The Complete Guide to Webinars
Webinars are an essential B2B marketing tool, allowing businesses to directly communicate with audiences, generate engagement, and identify qualified leads. However, creating a successful webinar relies on more than just preparing a presentation, opening your webinar software, and turning your microphone on.
A lot of behind-the-scenes work goes into preparing webinars that offer genuine value to attendees and help fuel your business growth. Read on to learn more.
Webinar Definition
A webinar is a virtual seminar designed to deliver information on a specific topic. The term combines “web” and “seminar.”
Unlike one-way online presentations, webinars empower audiences to participate—asking questions, answering polls, chatting, responding to surveys, downloading content, booking meetings, and more. This creates an immersive learning experience and encourages two-way engagement.
Businesses benefit, too. Webinars are powerful lead-generation channels and accelerate pipeline by furnishing first-party engagement data that gives sales and marketing richer context on prospects and customers.
The ON24 platform facilitates webinars that bring together multiple technologies: live and recorded video, screen share, document sharing, live chat and Q&A, polls, surveys, breakout rooms, content offers, marketing automation, and CRM integrations. The result: a cohesive, high-value audience experience and a unified data stream you can use to drive revenue.
Webinar Formats
There are multiple webinar formats, each offering different ways to connect with your audience and meet specific goals.
Deliver presentations and interact in real time. Being live lets you adapt on the fly—tailoring messaging based on chat, Q&A, and poll signals to maximize impact. Live sessions can foster a sense of exclusivity, creating buzz and lifting attendance.
Pre-recorded presentations delivered to a live audience at a scheduled time. You minimize performance risk while freeing your presenters to engage via live chat, moderate Q&A, and launch polls aligned to key moments. Simulive blends polish with real-time interaction.
Pre-recorded content available anytime. On-demand extends reach, accommodates busy schedules, and encourages re-watches—especially when you host recordings in a content hub. With ON24, on-demand still includes interactive elements and CTAs, turning passive viewing into active engagement.
Combine in-person and virtual experiences. Hybrid options increase flexibility, overcome travel and scheduling barriers, and let you scale a physical event to a global digital audience—without sacrificing interactivity.
A set of episodes tied to a shared theme—e.g., a monthly “Product Deep Dive,” a talk-show format with expert interviews, or an industry news roundup. Series build brand familiarity, repeat engagement, and structured learning journeys. With ON24, you can create TV-like experiences with a consistent host, cadence, and branded console.
The Evolution of Webinars: From Seminars to Virtual Events
Early webinars focused on scaling presentations across time zones while minimizing travel. Bandwidth was limited; presenters rarely appeared on camera. Today, webinars are multimedia experiences: cameras on, dynamic screen shares, embedded video, networking, breakouts, and personalized CTAs. Audience members can interact with presenters and with each other—creating a true digital event with data you can act on.
Why Choose Webinars?
Expanding Reach and Accessibility
Webinars eliminate geographic constraints. You can meet buyers wherever they are, live or on-demand. During the pandemic, webinar attendance surged, and even as in-person returned, digital experiences remained central. Accessibility features like closed captioning and sign language interpretation further broaden participation and inclusivity.
Deep Engagement and Interactivity
Purpose-built platforms like ON24 offer polls, Q&A, surveys, clickable CTAs, resources, breakout rooms, and meeting-set options—before, during, and after your event. This turns attention into action and creates rich first-party data.
Pro Tip: Design engagement intentionally. Plan where to place polls (e.g., after a key insight), when to pause for Q&A, and which CTAs should appear at moments of high intent.
Insights into Audience Behavior
Analyze poll responses, Q&A themes, content downloads, CTA clicks, and chat activity to understand interests, objections, and intent. With ON24, this data flows into your MAP/CRM so sales can follow up with context and precision.
Planning Webinars
Effective planning ensures you meet—and surpass—your objectives.
Setting Clear Goals and Expectations
Define the primary goal first (lead gen, product education, training, customer success), then choose KPIs that measure progress: registration, live attendance, on-demand views, engagement score, demo requests, meetings booked, influenced pipeline, and revenue. Modern webinar KPIs extend beyond “butts in seats” to depth of engagement and progression through the buyer’s journey.
Identifying Your Target Audience
Segment by persona, industry, role, and stage (awareness vs. evaluation). Use buyer pain points and jobs-to-be-done to develop topics that matter. Build personas and tailor session titles, abstracts, and CTAs to each segment.
Choosing the Right Time and Webinar Platform
Mid-week typically performs well, but test day/time by region and persona. The core choice is platform: select a dedicated webinar solution that prioritizes interactivity, data, and reliability (vs. general meeting tools).
Why ON24 for Enterprise Marketers and IT Decision-Makers
- Engagement-first experiences: polls, Q&A, surveys, resource lists, breakout rooms, integrated CTAs, meeting links.
- First-party data: unified engagement profiles at the individual and account level.
- Native integrations: bi-directional connectors with major MAP/CRMs to fuel scoring, routing, and personalization.
- Security & compliance: enterprise SSO/SAML, role-based controls, privacy compliance to support global programs.
- Global scale & reliability: proven delivery for high-attendance events.
- Accessibility: built-in features to support inclusive experiences.
- Content hubs: host on-demand libraries that keep working post-event.
- AI-assisted operations: speed up workflows (abstracts, promo copy, highlights) while preserving brand quality.
ON24 Webinar Software
We’ve designed our ON24 webinar software with all of these considerations in mind – plus many more. Find out how our webinar solutions can streamline and enhance your buying journeys by registering for a live demo.
Creating Engaging Webinar Content
Selecting the Right Speakers and Presenters
Choose subject-matter experts who can teach and persuade. Consider pairing a host/moderator with a domain expert to balance pacing and depth. Provide presenters with audience profiles, likely objections, and engagement plans.
Developing a Webinar Script
Outline your story arc: hook → problem framing → insights → proof → recommendations → action. Webinar script key transitions and engagement cues (e.g., “Let’s launch a poll”). Avoid over-scripting; presenters should speak naturally, responding to chat and Q&A. Close with a summary and a clear next step.
Incorporating Interactive Elements
Design engagement moments throughout:
- Polls to benchmark the audience and segment content.
- Q&A breaks to deepen understanding and surface objections.
- Surveys to gather post-session feedback and signal intent.
- Breakouts for tailored discussions or regional rooms.
- CTAs to drive trials, demos, newsletter signups, or meeting bookings.
Resource lists with relevant guides, case studies, and datasheets.
Promoting Webinars
Leveraging Email and Social Media Channels
Start promotion ~4 weeks out. Use a multi-touch sequence with varied subject lines, angles, and send times. In social, create multiple post variations (speaker quotes, teaser clips, stat cards). Encourage speakers and partners to share with their networks.
Building Anticipation: Offers & Guest Speakers
Incentivize attendance with exclusive assets, early access, raffles, or certification credits. Feature recognizable guest experts and amplify with their social channels.
Hosting a Successful Webinar
Technical Readiness
Choose a robust, purpose-built webinar platform (ON24) to avoid the “meeting-tool compromise.” Run a tech check: network, camera, mic, slide control, backup computers, and presenter green room. Prepare holding slides, music, and a countdown.
Engaging the Audience: Tips & Strategies
Assign a producer/moderator to manage chat, feed questions to the host, and launch polls. Pace content with planned interaction beats every 4–6 minutes. Recognize standout questions by name to encourage participation.
Offering Value: Exclusive Insights, Expert Advice
Audiences spend ~55 minutes engaging in a live session—use that time to deliver new insight, not just basics. Avoid bait-and-switch; if you promise best practices, deliver them. Save product deep-dives for a dedicated session or offer opt-in CTAs for demos.
Using Webinars to Maximize Revenue
Leveraging Webinar Engagement Data to Drive Pipeline and Sales
Integrate webinar data with your MAP to score, segment, and route leads. Use engagement signals—poll choices, questions asked, resource clicks—to personalize nurture tracks.
Using Webinar First-Party Data Effectively
Sync first-party data to CRM so sales sees exactly what each attendee did: questions asked, content downloaded, CTAs clicked. Reps don’t make cold calls—they continue the conversation with context.
Key Use Cases Beyond Demand Gen
- Customer education & adoption
- Partner enablement
- Field & account-based marketing
- Product launches
- Executive roundtables
- Certifications & training
Effective Strategies for Post-Webinar Engagement
Extending Engagement: On-Demand Viewing
Publish the full experience on-demand in a content hub. Maintain interactivity (polls, Q&A inbox, CTAs, resources) so the asset keeps converting. Roughly 48% of audiences consume on-demand—don’t leave them behind.
Gathering Feedback and Analyzing Performance
Embed surveys to rate speakers and content value, capture topic requests, and surface hand-raisers (e.g., “Interested in a demo?”). Combine quantitative (attendance, engagement score) and qualitative (comments) insights to refine your program.
Repurposing Webinar Content
Turn one webinar into many assets:
- Clips for social and ads
- Blog posts and articles
- Infographics and cheat sheets
- Email nurtures
- Sales enablement snippets
Generative AI can accelerate drafting while your team ensures accuracy and brand voice.
ON24 Webinar Software
We’ve designed ON24 webinars with these realities in mind—plus many more.
What sets ON24 apart for enterprise marketers and IT teams:
- Audience-First Interactivity
Polls, Q&A, surveys, resources, breakout rooms, persistent CTAs, appointment-set widgets—built to convert engagement into action.
- Unified First-Party Data
Rich, event-level and individual engagement signals feed MAP/CRM to power scoring, routing, ABM, and personalization from first touch to revenue.
- Content Hubs & Always-On Experiences
Curate thematic hubs to extend reach and lifetime value. Drive bingeable journeys across live, simulive, and on-demand.
- Enterprise Scale, Security & Governance
SSO/SAML, role-based access, auditability, and global delivery for high-stakes events.
- Accessibility & Globalization
Closed captions, language support, and inclusive design to expand reach. - Intelligent Operations
Streamline abstracts, promos, highlights, and post-event follow-ups with AI-assisted workflows.
Webinar FAQs
An online seminar designed to share information on a specific topic with interactive elements such as polls, surveys, Q&A, and content offers. Accessible from anywhere, on any device.
About 60 minutes works well for most topics; shorter “spotlights” (10–30 minutes) or longer deep dives (90+ minutes or half-day workshops) are common. Audiences typically engage for ~55 minutes in live sessions.
Use live for community and immediacy, simulive for polish plus real-time chat, and on-demand to maximize reach and lifetime value. Most programs use all three.
Meetings prioritize small-group collaboration. Webinars prioritize broadcast-quality delivery, scalable interactivity, and actionable data—with stronger controls, reporting, and integrations.
Registration, attendance (live + on-demand), engagement score, poll response rate, Q&A participation, resource clicks, CTA conversions (demo, trial, meeting), influenced pipeline, and revenue.
Provide captions, transcripts, and consider sign language interpretation. ON24 supports accessibility best practices so you can reach broader audiences.
Yes—enterprise authentication, role-based controls, and governance workflows support regulated industries and global programs.
Yes—native connectors for leading MAPs/CRMs and APIs ensure first-party data flows where it needs to go for scoring, routing, and personalization.
Teams often launch quickly with ON24 templates, brandable consoles, and repeatable workflows. Start with one flagship session and scale to a series and content hub.
Absolutely. Engagement signals identify high-intent accounts and individuals, enabling targeted sales follow-up and faster cycle times.