The world truly lies at your fingertips when you have access to the internet available around you. Every day, we are increasingly surrounded by digital platforms that are taking over our private to professional lives. After all, remote networking has transformed into our new normal, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Keeping aside all the disadvantages the pandemic has inflicted on us, entrepreneurs from all around the world found a savage way in which they can make space for their business online to stand out. Be it influencer marketing or targeted social media advertising, the pandemic has taught business owners to really adapt to the dynamic world and upgrade their business to a global level. In times like these, having your workshops online elevates you to another level with an infinitely webbed scope. But let’s put all our cards on the table, conducting an online workshop is not a simple task.
Often, you will see yourself switching between multiple tasks to do, trying to keep track of essential things, and still ensuring that your workshop turns out well. It sounds like a handful, doesn’t it? Scroll down to know how to conduct online workshops in effective ways!
The Three Important Elements of Online Workshops
You might be surprised to know that conducting an online workshop is more than just about your work. For your online workshop to become a success, here are the three essential elements that need attention: You, Your Work, and Your Audience!
It is worth noting that the most important factor that determines the repetition of your customers is how you were able to serve them on a one-on-one basis. Real-time interaction and personalized services are what differentiate your online workshop from a mere YouTube video.
‘You’ As Content Creator: Why It Matters
Your professional credibility is not dependent on your work alone. You can be an expert at the trendiest skills in the market, but being the buzz means you are also a people person. How you reach out to your followers, make the workshop space inclusive for all, and engaging to most, determines your relatability with your audience. Attitude and approach then assume utmost importance to conduct online workshops.
‘Your Work’: Planning, Managing and Communicating
To conduct online workshops, the most important task, as you might have guessed, is your content and communicating it to your audience.
Three things you need to keep in mind are:
- Planning your topic
- Streamlining your agenda
- Ensuring tech-readiness
Strategizing in such a way allows you to foresee the scope of your workshop. Decide upon your theme, course plan, build a structure, and list down your content efficiently. Want to get into the specifics of how you can go about how to make a planner to conduct online workshops? Check this out to know further!
Once you have a thorough plan in place, choose the best technology to execute it on. With a host of options available like Zoom, Hangouts, or Teams, choose a competent digital platform that facilitates your workshop and caters to your needs. In an event where you are managing multiple clients, scheduling appointments, handling transactions, and broadcasting invites, a digital facilitation platform eases the process for a wider reach and smoother functioning. If you have a social media handle or website, let your creativity play with how you present, attract new followers and broadcast timely reminders.
Having the right equipment, and the working environment can influence the way your workshop turns out. Here are some necessary aspects you need to pay attention to while conducting your workshop:
- Invest in quality cameras and microphones to ensure there’s proper sound
- Make use of good lighting areas for optimum viewing
- Familiarize yourself with technical know-how as to mute options, demo presentations, etc.
- Invest in professional setups and backgrounds that complement the objective of your workshop.
All the above enhance the overall presentability of your workshop. In a tech-savvy world today, blurry videos and chipped voices can be a pet peeve to many. Switch up your HD video, turn up the volume, and minimize background noise with soundproofing, and the spotlight is right on you.
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Your Audience: Streamlining & Narrowing Your Objective
Be selective about your audience. Before conducting your workshop, know who you are attracting, what level of skill you will impart, and who is more likely to engage. A professional might be unsatisfied at a beginner’s workshop and vice versa. This also sets the bar for determining your paid and unpaid subscriptions.
In clearer terms, know the objective of your workshop-whether you are trying to impart something new or advancing a given skill or maybe just helping the audience share and connect with each other on set themes. Determine factors like age groups, qualification (if any), and competence levels, which directly affect your group cohesion.
Why Do You Need An Online Workshop?
Give your potential audience a reason why they should invest their time and money in your services. The best way to do so is to conduct workshops, preferably, free of cost. Such workshops help you to connect with a larger audience who can determine the credibility of your services. Scroll down to learn more about the benefits of workshops
Reach a wider audience
Workshops generally possess a lot of interest because of their “no commitment” feature. Users are free to enroll for a single session, with no strings attached. Hence, for creators, it possesses the opportunity to widen their audience reach. And furthermore, turn attendees into potential customers through tactical methods.
Adding CTA buttons to the workshop advertisement, offering discount coupons, the code of which is revealed only on the website, asking individuals to register in order to try out a demo session, et cetera are all tactical means by which you can enhance your business through workshops.
Turn general curiosity into genuine interest
When people show up to your workshops, they mostly either have the aim of verifying the authenticity of your services and whether your services are able to meet their expectations or try something new out of the blue for free. While the behavior of the latter is unpredictable, take necessary steps to give a good reason to subscribe to your course to the former and the latter group.
In all likelihood, your attendees will be sourced through social media advertisements who might have struck chords with the kind of service you are offering, the wit of the advertisement, or even the relatability of the points you have mentioned. These are the factors that arouse general interest among the viewers of the advertisement. But once that hurdle has been overcome, it is quite possible to turn that casual curiosity into genuine interest.
Expand your mailing list
Another brownie point that online workshops add to your business is expanding your mailing list. Make it necessary for attendees to subscribe to your newsletter. Having said that, make sure to act on the difference between keeping your audience up-to-date about your services, which should be the intent of sending out emails, instead of spamming them. Spam mails, clickbaity-titles, and irrelevant content can make you soon land up on the “unsubscribe” button, and you wouldn’t want that.
Use Recorded Clips as Advertisements
Record small and effective clips of some happening moments from your workshop session, so that viewers can get a preview of what they are signing up for. You can also use them as advertisements.
Steps To Conduct A Workshop Online
Step 1
Set a target audience and campaign for the workshop. Know what you want to come out of the particular workshop and set a target audience accordingly.
Step 2
Send out newsletters to existing customers about the objectives of the workshop and why it would be advantageous for them to attend the same.
Step 3
Plan, and strategize your content tactically. It is always a good idea to roughly run through the program multiple times either with your family or if necessary, record the run-through so that you can judge your performance.
Step 4
Make sure of the internet performance for the day, run through all the electronic devices involved, and calm your mind down, and that’s the last step of the secret recipe to ace an online workshop!
Post-Workshop:
Nothing works its charm on potential followers as the other’s love for you, so keep a bag full of testimonials ready to display on your personal handles. What’s more, they can act as your inspiration base for all the times you are feeling blue!
Among other things that you must follow to keep make sure your attendees stay up-to-date with your work is given in a list below:
Honest feedback
Such feedback offers you constructive criticism and also a chance for subscribers to have knowledge of what they are signing up for, beforehand. And unless someone has had a bad experience in specific, you do not have to worry about bad reviews.
Promote on social media
The post-pandemic world has changed client-server relations to a great extent. Professionalism is now not at all restricted and social media has become very much a part of the relationship. Hence, missing out on the opportunity to connect on social media is not a very good idea. Tag attendees on your Instagram stories, or better, make a highlight of such stories so they stay permanently on your page.
Mailing list
As mentioned already, workshops are a golden opportunity that expands your mailing list. Make sure you send out gratitude emails or feedback templates post-workshop so that your attendees do not forget about your services. When it comes to online business, there is a golden rule, that is, out of sight, out of mind.
Promote your brand
In times like these, there will be numerous options available on the internet that would provide just the same kind of service as yours. It will be your responsibility to let your users know about that one additional factor or one special factor of your brand that makes it stand out from everyone else in the market. And what can be a better time for doing that than right after a successful workshop?
Have faith
Lastly, and most importantly, have faith in the process and channel your anxiety into positive construction. Rome was not built in a day and so the same is highly unlikely for your business. Keep a note of what you expect from your workshop and try to keep it as practical as possible. For instance, either focus on bonding better with your existing consumers or else focus on expanding the list of your audience. It is difficult to have it all at the same time.
Automate your business with Exly
As you can guess already, carrying out a successful workshop online isn’t as simple as it sounds, but that’s where Exly comes to your rescue. Why take the hassle of emailing individual customers, learning coding just to launch a single website, tracking and analyzing growth, and all other such fuss when you can do it all with a single click on Exly, that too, without any additional charges?
Find out how Exly can help with your online workshop here.
- Provide a platform for you to conduct the workshop
- Launch a professional-looking website in under 5-minutes
- Connect with a wider range of people
- Integrate with marketing tools like google analytics, FB pixel, and more
- Send out emails to your subscribers conveniently, all at the click of a button
- Access to an in-built analytics system that tracks your payments, sales, views, progress, et cetera
- Provide a safe and secure platform for your transactions
Apart from the above-mentioned features, Exly offers something far more important to creators-
the ownership of the content you create, unlike other platforms that guise the brand or creator’s name.
#ExlyHasYourBack
We are one of the most trusted options available out there, used by 20,000 successful creators worldwide. So, what are you waiting for?
Conclusion
So far, we have covered the A to Z of online workshops, and all you need to ace one. Here is a run-through of all the topics covered:
Three important elements of online workshops:
- ’You’ as a content creator
- ‘Your work’
- Your audience
Why do you need an online workshop?
- Reach a wider audience
- Turn genuine curiosity into genuine interest
- Expand your mailing list
- Use recording clip as an advertisement
Post Workshop
- Honest feedbacks
- Boast on Social media
- Mailing list
- Promote your brand
- Have faith
How Exly helps?
Exly helps run a business smoothly. Try out all of the mentioned features for free only on our platform. Exly charges creators only when they are earning themselves, with no hidden or additional registration charge, making this platform a personal favorite of successful creators and brands.
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