How Can You Create Meaningful Webinar Questions?
One mistake many webinar-hosting companies make is asking biased questions without even realizing it. For example, they may phrase questions in a way that leads attendees to a certain answer or agreement. Filling questions with jargon and confusing elements should be avoided if you want to receive an honest and accurate response. On the contrary, asking simple questions that can be answered in one sentence (or click) and offering multiple choices warms up your attendees and motivates them to answer more complex inquiries later on. Every webinar question should be concise and not take too long to answer. The same applies to surveys, which should generally not take more than 15–20 minutes to complete since you risk responders exiting the process and not submitting their input.
Types Of Questions
There are five different types of webinar questions you may ask your attendees, starting with single-answer queries. They are usually asked in the beginning to gather some statistics, including age and gender information. You may also use true-or-false questions at the start, as they are easy to answer, too. Then, you may opt for yes-or-no questions, where participants are offered two possibilities to choose from. These are typically used when you need to confirm or debunk a hypothesis. Additionally, multiple-choice questions are quite popular, but make sure to include the choice "Other" since not everyone may agree with the provided statements. Another option is ranking questions, where you can ask, for example, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much did you enjoy this event?" Lastly, open-ended questions allow webinar attendees to provide their own answers completely uninfluenced.
3 Pre-Webinar Questions
1. Which Speakers Are You Excited About?
You have already presented your speakers through your webinar's landing page and social media accounts. It's time to see which ones stand out among registrants. Depending on each speaker's popularity, you can invite them back more often to engage audiences and increase paying customers. The more popular a speaker is, the more valuable the webinar will be for participants.
2. How Did You Hear About The Event?
Asking your participants where they heard about your event helps you evaluate the effectiveness of each marketing channel. By investing more money in the most successful platforms, you can increase your sales exponentially. You need to ask this question the moment someone registers so you can ramp up your promotion on specific platforms before the webinar starts.
3. Why Did You Decide To Attend?
This question goes hand-in-hand with "Why is this webinar topic important to you?" You can ask either one to get a sense of which subjects interest your audience and which you should elaborate on in future events. You may encourage registrants to explain their thoughts in detail, but make sure to add a word limit.
3 Questions During The Webinar
1. Are You Facing Any Tech Issues?
Webinars may be easily accessible by anyone from all parts of the world, but technical issues may arise. You should ask your audience at the start if they are facing any tech issues to ensure everyone's smooth participation. Your tech team should be on standby to fix any potential problems that keep individuals from experiencing the full event. You may also keep an open chat box during the webinar where people can communicate their technical obstacles.
2. Is There Anything A Speaker Must Elaborate On?
A variation of this question is a simple "Do you have any other questions?" You should ask this every time a speaker wraps up to ensure people have received the information they need. Don't let anyone leave with unanswered queries. Not to mention, elaborating on a topic further proves expertise and can turn a webinar participant into a client and future attendee.
3. What Are Your Takeaways So Far?
Sometimes, you think you are making a good point but your audience doesn't feel the same way. By asking about their takeaways during the event, you understand whether your material is effective or if you need to adjust it to better fit your audience's expectations. At the same time, you discover what your participants find most interesting so you can include those points in future events and the landing page agenda.
4 Post-Webinar Questions
1. How Would You Rate The Event?
This is one of the most simple post-webinar questions that allows your audience to rate your content, usually on a specified scale of 1 to 10 or 1 to 5. The same question can be asked about the speakers, showing you which ones were more comprehensible and engaging.
2. Would You Recommend It?
Highly satisfied participants will most likely recommend your events to others, which can increase your sales and promote your brand as a trustworthy source. A similar question you can also ask is, "Will you join our next event?" It's another way of asking your attendees if they are satisfied and if the content caters to their needs. Moreover, you can ask them whether their perception of your company improved with this webinar.
3. How Can We Improve?
Even when people give you five stars, they may still have some recommendations to make. For example, your interactivity may need improvement, or one of your speakers may not have been engaging enough. Ask everyone what their favorite and least favorite parts of your webinar were, and encourage them to elaborate on the more negative aspects. This way, you show that you truly value their opinion and are willing to make improvements to fit their needs.
4. What Topics Should We Cover Next?
This question is easily combined with "Were your expectations met?" Everyone attends your event with certain expectations, which may not have been met in the end. Instead of viewing this as a shortcoming, shift your attention to improvement and ask attendees to provide insights. Even if their expectations were met, they may have a new, equally interesting topic to suggest for future events.
Conclusion
Webinar questions don't exist to fake interest in attendees' opinions and preferences. Rather, you should listen closely to the feedback you get and incorporate it into your future events. The goal is to create value for your participants so that they keep coming back for more content and possibly turn into clients or recommend your services to other professionals.
If you're interested in capturing high-quality leads by hosting a webinar with eLI, check out our webinar marketing solutions. Pre-recorded webinars, demo presentations, or bespoke premium eLI webinars can help you expand your customer base.
