents in this area is always a good idea to keep problems from wrecking your webinar.
3. Have a Backup Plan… And a Backup to Your Backup
Generals during wartime are famous for saying, “A battle plan only lasts as long as the first encounter with the enemy.” Certainly, you should not be looking at your webinar software or your audience as the enemy. Still, the point is well made.
If your audio goes down, your Internet crashes, your webinar software provider has a problem or your guest speaker disappears, what are you going to do? Have a backup plan in place, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a backup plan to your backup plan.
4. The Most Common Webinar Issue Is Poor/No Internet Connection
If your Internet crashes before or during the webinar, that is obviously not a good thing. Losing Internet connection is one of the most common webinar problems.
Ensuring that your computer is connected to the Internet via a physical ethernet cable provides a much more guaranteed connection than Wi-Fi.
Internet connectivity could also be a problem with your webinar software provider, and that means the techno-genius you hired should contact the relevant helpdesk immediately.
5. Hardware Could Be an Issue
You should probably never give a webinar using a really old computer. It is also wise not to run a webinar an hour after taking a new computer out-of-the-box. Having a backup computer ready to go, loaded with all relevant software and webinar scripts is a simple solution.
Sometimes you can’t see the hardware issue from your end, but your audience may be having problems. In this case, ask them to try watching the webinar in another Internet browser.
