How to Setup Your First Webinar

So you’re ready to setup and host your first webinar, that’s awesome!

Here’s how you do it ….

1. Signup for GoToWebinar.com’s Free Trial

Most webinar software services offer a 30-day free trial, including GoToWebinar (which we use at StartupSofa). Go signup for a free trial as soon as possible so you can schedule your first webinar.

2. Find and set the right date and time

I put find and set the right date because you need to think through your potential audience and when is the best time for them.

I’ve found that if you’re offering quality training and value, people will attend no matter what the date or time.

However, put yourself in your customers’ shoes and figure out the right day … do Tuesdays (weekdays) work, or would Saturday (weekends) be better?

Now figure out the time you should start your webinar. Be sure to think about an end time as you’ll set that next.

One general rule of thumb about length of webinars is about 30-45 minutes for the actual presentation (making sure you’re delivering great content) … then allowing for about 15 minutes of potential spillover time and Q&A. I’ve found that if people want to stick around, I’m more than happy to answer questions. It’s a captive audience!

Total time I suggest to schedule for your first webinar? 1 hour.

Remember: You will set your webinar according to your local time. So if you think people will be attending from different time zones, you’ll want to make sure you give an easy way for them to find local time (Google “Time” and your location) and calculate when the webinar will begin in their local time.

3. Schedule your first webinar in GoToWebinar

Here’s a short video tutorial showing you how to schedule your first webinar:

4. Promote it

After you’ve scheduled your webinar, now it’s time to promote it. You want people to show up right?

You’ll want to be sure to promote it by:

• Writing a blog post
• Sending an email
• Tweeting about it
• Posting to Facebook
• Personally emailing people you’d think would be interested (one email contact at a time)
• Talking about it to everybody

5. Let us know how it goes!

We’d love to hear how your first webinar goes. So be sure to contact us at StartupSofa or leave a comment back here.

Happy Webinar-ing!