Webinars can help you connect with your target audience, establish yourself as a thought leader, and drive sales for your products or services.
In order to achieve these goals, though, it’s critical to create a webinar game plan. One of the key elements of this game plan is a webinar script.
Webinar scripts answer questions like:
What is the format of your webinar? Is it a Q&A, a presentation, or an interactive workshop? What do you plan to talk about? What are the key ideas that will help you get your point across? How will visual elements aid your presentation?
Having all this information laid out in front of you can not only help you prepare for a webinar but stay on track throughout the presentation.
Here, we will help guide you through the process of creating a webinar script so that you and any other webinar presenters are well-prepared. We’ll also share a free webinar script template you can use to write a webinar script.
What is a Webinar Script?
A webinar script outlines the content and structure of an online seminar or presentation. This outline typically includes the topics and main points to be discussed during the webinar, along with the order in which they should be presented.
It also provides a guide for any visuals, activities, or other elements that will be used during the presentation.
The webinar script should be designed to facilitate a webinar that engages the audience while presenting valuable information. It should include clear objectives, calls-to-action, and any visual elements you plan to use, i.e., images, diagrams, and videos.
Ultimately, having a well-prepared script is essential for having an effective webinar presentation.
The Goal of a Webinar Script
A webinar script aims to ensure that you, or the facilitator of the webinar, are prepared and able to get your message across. It also ensures that all webinar attendees have an enjoyable experience, gain something valuable from the webinar, and take the next step you outline for them.
Think of it as a map for a successful presentation. How will you guide attendees through the information and prompt them to take action?
A good webinar script can also help keep conversations on track by providing a webinar agenda, focus points, and guiding questions. This can be particularly helpful if there are multiple presenters or guest speakers.
By creating a comprehensive plan for the webinar, you and your team will be better able to control outcomes and maximize engagement from participants.
Who Should Use a Webinar Script?
Anyone who is hosting a webinar should use a webinar script. If you’ve never hosted a webinar before, it can be a great way to connect with your customers, receive feedback, build credibility, drive sales, and more.
Whether you’re a thought leader in your field, an entrepreneur with your own coaching business, or an influencer, you can utilize a webinar format to share your expertise and reach your goals. You can even sell tickets to your webinar or create a series of webinars that you market as an online course.
While hosting live or automated webinars isn’t new, it has become more commonplace and useful since the pandemic. These 100% virtual events allow you to connect with current and potential customers when in-person events are less feasible. Additionally, because they aren’t specific to one location, they can enable you to reach a much broader audience.
So, if you want to host a webinar as a part of your sales or marketing strategy, start by crafting a solid webinar script.
Before Writing Your Webinar Script
Before you start writing your webinar script, you should have a good grasp on the webinar content you want to provide, the audience you want to share that content with, and the outcomes you expect from the webinar.
Know Your Audience
Who will you be talking to at your webinar? Knowing the answer to this question is critical to hosting a successful webinar. After all, you can’t develop a webinar presentation that resonates with your audience without knowing who your audience is.
Once you know who your audience is, you can choose a topic that is relevant to them. Then, you can begin to map out an interesting webinar script based on this topic.
Define Webinar Goals
When writing a webinar script, it’s important to set goals for the webinar beforehand.
Remember, a webinar script should aim to inform, educate, and engage audience members by providing valuable information that is relevant to them. Beyond this, though, it should also have a strong call to action.
What action do you hope webinar attendees take after watching your webinar? Do you hope they sign up for your email list, join the next webinar, or subscribe to your product or service?
With this goal in mind, you can more effectively craft the webinar introduction, content, and conclusion.
Solidify Your Webinar Topic
Now that you know your audience and what you want to your webinar to achieve, you can solidify your webinar topic.
Consider what topics within your area of expertise your audience will find the most interesting and important. Additionally, you can choose a topic to showcase your unique perspective on a particular subject. This could go a long way to establishing you or your business as a thought leader in your field.
It’s also important to consider how long you want the webinar to be. This will help you determine how many topics and ideas can be covered within a reasonable time frame. Some may be suited for a shorter-format webinar, while others may require more time or multiple webinars.
Once you’ve honed in on a unique and engaging topic that you can share in a timely manner, you can use this information to create a webinar title that is catchy, engaging, and informative.
How To Create a Webinar Script
With your goals, audience, and topic at hand, you can develop a solid webinar script that will help you structure your entire presentation accordingly.
1. Start with Your Webinar Introduction
The webinar introduction sets the tone for the entire webinar. Your audience will feed off your energy, so it’s important to launch the beginning of the session with a positive and engaging attitude.
This is your opportunity to thank your guests for attending and any sponsors or partners who made this webinar possible.
Next, introduce yourself, your business, and any team members or guest speakers who your audience will be hearing from. You can also use this time to briefly state what qualifies you and your guests to teach or share.
After introducing yourselves, provide your audience with a brief overview of the agenda and what they can expect. If there will be a Q&A segment or a feedback session at the end, let attendees know and encourage them to stick around.
Additionally, you can encourage questions or comments in the chat window if you will be using one to drive audience engagement.
2. Overview of Your Key Points
After introductions and expectations, provide an overview of the webinar agenda, including the main points that will be covered.
This is your opportunity to get the audience hooked so that they stay engaged throughout the presentation. So, consider using anticipatory language, i.e., “and then, the fun part, where we will discuss…” or “Finally, we’ll put all of this together and…”
Then, you can launch into the bulk of the webinar content.
3. Gather Supplementary Data and Visual Aids
Images, diagrams, and videos can help explain complex concepts more effectively and enhance engagement with the audience. So, whenever possible, use visuals to illustrate key points in the webinar.
Citing external research studies or sharing real-life case stories are also great ways of backing up your points.
Gather these supplementary materials so you can include them in your script and reference them during the webinar.
4. Organize Your Content
A perfect webinar script is not necessarily an outline of the webinar word for word. While this may be helpful for some, it can also sound too rehearsed and leave no room for audience engagement.
Rather, when writing webinar scripts, organize the content using bullet points. Include your main themes, key talking points, and supplementary materials. If using a slide deck to present the webinar, it can be helpful to organize the content into webinar slides.
Other information to outline includes which visual aids accompany which talking points, which guest speaker will discuss each topic, and how much time is allotted for each section or slide.
As you organize your content, don’t forget to allocate space in the script and time on your agenda to ask the audience for feedback or questions.
5. Conclude the Webinar
The final piece of a webinar script is the conclusion.
Use this time to restate the key takeaways from the webinar and drive home your call to action. Explain what the audience needs to do next and include any information they need to take that next step.
Then, take time to answer any final questions or to enter into the Q&A segment of the webinar. In your webinar script, you can include a few pre-scripted questions to initiate this portion and encourage audience members to ask their own. If you are holding a brief feedback session, you can initiate that during this time as well.
Finally, after the Q&A or feedback session, thank attendees and guests again for participating in the webinar and encourage them to share it with their network.
Webinar Script Template
You can use this example webinar script template to structure your own webinar scripts.
Introduction:
- Welcome attendees to [webinar title] and thank them for joining.
- Introduce yourself and any other panelists or guests who will be speaking.
- Thank any sponsors or partners who made this webinar possible.
- Provide an overview of what attendees can expect to learn during the webinar.
Body:
- Start by providing an overview of the main points that will be covered.
- Share any relevant data or research to support your points.
- Invite panelists or guests to share their insights and experiences.
- Engage with attendees by asking for their feedback or questions.
- Use multimedia, such as slides or videos, to enhance the content.
Conclusion:
- Recap the key takeaways from the webinar.
- Encourage attendees to take action based on what they learned.
- Provide resources or next steps for attendees who want to learn more.
- Thank attendees for participating and invite them to future events.
Q&A:
- Allow time for attendees to ask questions.
- Answer questions as they come in, or save them for the end and answer them all at once.
Closing:
- Thank attendees for participating and encourage them to share the webinar with their network.
- Provide any final thoughts or messages.
- End the webinar.
Want to launch a webinar?
If you think live webinars could be a great marketing strategy or sales tactic for your business, developing webinar scripts using this sample webinar script template is a great place to start.
If you are unsure if this is the right next step for your business or if you are looking for more guidance, we’re here to help. You can sign up for a free digital marketing audit, and our experts will provide personalized recommendations for your digital marketing strategy.
