Written by Luke Raithel, Producer & Marketing Specialist for Webcast Experts℠
“Practice only makes for improvement.” – Les Brown
The dry run is a critical step in ensuring a successful live webinar presentation. This practice round gets our speakers used to the platform and allows them to fully run through the content while being able to make any adjustments they need to. Throughout the dry run the production staff at Webcast Experts will answer any questions the sponsors have.
It is up to the presenter to develop and provide the initial draft of the PowerPoint presentation to the producer at least 1 day prior to the dry run. The presentation will be reviewed by the producer as a PowerPoint file and again after it has been uploaded into the webinar presentation console to ensure that it everything appears as it should. This review and upload process can take a few hours which is why the Webcast Experts team requests the file a full day prior at a minimum.
Our dry runs are held at least 1 week before the live event. This gives all parties enough time to address any issues that are discovered during the practice round. During the dry run all required parties will arrive on time and be prepared to have a full run through of the webinar presentation. Webcast Experts will have at least one member of our technical staff on every dry run to look for any areas of the presentation that need improvement or clarification, or other details that can be elaborated upon to further drive the intended message of the presentation.
This is also the time to see where more interaction with the audience can be included in the event. Are there any sections which lend themselves to polls? Does the client have any supporting material that can be included as a downloadable resource? Would the presenter like to offer attendees the option to send him/her a direct email from the event console? There are many ways to build interaction & engagement with Webcast Experts’ webinar platform and using these tools can significantly increase the utility of the event.
At the end of the dry run our goal is to have all members of the presentation team comfortable with the console, the presentation content, and know the overall sequence of events for the live presentation. These practice runs do a great job of preparing the full team for the live event.