By Editor Morten B. Reitoft 

What's in it for me?

Time is one of the most precious resources we all have. The pandemic has forced many to work remotely, from home, at different times- and zones, and by all means different from before the COVID. That doesn't mean that time doesn't have a cost. Your session must promise a delivery that weighs higher than the time spent. 

Your preferred webinar-attendee is exposed to the headlines, the short descriptions, and the promotion - which is the first thing that will get his attention and decision whether he would like to spend time with us. 

So you must very clear on these messages from the beginning since this is the first opportunity you have to engage with your audience.
Write your headline/topic - and get it tested by colleagues.Write a brief description that explains what you intend to deliver and a bit more information about the takeaway the attendee can expect.

Example:Headline: Inkjet is a gamechanger for offset printers!

Delivery: In this session, you will learn why Inkjet is a technology that can make you more money, better products, and become more efficient.

Takeaway: You will learn how to get started with Inkjet and what to look for, both technology- and business-wise. You will see for yourself why you have to consider if you want to be a leading supplier to your customers.

Sometimes it can even make sense to have a call-to-action, like:

Call-to-action: Register and get print-samples and literature send after the event.

Who is your audience?

Most of us are in sales or marketing. We are looking for opportunities. Your audience is humans, so why not use yourself as an identifier?

Ask yourself:

- Do you like learning/education over advertising?

- Do you like to decide what's right for you?Do you believe education can lead to understanding?

- Do you think that...?

Your audience is intelligent, and they participate in your session because they expect your session to bring more knowledge. With more experience, your prospects and customers can make better decisions. 

Your presentation raises the bar, and when you get into a sales-conversation, the starting point is higher - and maybe also closer to closure. 

Learn With Us is an opportunity to use your skills as part of your marketing. Existing customers will be re-affirmed that they are working with the right company, and prospects will feel secure working with you.

Therefore, your audience is prospects you specifically address; it is existing customers, and then it's all the "birds" on the roof that are targeted by all participants, the broad marketing, and, of course, the INKISH audience.

Communicate

As the organizer, INKISH has a tremendous responsibility for the planning, the marketing, the execution, and the post-deliveries. Still, we have all an interest in ensuring the best possible result of this event.

With specific landing pages for each session + video teaser + an event landing page + and signup forms + photos + headlines + descriptions etc., you have great content to share in all your channels - but start here:

Let your sales-people and potential distributors know all about the event. Ask them to share in their channels - like emails to prospects and customers, share in personal channels like LinkedIn, and even use the event as an excuse to call the 3-5-8 most essential opportunities and ask them specifically to participate in your session. 

It works

As a company, you should, of course, include information about the event in your newsletters, on your website, in the corporate SoMe channels - again, LinkedIn, Xing, etc. 

INKISH provides marketing tools like this booklet, video-teasers, images, etc. Still, we also push the content to partners, media that we collaborate with, and to federations throughout the geography/time-zone where the event will take place.

Thousands of impressions are guaranteed. The success is, however, only guaranteed if we all deliver the best we can.

Set your expectations high

Never participate if you don't plan to deliver MAX. Aim for the sky to deliver what you believe is your best performance ever! Passion DO get through computer screens, and if you deliver the best you can, your audience will feel your dedication and reward you!

Delivering a great session

First of all, be prepared. The format we are using - and we are open for alternatives, is based on the following: 

Our sessions start on the hour:
Presenters can log in up to one hour before the sessions start. As we have sessions during the day and up to your session starts, one from the INKISH team will log in 5-10 minutes before to welcome you. 

A few minutes before the hour, the session will go LIVE, and we will start with some trailers so attendees can begin to log in to the session. 

The first five-ten minutes is about getting attendees in place, introduce you and your eventual co-speakers/guests, and positioning you. Who are you, what company do you work for, etc.? If you an experienced speaker, you will maybe not nervous, but some are, and we also use this time to get speakers ready mentally for their presentation. 

Then YOUR presentation slot starts.

- Some prefer to do screen share/slides and talk over these.
- Some prefer to be interviewed by us.
- Some prefer to have colleagues or guests attending.
- Some prefer to use a film or pre-recorded short film to showcase technology or a customer or.
- Some prefer to do a LIVE presentation of the software/hardware.

We can accommodate almost everything you need - as long as we know.

The motivation for having a relatively free format is because your job is to make a presentation that works for YOU. If you want our input, call! We also believe that having a structure that allows speakers to differentiate is even more interesting for the attendees, and we need to keep the tension of the attendees as much as we can.

When your presentation is done, we will take questions from attendees and mix them with our questions.

The Q&A session's motivation is to follow up on eventual questions from the audience to engage with them and use this opportunity to clarify eventual things that attendees or hosts didn't understand!

The format works, and the success is based on how good a presentation you have done, of course!

LIVE vs. Replays

Of course, everybody wants as many live attendees as possible, and yes, there will always be attendees in the live sessions. However, when we have a full week of events with more than 30 sessions, nobody expects people to sit in front of the screen from Monday 10:00 to Friday 16:00. The event is therefore divided into what we believe is logical sub-categories. In our Learn With Us INKJET event, we, for example, have Labels and Packaging on Tuesday, Commercial on Wednesday, etc. 

Attendees will pick the sessions they believe are most important to them!

By having a dense program, we can create a fantastic learning experience for attendees - not just live, but forever. So the replays are extremely important, and these will be available on INKISH.TV shortly after the event. 

When we did the Learn With Us · Smart Factory US CERM, in our opinion, used the replays very smartly. 

The first 5-10 minutes of the chat was delivered as a "teaser" on LinkedIn to attract viewers to see the full program. This is a great way to use the content and your specialists in your post-marketing. Remember, this is all about delivering a learning experience so your customers will make better decisions!

After the event, INKISH will deliver two films based on the above idea (the full replay + the introduction.) We believe it will make sense for you to promote the replays, add them to your marketing communication, and add these when communicating with prospects and customers. This will increase your sales opportunities and give you positive branding!