Open Forum

Happy Monday Cvent Community members! We are back to get you started with our Huddle of the Week!

Wouldn't it be great if every webinar you hosted was extremely successful? We are always looking for consistent engagement, and some of you are looking for leads and conversions. We want to help you craft a successful webinar program by sharing comprehensive steps to achieve success. Learn how to develop a comprehensive strategy, master promotion and content creation, and drive consistent engagement in our upcoming webinar, How to Build a Rockstar Webinar Program: Strategies for Success.

Questions for you:

1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar?
2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar?

Are you ready to craft a successful webinar program? Register now for our webinar on August 31st – How to Build a Rockstar Webinar Program: Strategies for Success to learn more!  

#HuddleoftheWeek

#VoiceIt

#PromotingYourEvent

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Megan Clark
Assistant Team Lead, Online Community Marketing
Cvent
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1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar? Communicating information to attendees that doesn't require much interaction
2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar? Connectivity issues, logging in, or presenters not knowing how to use the platform they're on

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Julie-Michelle Davis, CMP
Meetings Manager
Amex GBT - USA
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Our biggest challenge is always attendance! Since we are going to more in-person meetings, the webinars have seemed to decline in attendance. 

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Kayla Sisco
Program Manager
Meetings & Incentives Worldwide, Inc.United States
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Questions for you:

1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar? Reaching more people than I would have with an in-person event. Engaging people outside of our region and first-comers.
2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar? Keeping people engaged throughout the session. I have employed some interactive components (polls), but I worry that webinars offer such a passive method of engagement that they aren't deeply engaging our constituents. Sometimes, hosting a webinar allows folks to pass on attending an in-person event, and I worry that they aren't being as deeply engaged as they would have been previously if forced to attend an in-person event.

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Cate Liverman
Director-Constituent Relations
UVA Medical Alumni Association and Medical School FoundationUnited States
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1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar?
   1. This is tough as it varies being from a higher education unit.  
      1. Goal 1: Make it educational and insightful...people need to engage and learn
      2. Goal 2: Make it engaging to ensure people walk away gaining something
      3. Goal 3:  Make it professional...I HATE messy webinars. Even if you don't have great tools utilize Zoom webinar and make your speakers presentable!
   2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar?
      1. Keeping it engaging and clean. Also connection - I have so many issues with wi-fi connections and people having to call in.
      2. I advise PRACTICE sessions, BUT that does not solve connection issues!

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Lesley Irminger
Events Manager, College of Public Health
George Mason - Office Of University EventsUnited States
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1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar?
   1. increase leads/revenue
   2. educating the audience
2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar?
   prepping the speakers! :D

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Lori Wildman
Marketing Director
lwildman@dmainc.com
DuCharme, McMillen & Associates, Inc.United States
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1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar? Get out as a thought leader on a certain topic
2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar? Getting people engaged and keeping them interested throughout the whole session

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Rachel
NJ
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1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar? Quick turn information that can reach a lot of people. 
2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar? Getting people to complete a post event survey.

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Beth Vriesen.
Events Registration Administrator
Associated Bank Corporation
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1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar?  - Depends on the purpose of the webinar, but usually we're trying to educate our members about an issue, so our goal is to have them understand how it impacts them and what they can do

1. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar? Finding good ways to be able to make it interactive - take and answer questions, keep people engaged - but without allowing a few people to monopolize the conversation

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Elena PEREZ
Communications Coordinator
SEIU - UHWUnited States
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1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar? The goal of our webinars is to inform people about what Savannah has going on, new businesses, hotels, things to do in the city to get people to travel here for leisure purposes, meetings and conventions, and group tours.
2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar? Attendance, engagement, Q&A

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Virginia McCoy
Sales Associate
Visit Savannah
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1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar? We are wanting to reach a broader audience. Having a conference only lets you reach people that have the budget, time, and interest to travel to an event. Webinars help break down that barrier and be able to spread your brand awareness to more people you might not have been able to get in front of before
2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar? Tech issues are always a big concern. If you have a tech issue at a conference, it's not great but you can get around it. Since webinars are completely virtual, its hard to solve a problem when sometimes you have no control over being able to fix it

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Laura Apel
Events Manager
CDLLifeUnited States
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1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar? - Our webinars are always very interactive, therefore, we wish to have a highly group of viewers who are participating in the breakout groups, collaborating in the shared docs, and always asking a lot of questions. 
2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar? - Structuring our webinars where the presentation is seamless and fluid. 

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Valdeir Faria F.
Program Project Management and Program Support Coordinator
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of TeachingUnited States
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1. What is your main goal when hosting a webinar? Most of our webinars are targeted towards healthcare workers who are interested in receiving continuing education credit.
2. What is your biggest challenge when hosting a webinar?  Keeping attendees engaged is a challenge.  We require people to watch 90% of a lecture in order to receive continuing education credit.  We make sure they are aware prior to watching the webinar and setting this expectation seems to be help with this problem.

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Sarah Jacobson
hybrid
St. Luke's Health SystemUnited States
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