Would you like to create real remote interaction between your customers or prospects and your company? Then why not organize and host a webinar, incorporating a live Q&A session. In this way, you'll be able to make direct contact with your audience and build a lasting relationship of trust.
What is a Q&A session?
This segment is an integral part of an online conference. During a webinar, you can present your products or services, then at some point give your listeners the floor to ask questions, which you answer live.
You can also start your conference by asking your participants to tell you where they're watching the webinar from. This is an excellent way of creating a friendly atmosphere before getting to the heart of the matter, and it allows you to measure the geographical extent of your notoriety.
What are the benefits of a Q&A session?
During a conference, the question and answer session is part of a company's marketing strategy. Its first advantage is that it facilitates the installation of a real commitment on the part of your prospects, who then show their interest in your products or services. What's more, it can be recorded and broadcast on demand to anyone who hasn't had the opportunity or time to take part.
Its second advantage is that it can provide you with a wealth of information. By listening to certain recurring questions, you may be able to rectify your advertising materials, user manuals that turn out not to be as explicit as you thought, or even your sales tunnel...
How to organize a Q&A session within a webinar?
Select the date and time of your webinar
Avoid webinars on weekends and vacations. Prefer Tuesdays or Thursdays, as Mondays and Fridays are often busy business days, leaving little time to devote to listening to a conference. As for the schedule, early or late afternoon slots are often the most productive.
Choose the theme of your webinar
You need to define a very specific topic that will generate a lot of questions. To do this, take your inspiration from requests made at trade shows you've attended, e-mails you've received, questions your prospects have asked you over the phone...
Allow plenty of time for questions and answers.
Whatever the length of your presentation, allow between 20 and 25% of the total webinar time for the Q&A session. After all, while the first questions may take a while to get going, a Q&A session always tends to run longer, especially when it comes at the end of the conference.
Carefully prepare your answers to the questions you are likely to be asked.
When you're live, you need to be able to answer participants' questions without hesitation. The assurance and speed with which you provide explanations will create a climate of trust and reinforce your professionalism. Don't forget to ask your audience if the information you've just provided meets their needs, or if they'd like further information.
Preparing your answers will also come in handy if participants don't rush to ask a question. This often happens if they haven't been warned at the start of the webinar that there will be a Q&A session.
In this type of situation, it's best to address certain questions yourself, indicating, for example, that you've been asked them in a previous webinar. This strategy is highly effective in creating synergy with your audience. You'll find that most of the time, it's followed by a stream of follow-up questions; this is how your live Q&A session will find its cruising speed.
How to get the most out of a live Q&A session?
There will always be some participants who don't dare ask you a question out of shyness, and others who have a question to ask after the Q&A session is over. To keep them from becoming frustrated, don' t forget to send an email to all those who took part in your webinar, thanking them for their participation and offering them the chance to ask you their question directly by email or telephone.